Anthem One LED (an HMI replacement)

Luis Caffesse

Luis Caffesse

Admin
I figured people here would be interested in this.
I had the chance to demo this light on a shoot last month and was seriously impressed.

Anthem One was designed and built by a former DVXuser member, Justin Evans.

It puts out about as much light as a Joker 400 but only draws half the power.
The beam is smooth, the color rendition is fantastic, and there is a battery option which will allow it to run for 3 hours at full power.
It's flicker free at every frame rate I've tried and dims smoothly from 0 to 100%.
And the LED Light Cards are swappable, which is something I've never seen from another LED fixture.

https://www.anthemone.com/

They recently launched a Kickstarter to raise awareness - it was fully funded in the first hour or so.
If you're interested, check it out:
http://bit.ly/anthemonelight

And if anyone has any specific questions about my experience demo-ing the light, let me know.

 

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Did you actually test it against joker 400s and 575w hmi pars? Usually leds misadvertise, and seems much more likely its like a 200w hmi unless they have some breakthrough emitters or low cri..

From the specs it looks like it has the lumens of about a 250w hmi at 98cri and 300w hmi at 92cri which is still somewhat impressive. Kind of annoying the marketing seems to pretend no other led lighting units exist, only comparing to decades old hmis.
That said it looks like a cool design with the modularity.

Pricing seems a little optimistic in a world where this directly competes in a range right in between with things like aputure c120d and digital sputnik Ds1s. They really play up the small head size and modularity but each head requires a power supply that's twice the size of the head and I didn't see anything about remote control or dmx which seems like a problem at the price range. Seems like in the end this is still more expensive and bigger than an M18 once you build up the 7 of them needed to match the output, do its nice for the modularity but hardly a deal. Still sticking with my $200 575w hmi pars probably but these are kind of tempting if they could get the price down.

I wonder what these look like on a stand.
 
nyvz said:
Did you actually test it against joker 400s and 575w hmi pars? Usually leds misadvertise, and seems much more likely its like a 200w hmi unless they have some breakthrough emitters or low cri..

From the specs it looks like it has the lumens of about a 250w hmi at 98cri and 300w hmi at 92cri which is still somewhat impressive. Kind of annoying the marketing seems to pretend no other led lighting units exist, only comparing to decades old hmis.
That said it looks like a cool design with the modularity.

Pricing seems a little optimistic in a world where this directly competes in a range right in between with things like aputure c120d and digital sputnik Ds1s. They really play up the small head size and modularity but each head requires a power supply that's twice the size of the head and I didn't see anything about remote control or dmx which seems like a problem at the price range. Seems like in the end this is still more expensive and bigger than an M18 once you build up the 7 of them needed to match the output, do its nice for the modularity but hardly a deal. Still sticking with my $200 575w hmi pars probably but these are kind of tempting if they could get the price down.

I wonder what these look like on a stand.
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$200 575w HMi Pars?
 
It apparently matches a 400w HMI when used with it's 'high output' option, but that has a problematically low CRI of 72. Using 3200k/5600k versions the CRI jumps up to 92, but output drops by 20-30% when you do so.

There's no specific photometrics listed yet (an oversight which boggles the mind a bit for a manufacturer releasing a light in 2018), so output at specific distances and particular beam angles aren't known yet.
 
I'm really confused! They make great points about being able to change the LED model, but doing so invalidates the warranty? There are details of colour temp and brightness but nothing about the beam? Is this just not an LED floodlight? Nothing about beam quality - so no half peak figures, no indication of beam angles, and no indication of it being special in any way?

Clearly it isn't a Fresnel. It appears to have no barn door clips for diffuser, it's just a square source, like a COB chip, so not really hard, as in the video, but not soft either. It isn't really a hard key, nor a fill - so a very expensive bit of kit for something so simple. Does it have some kind of special unique selling point?

Arri did the thing about upgradability, but the cost was damn high. In reality, LEDs are still moving very fast, so anything bought this year will be improved on next year. The marketing is like a hi-fi firms - it sort of tries to get us excited about ...... a light. An expensive one, but basically a COB chip, power supply and a simple box with 4 barn doors. No doubt the PSU is very clever with well controlled PWM design to dim at precise frequencies. The specs page is a wonder of graphics, but no actual specs - apart from size and weight. No details of mountings, and I cannot see a safety blind anywhere for hanging it suspended. There seems no DMX capability at all, which for a light source today is very rare. No remote dimming then? Just a knob. The weirdest thing is the magnets in the comic book manual - you can attach them to girders with the internal magnets, but not aim them! It makes great copy about the different light cards, and talks about a single grain of heat paste required and simple tools - but hidden away is the fact that if it is under guarantee, you need to return the light to the factory for fitting? Really?

Last thing - we have lumens at the light source for this and 400W HMI, but no lux values with the various add on lenses?

It comes across like a hi-fi audiophile product vs professional audio kit. I can't take it seriously I am afraid. I'd rather buy an Arri.

EDIT - I found the lenses when you go to order them - they're plastic and described as Fresnel, and this is where diffuser can be added - a shame they don't explain this in the manual or in the web site front end. However - is the beam circular or rectangular, and are there any colour fringes at the edges like most moulded Lenses seem to do?

In the UK, suspending a lump of metal above people's heads on magnets would be an unacceptable safety risk without proper secondary suspension - and Kensington locks have no shock rating, or any rating at all as far as I know.

It's a pretty product with few actual benefits to the user as far as I can see. No knob for beam angle adjustment. No pan and tilt, no DMX for dimming when the light is magnetically stuck to the roof, no safety bond point, plenty of talk about metrics, but without supplying any, simple to swap LED boards that you aren't allowed to.

Sorry to be negative but this isn't a pro product, it's a boutique one.

It does say 60 with short and tight lens - what on earth iOS a short and tight lens. 90 degrees with a smooth and bright lens? and 120 without any lens at all. So what6 are these lenses? As for having an agriculture full spectrum? No idea what on earth that means at all. The military IR chip, which appears to have a spike nowhere near the IR band - so that makes little sense.
 
nyvz said:
Did you actually test it against joker 400s and 575w hmi pars? Usually leds misadvertise, and seems much more likely its like a 200w hmi unless they have some breakthrough emitters or low cri..
Click to expand...

I did not - I was using it on an actual shoot, not on a dedicated test against other fixtures.

I wonder what these look like on a stand.
Click to expand...

It's an interesting design. I used it with a ballhead adapter on a simple manfrotto stand.
 
paulears said:
I'm really confused! They make great points about being able to change the LED model, but doing so invalidates the warranty?
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Where did you see that? That's not my understanding.
The light card is changeable by the user - it doesn't invalidate the warranty.


Clearly it isn't a Fresnel. It appears to have no barn door clips for diffuser, it's just a square source, like a COB chip, so not really hard, as in the video, but not soft either. It isn't really a hard key, nor a fill - so a very expensive bit of kit for something so simple. Does it have some kind of special unique selling point?
Click to expand...

Arri did the thing about upgradability, but the cost was damn high. In reality, LEDs are still moving very fast, so anything bought this year will be improved on next year.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I liked about the Light Card design. As the LEDs become brighter you should be able to upgrade to a brighter card.
I've never seen an LED that offered any sort of upgrade path.


EDIT - I found the lenses when you go to order them - they're plastic and described as Fresnel, and this is where diffuser can be added - a shame they don't explain this in the manual or in the web site front end. However - is the beam circular or rectangular, and are there any colour fringes at the edges like most moulded Lenses seem to do?
Click to expand...

Circular, and no color fringes that I've seen.


It does say 60 with short and tight lens - what on earth iOS a short and tight lens. 90 degrees with a smooth and bright lens? and 120 without any lens at all. So what6 are these lenses? As for having an agriculture full spectrum? No idea what on earth that means at all. The military IR chip, which appears to have a spike nowhere near the IR band - so that makes little sense.
Click to expand...

There is a 20 degree spot lens, a 60 degree lens and a 90 degree lens.
120 degrees with no lens.

Sorry to be negative but this isn't a pro product, it's a boutique one.
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No problem. I'm excited about it because it solves a lot of issues for me.
The upgradeability of the light card and the battery option are two of biggest selling points for me.
 
I don't really get the part about the light cards getting brighter. Presumably the power supply stays the same and there haven't really been any breakthroughs in lumenous efficiency for high cri emitters I'm a while. This one is barely more efficient than an HMI. So they say output will increase every year but that doesn't really make sense unless they have definite technological breakthroughs on the horizon which seems unlikely... In the end its just another led that's not as bright as hmis.
 
ozmorphasis said:
$200 575w HMi Pars?
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Yeah there is a thread on them here somewhere. I use the chroma q ones which are electronic ballast and hot restrike and use the Arri bulbs. Mine were $150 plus the $70 bulb and you just drop it on a stand and it's ready to strike. Havent seen any leds that come close yet, though I'd love to replace them with leds that can be remote controlled... Sadly everything comparable I've seen is either less than half as bright or more than 10x as expensive. This one seems to nearly fall into both those categories.
 
nyvz said:
I don't really get the part about the light cards getting brighter. Presumably the power supply stays the same and there haven't really been any breakthroughs in lumenous efficiency for high cri emitters I'm a while. This one is barely more efficient than an HMI. So they say output will increase every year but that doesn't really make sense unless they have definite technological breakthroughs on the horizon which seems unlikely... In the end its just another led that's not as bright as hmis.
Click to expand...

Yes, the power supply stays the same, but you're mistaken when you say there aren't improvements in efficiency.
I've been following the development of this fixture for a while, and the light cards that are being used in it today are brighter than the ones that were being used just a year ago - all with the same power supply.
LEDs are becoming more efficient year to year - so while the power draw will remain the same the output can most definitely increase.
I've seen it happen myself, firsthand.

As far as brightness goes, a Joker 400 puts out about 27,000 lumens
A Joker 200 puts out about 15,000 lumens.

Anthem One puts out 25,000 lumens with the daylight card, but only draws half the power of the Joker 400.
That's impressive to me no matter how you look at it.

We can always find things that are brighter, lighter, cheaper than eachother.
But when comparing fixtures like this I think it's important to look at all the metrics together - output, weight, size, price etc.
 
nyvz said:
I guess I was going by a 400w hmi bulb spec that listed 33000lumens
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I was going by a 400w HMI bulb spec I found on B&H.
Regardless, we're splitting hairs because that's best case scenario for bulbs. Don't forget that HMI bulbs can lose as much as 50% of their output once they reach their halfway point in life (which is WAY shorter than the life of LEDs). Bulbs dim and color shift as they age. So the lumens we're throwing around are best case scenarios for a brand new bulb, by no means a constant output throughout its life.

You shouldn't expect to see anything like that with LEDs
And with Light Cards you can swap out for brighter output when new cards come out.
So not only should it not lose brightness, it has the potential of getting brighter with age.
 
I did find that amusing and strange. Why would you advertise and imply that your product is easy enough for the customer to work on with basic tools, but oh by the way, IF you do, you void the warranty? I guess they're presuming that no one will need to/want to do anything to it before the warranty is up.
 
nyvz said:
Yeah there is a thread on them here somewhere. I use the chroma q ones which are electronic ballast and hot restrike and use the Arri bulbs. Mine were $150 plus the $70 bulb and you just drop it on a stand and it's ready to strike. Havent seen any leds that come close yet, though I'd love to replace them with leds that can be remote controlled... Sadly everything comparable I've seen is either less than half as bright or more than 10x as expensive. This one seems to nearly fall into both those categories.
Click to expand...

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?335146-150-for-a-575-HMI-par/

Interesting, but prices of them on eBay seem have spiked up since then! Guess sellers woke up to the good deal they were offering.
 
paulears said:
View attachment 129214

It says you have to use heat shrink paste to replace the light card - in the service section.
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Yeah, you have to use a tiny bit of thermal paste.
It didn't strike me as a big deal at all given that the alternative is to not be able to swap out the LED element at all (like every other LED fixture out there).
Having the option of swapping light cards is one of most impressive things about this system to me - I'm surprised no one has done something like that before.

And changing the light cards out definitely does not void the warranty.
 
Luis Caffesse said:
And changing the light cards out definitely does not void the warranty.
Click to expand...

But it says the warranty is void right in your quote from Paul Lears.

"Tools Needed for servicing" followed by a big exclamation point and the notice "Please note that self-servicing Anthem One ... voids any warranty"

The only thing I find attractive about it is the replaceable chips. The form factor and features just aren't there as Paul pointed out.
 
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