Nanlux Evoke 1200 LED Spot Light

Teddy_Dem

Teddy_Dem

Well-known member
https://www.newsshooter.com/2021/05/18/nanlux-evoke-1200-led-spot-light/

Price: $3380 USD, FL-35 Fresnel lens: $890 USD

Features:
- Spectacular Output
- 18,460 lux with Reflector at 3 meters
- 65,280lux with Fresnel Lens Spot at 3 meters
- IP54 rated
- Fully dimmable from 0-100% in ultra-precise intervals of just 0.1%
- Wired and wireless control via Nanlink DMX/RDM, APP, Bluetooth and Lumenradio TimoTwo
- Fresnel, Reflector, Softbox, Lantern options
- With a growing range of compatible accessories

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WvaOEvOvoQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uflfng7XF8
 
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Saw that this morning. Pretty nice. About a stop brighter than the 600d, which makes sense. The fresnel is a little pricy compared to the Aputure, and I don't recall seeing any specs given on it(the Nanlux fresnel).

Realistically, you're probably looking at ~$4500 by the time you add the fresnel and barn doors. But still very affordable for that much punch.
 
Custom mount, probably wise...
I can see a few bowens softboxes going up in flames.
Also wonder if this is as loud as a leaf blower :D
 
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I have to start thinking about what I plug in again???

I was just getting used to telling crafty to go ahead and plug they coffee maker in, or splitting a Tri-tap with wardrobe. oh well.
 
And there it is. I love the fresnel mounting to the yoke. Cool promo video as well - I wanted to see the array of 4 evokes being shot through haze or coming in through a window.

Are you team NANLxx/xx (ux/ite) or Aputure? I'm leaning heavily towards nanlite atm - not any single light outshining (!!!) the aputure lights but just potential value when buying in volume e.g. 4-10 lights.

This makes sense to go 1200 rather than the rumored forza 800 (maybe they'll still do one). I wonder if aputure is planning to leapfrog the 1200 or put out an equivalent?

Compared to Arri electronic ballasts at IP22, that's evoke power supply has a welcome IP rating of 54: "A product with an IP54 rating is protected against quantity of dust that could interfere with the normal operation of the product but is not fully dust tight. The product is completely protected against solid objects. It is also protected against water splashing from any angle."

Obviously you wouldn't rely or plan on having them exposed but great to know they should be completely fine under an umbrella/slightly raised the same way you'd work with HMI ballasts.
 
rob norton said:
And there it is. I love the fresnel mounting to the yoke. Cool promo video as well - I wanted to see the array of 4 evokes being shot through haze or coming in through a window.

Are you team NANLxx/xx (ux/ite) or Aputure? I'm leaning heavily towards nanlite atm - not any single light outshining (!!!) the aputure lights but just potential value when buying in volume e.g. 4-10 lights.

This makes sense to go 1200 rather than the rumored forza 800 (maybe they'll still do one). I wonder if aputure is planning to leapfrog the 1200 or put out an equivalent?

Compared to Arri electronic ballasts at IP22, that's evoke power supply has a welcome IP rating of 54: "A product with an IP54 rating is protected against quantity of dust that could interfere with the normal operation of the product but is not fully dust tight. The product is completely protected against solid objects. It is also protected against water splashing from any angle."

Obviously you wouldn't rely or plan on having them exposed but great to know they should be completely fine under an umbrella/slightly raised the same way you'd work with HMI ballasts.
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I'm working on a small Nanlite collection, but the people at Aputure are great. So, I can't say I prefer one over the other, just that Nanlite introduced the 500w before Aputure released the 600, so I ended up with Nanlite.

Something nice about the glass cover over Aputure lights, as Nanlite COB's can accumulate dust and lint over time. COB's are sticky.
 
This light looks great. I can imagine buying one of these. I wonder how loud the fan is.

I at first confused this and thought that Nanlux and Nanlight were the same company which it seems others have concluded as well. Going to Nanlux's website I don't see any of the Nanlight products such as the Nanlight Fozra, and Nanlight has it's own website with no mention of Nanlux, so I conclude they're entirely different companies just with similar names.

Nanlux owns or is also Ledgo, but as far as I can tell Nanlight is a different company.

Which is good to me. Nanlight is a cheaper product so I imagine Nanlux may be a better quality. Not that Ledgo was ever considered high end. I guess for the amount of wattage here this isn't exactly a very high priced light.

My Nanlight Fozra 500, the fan is too loud to be usable for interviews. I've heard some people got bad units with loud fans as I know a couple people with this light that said the fan isn't too loud. I'm planning to return it, either for cash or for a replacement. Other than the fan noise, it seems pretty nice.

Cool to see they got the weight of the head and ballast to a similar weight as an M18 at 19 lbs for the head (with yoke) and 23 lbs for the ballast. The 1600w Mole Tenor is 42 lbs for the head and around 30 lbs for the ballast at around $13k, and the Cineo R15 at 1500w is $23k and weighs 75 lbs for the head with integrated ballast, which is too much for single person to handle.

I could easily see using this light as a one man band. Shoot it through an 8 x 8 silk hung up on two light stands and get a nice good size soft light that can balance out well with a windowed background. I did a shoot recently where I had my Gemini 1 x 1, a CLAR 500, and Practilite 802 panel punching through my 8 x 8 to try to get even with the large window background. About 800w of lights all together. Always a hassle to gang lights up. Sure, you can get two Aputure 600D's and get similar results, but it's more time to setup. And time is money. And money is the square root of all evil. And women equal time and money. Therefore, Aputure = women. This just digressed.

Fiilex has a Q10 Color 900w RGB Fresnel light coming out in the fall. Not much info so don't know the weight and if it has a separate ballast and how much that weighs. Not a lot or any RGB options in Fresnel or COB style lights around these wattage levels. https://fiilex.com/products/Q10_Color.php
 
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Eric Coughlin said:
I at first confused this and thought that Nanlux and Nanlight were the same company which it seems others have concluded as well. Going to Nanlux's website I don't see any of the Nanlight products such as the Nanlight Fozra, and Nanlight has it's own website with no mention of Nanlux, so I conclude they're entirely different companies just with similar names.

Nanlux owns or is also Ledgo, but as far as I can tell Nanlight is a different company
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From what I understand, Nanguang is the parent company of both Nanlite and Nanlux. Total unsubstantiated speculation: I'm assuming they were two separate companies that were purchased and rebranded but haven't been combined at a manufacturing level.
 
Supposedly nanlite is prosumer and nanlux is more professional. I just asked Matt on NS about lower powered Nanlux COB products. I'd be all over a Nanlux version of the forza series - higher price point that gives fewer quirks and overall better product.

The forza series obviously represents tremendous value for owner operators and low budget film shoots but it'd be nice to choose from a more pro line.

Surely enough time has passed for Arri to release their high powered daylight LED options without annoying too many HMI owners. The HMIs will still continue to work similar to how the M series started taking over dedicated PAR units.

Also can't believe the m18 is twelve years old!?
 
That's cool that Nanlux is considered a more professional version as that means one can have higher expectations for this light than the Nanlight lights.

I wonder just how much these LEDs will replace the M18. I guess the M18 is still slightly brighter, but these seem better in most ways (assuming the fan noise is not too bad). High end shoots often use M18s, so I feel like I could see high end shoots using this light as well, at least until there are other options on the market such as if Arri came out with a similar light or an RGB version came out from a manufacturer. At one third the power the Orbiter doesn't really compete with this light.

I read one place that said third quarter for expected arrival of these lights; B&H lists July 1st.
 
Eric Coughlin said:
That's cool that Nanlux is considered a more professional version as that means one can have higher expectations for this light than the Nanlight lights.

I wonder just how much these LEDs will replace the M18. I guess the M18 is still slightly brighter, but these seem better in most ways (assuming the fan noise is not too bad). High end shoots often use M18s, so I feel like I could see high end shoots using this light as well, at least until there are other options on the market such as if Arri came out with a similar light or an RGB version came out from a manufacturer. At one third the power the Orbiter doesn't really compete with this light.

I read one place that said third quarter for expected arrival of these lights; B&H lists July 1st.
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A pair of M18s through a pair of windows still might only just take the edge off so in those cases you'd still take as much output as you can get.

But unless you get a great deal or can make money with more expensive name brand lights, I don't see why you'd invest in HMI at this stage, particularly as output to size/weight, quality of light and build quality are moving along quickly.

At the low/medium end, aputure and nanlux will make/have already made a huge dent but at the Hollywood machine end, they'll be going with whatever high powered daylight LEDs Arri eventually decide to put out. There will be plenty of high end shoots which will continue to use all sorts of lighting gear as well.

Off topic but I just bought a used ETC source 4. Once someone puts out a super cell portable battery capable of powering anything we can all go back to tungsten and this nightmare will be over!
 
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Eric Coughlin said:
I wonder just how much these LEDs will replace the M18. I guess the M18 is still slightly brighter, but these seem better in most ways (assuming the fan noise is not too bad).
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M18s aren't slightly brighter than these. According to the photometrics, they're only just shy a full stop brighter (which means they're twice as bright) once you make them focusable.

With the open-face reflector, you'll get closer (at that specific beam-angle), but those open-face reflectors rarely give good cuts.

So these won't be replacing M18s any time soon (which still have the clear advantage of being the most powerful light you can plug into a household socket).

But they'll quite possibly become the most useful LEDs for balancing daylight interiors, that anyone's come up with to-date. And that's really exciting. The 0.1% dimming really adds some significant advantages to them as well. A pair of M18s and a pair of these in a van, would be a really useful daylight package for a lot of things.
 
rob norton said:
A pair of M18s through a pair of windows still might only just take the edge off so in those cases you'd still take as much output as you can get.

But unless you get a great deal or can make money with more expensive name brand lights, I don't see why you'd invest in HMI at this stage, particularly as output to size/weight, quality of light and build quality are moving along quickly.

At the low/medium end, aputure and nanlux will make/have already made a huge dent but at the Hollywood machine end, they'll be going with whatever high powered daylight LEDs Arri eventually decide to put out. There will be plenty of high end shoots which will continue to use all sorts of lighting gear as well.

Off topic but I just bought a used ETC source 4. Once someone puts out a super cell portable battery capable of powering anything we can all go back to tungsten and this nightmare will be over!
Click to expand...


I'm not sure what you're saying. Sure, an M40, M80, or 18K HMI are still more powerful and are used when needed on a high end set, but as far as I'm aware, M18s are used pretty commonly at the high end. If you need more power, LED still doesn't offer higher powered options like an 18K, but if you need the brightness level of an M18 for a high end shoot, it seems to me that a light like the Nanlux could replace that even when the budget is big.

Arri's LEDs aren't up to par with some of their other products. Their original LED Fresnels were large and heavy for their wattage and never became popular. The Skypanel became super popular but was also the first type of light like that to the market, and since there have been a lot of competing products that could be considered better. It remains to be seen how popular the Orbiter will be; it's still relatively new, but so far I don't know of any one who bought one or mentioned using one on any of the bigger sets here in Atlanta (not that I've talked all that much recently with people crewing those shoots). The Orbiter seems kind of nice but also is a bit lower powered for it's size and weight, which was the same reason the original Arri LED Fresnels failed. I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes super popular, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't.

Arri releasing a light like the Nanlux, that keeps the size and weight down for it's wattage equivalent, remains to be seen. The Skypanel is 1.5 times the weight of some of the equivalently powered panel lights out there. Even big budget stuff like Avengers according to a lighting guy I talked to who worked on it sometimes prefer smaller and lighter lights like a Skypanel S60 over the S360 as a light weighing over 100 lbs can be more of a hassle to manage even with a large crew and big budget.

Tungsten will never have RGB and is still hotter than LEDs. LEDs can get hot, but I've never had a fire started on set which I've had with Tungsten lights before. Dimming without color shift too, bulbs breaking and burning out, and all the well know disadvantages of Tungsten.

But yeah, if Arri can make a similarly designed in terms of a 20 lb head and 20 lb ballast light that is super reliable, has RGB, costs around $10k, it could be a winner. I also think the ballast and head weight could go up a bit; the Nanlux is a bit lighter than an M18 but it's also 1200w vs 1800w of the M18. I'd like to see an 1800w LED in this style that could be a bit heavier for the head and ballast, say a 25 lb head and 30 lb ballast, if need be, and then gain that extra 600w, and likely be actually brighter than an M18.
 
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Eric Coughlin said:
I'm not sure what you're saying. Sure, an M40, M80, or 18K HMI are still more powerful and are used when needed on a high end set, but as far as I'm aware, M18s are used pretty commonly at the high end. If you need more power, LED still doesn't offer higher powered options like an 18K, but if you need the brightness level of an M18 for a high end shoot, it seems to me that a light like the Nanlux could replace that even when the budget is big.

Arri's LEDs aren't up to par with some of their other products. Their original LED Fresnels were large and heavy for their wattage and never became popular. The Skypanel became super popular but was also the first type of light like that to the market, and since there have been a lot of competing products that could be considered better. It remains to be seen how popular the Orbiter will be; it's still relatively new, but so far I don't know of any one who bought one or mentioned using one on any of the bigger sets here in Atlanta (not that I've talked all that much recently with people crewing those shoots). The Orbiter seems kind of nice but also is a bit lower powered for it's size and weight, which was the same reason the original Arri LED Fresnels failed. I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes super popular, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't.

Arri releasing a light like the Nanlux, that keeps the size and weight down for it's wattage equivalent, remains to be seen. The Skypanel is 1.5 times the weight of some of the equivalently powered panel lights out there. Even big budget stuff like Avengers according to a lighting guy I talked to who worked on it sometimes prefer smaller and lighter lights like a Skypanel S60 over the S360 as a light weighing over 100 lbs can be more of a hassle to manage even with a large crew and big budget.

Tungsten will never have RGB and is still hotter than LEDs. LEDs can get hot, but I've never had a fire started on set which I've had with Tungsten lights before. Dimming without color shift too, bulbs breaking and burning out, and all the well know disadvantages of Tungsten.

But yeah, if Arri can make a similarly designed in terms of a 20 lb head and 20 lb ballast light that is super reliable, has RGB, costs around $10k, it could be a winner. I also think the ballast and head weight could go up a bit; the Nanlux is a bit lighter than an M18 but it's also 1200w vs 1800w of the M18. I'd like to see an 1800w LED in this style that could be a bit heavier for the head and ballast, say a 25 lb head and 30 lb ballast, if need be, and then gain that extra 600w, and likely be actually brighter than an M18.
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I'm not sure how it will unfold in the powerful/daylight only space. I think there are extra factors at play in what becomes standard. For example, HMI owners resisting the switch to get the most out of their investment as well as Nanlux being up against an established industry giant.

For the orbiter, this is only my prediction. I assume they'll succeed for the same reasons skypanels did - good timing, an Arri product and they'll do a good enough job. You can argue the Orbiter is also a first of its kind, or at least in the first wave of non-panel RGB swiss army knife type lights. If you're looking to source dozens to hundreds of lights where the stakes are high enough, out of arri, digital sputnik (weird/annoying to use), hive/prolycht (not established on that level), etc (less versatile) or other theatrical lights the choice has already been made for you. I'm sure I'm missing some products but you get the point. In the smaller space I personally think the orbiter isn't worth the premium price tag but can see them eventually taking off, particularly if there are any greater incentives to keep things Arri.

I was only kidding about the total return to tungsten, as the resident comedian I thought you would have recognised the joke :)
 
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Apparently the Evoke doesn't have any kind of cover/protection on the COB itself - so it will be just as easy to have the COB damaged by fried bugs as the current Forza 500 is. Pretty disappointing - might actually be a total deal-breaker for me. Even at it's very reasonable price - that's too much money for such a vulnerable light.

EDIT:
Apparently someone was telling porky pies. Nanlite have confirmed that there is a glass cover on the Evoke.
 
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Big deal breaker actually. Yeah, My 500 got a few scars from bugs on a recent shoot.


I would stay away from Forza if you are renting out gear. If you are just in a studio and own it for a few lower budget things, the Forza's save some money and are totally great. But they cannot handle the rigors of real world work in nature.


in the meantime, I am adding a screen mesh to my fresnel so I can keep bugs off the COB.
 
James0b57 said:
Big deal breaker actually. Yeah, My 500 got a few scars from bugs on a recent shoot.


I would stay away from Forza if you are renting out gear. If you are just in a studio and own it for a few lower budget things, the Forza's save some money and are totally great. But they cannot handle the rigors of real world work in nature.


in the meantime, I am adding a screen mesh to my fresnel so I can keep bugs off the COB.
Click to expand...

Nevermind. Apparently someone was telling porky pies. Nanlite have just confirmed that there is a glass cover on the Evoke.
 
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