Coemar, the Italian automated lighting manufacturer, has recently unveiled their latest product; the Infinity Wash XL. It’s a 1200-watt moving yoke color wash fixture with some interesting surprises. In some ways it is much like your typical color wash moving light with a color mixing system, zoom, effects, beam shaping, dimmer, shutter and pan/tilt. But in other ways it’s very different. Someone at Coemar has taken the time to look at the faults of other high-powered wash lights and has taken steps to correct them. The first thing I noticed about the fixture was that they have taken the color system to the next level via some smart patented ideas. They have your typical CMY color flags, but have a new mode in the magenta and cyan colors called “saturation mode.” In this mode, the color flags actually tilt slightly and make a nice range of colors from subtle saturation to full color. The red I achieved by color mixing in saturated mode was superior to other fixtures on the market. I compared the color mixing red in this fixture to the color wheel red dichroic in other fixtures that utilize the same lamp source and guess what? It was brighter.
Besides the CMY color mixing, there is also a set of gradient CTO flags and a color wheel with five slots plus open white. This wheel is fairly quick with great snapping colors. And someone has finally added a half-minus green to the color wheel straight from the factory. To those of us who work in TV lighting, this is a bonus. It will help correct the green/magenta balance of lamps that are of different ages being used on the same gig. The color wheel also allows you to split colors very well.
The shutter mechanism provides a perfectly linear fade to my eye. It is fast as well. The usual sync and random strobe rates are here. They also have an electronic strobe that allows the light to strobe between the output of 700 watts and 1400 watts. There is a DMX function that allows the fixture to “move in black.” When enabled, the fixture will black out in an instant as it moves to its next focus position.
There are two zoom lenses in this fixture. But Coemar was smart enough to put them on two different DMX channels. The first lens allows the fixture to tighten the beam to an incredibly small size and throw it out of focus. This gives the beam a tight hot spot that is painfully bright. It’s perfect for compromising large video walls at rock shows. The second lens allows the beam to spread wide, all the way to 80 degrees. It’s perfect for low trims and lighting cycloramas. The speed of the zoom is moderate and quite acceptable for any application.
Next up is the beam shaping/effects wheel. It has four separate slots that allow for continuous or indexable rotation. You can also shake these patterns. By adjusting the zoom, you can really see some cool effects here.
There is a typical bar-shaped beam shaper that makes the beam resemble a “Very Narrow” lens in a PAR 64. There is also an offset circle gobo. This allows the wash light to emit what I would call a “wobble” effect. It makes the beam shimmer in any sized zoom. There is a 3-facet prism (soon to be available as a 5- facet) that is better than anything out there. If you put this particular lens in the light path and zoom to a tight spot, you will see three distinct beams emitting from the light. It is indeed a three-hole gobo in a wash fixture.
Coemar have brought back what I call “the beach ball.” It’s an effect filter that was used in the Cyberlight back in the ‘90s, and I have missed it for years. It is one filter made up of three pie-shaped colors (cyan, magenta and yellow) put together in one slot. Alone, it may look stupid, but as soon as you mix some cyan or magenta in with it you will love this feature.
The fixture can pan for 540 degrees and tilt for 270. It does not move quickly, taking almost two seconds to pan 180 degrees. When you put it in a ballyhoo effect, it’s okay, but it can’t execute a circle effect quickly. For theatres and trade shows, this is quite acceptable, but it’s not very good for quick fly outs and resets as used in rock ‘n’ roll scenarios.
The fixture has an electronic power supply, and it will run on 208 or 240 volts. There is a manual switch on the outside of the instrument to switch between 208 or 240 volts. It uses a 1200-watt MSR Gold fast fit lamp. The light output from 10 meters away measures 33,484 lux (3,111 footcandles) at a tight zoom compared to 676 lux (63 footcandles) at its fullest zoom. The hanging clamps can be mounted in any direction, including diagonally. It is medium sized, measuring 23 inches wide by 31 inches in length. The yoke is perfectly centered on the head, thus allowing you to almost butt these fixtures up to each other on a single pipe. The fixture weighs 80 pounds and has a list price of $10,380 US.
After putting it through a rigorous test of all its functions, I am happy to say it passed with flying saturated colors. The color system and effects wheel are among the best features of this instrument, while its slow movement is the only down side.
