Prolycht in the back, Nanlite in the front

[Mitch Gross]

I met up with gaffer John Roche today to test out the new Nanlite Projection Attachment for Bowens Mount with 19-degree lens (that's literally the full name, code PJ-BM for short). This is basically a Source Four Leko barrel and lens that's designed to mount onto the Nanlite Forza 300 & 500 via Bowens Mount. Not all Bowens Mount accessories fit all Bowens Mount fixtures due to internal clearance issues, for instance this device does not fit on Aputure lights. I wanted to see if it played well with the Orion 300 FS.

They worked great together. With the included 19-degree lens (they also offer a 36 you can swap in) at 10' distance the output was a full three stops brighter than the bare COB alone. It was about 285fc bare COB v 2,500fc with projector. That's getting into JoLeko territory, and we're talking about a combo that's fully color tunable and under $2700 combined.

The Nanlite projector isn't perfect, and if you're shooting tabletop or in a small set where precision is more important than firepower than the Prolycht projection lens kit is the more elegant solution on a number of measures. Precision adjustment, rotating barrel, even brightness and focus across the field, smaller/lighter/cheaper, rotating thread focus adjustment instead of shoving the lens in & out, better tilt control, sharp as a tack with no color fringing, and so on. But if you want sheer power to pump into a bounce, beam into a CLRS board or push through a window like a sunbeam then the Orion/Nanlite combo is a great combination.

I work for Prolycht not Nanlite and don't get anything from their sales, but it's a great solution with the Orion 300 FS.

 

[chris_f]

These two playing well together makes the Orion much more attractive (to me at least). The Prolycht projector looks very good optically but the brightness level wasn’t great enough to make switching from Dedolight seem worth it for precise tabletop work.

I’d love to see Dedolight produce something with the brightness of the Nanlite but with the really high optical quality they are known for… that would be a game changer for replicating sunlight in a closeup that can’t have noticeable fringing or other optical flaws.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[CharlesPapert]

Mitch, when you said it approached Jo-Leko output, would that be a 400 or 800w Joker?

 

[Mitch Gross]

These two playing well together makes the Orion much more attractive (to me at least). The Prolycht projector looks very good optically but the brightness level wasn’t great enough to make switching from Dedolight seem worth it for precise tabletop work.

I’d love to see Dedolight produce something with the brightness of the Nanlite but with the really high optical quality they are known for… that would be a game changer for replicating sunlight in a closeup that can’t have noticeable fringing or other optical flaws.

Thanks for sharing!

We are actively working on alternative projection solutions.

 

[Mitch Gross]

Mitch, when you said it approached Jo-Leko output, would that be a 400 or 800w Joker?

I haven't measured the output of a JoLeko in some time, either 400w or 800w.

At 10' and 5600K, the bare COB with no reflector gave us about 285fc. When we then mounted it to the Nanlite projector with a 19-degree lens we got about 2500fc at 10'. That's a bit over a 3 stop increase.

If you have a JoLeko handy I'd love to get some measurements for a 19-degree beam at 10'. I haven't seen numbers published anywhere but the gaffer I was with agreed we were in similar territory.

 

[chris_f]

We are actively working on alternative projection solutions.

Very exciting! Be sure to keep us posted.

 

[Mitch Gross]

Very exciting! Be sure to keep us posted.

Will do! I've seen some prototypes on this and other fronts that are very exciting. Some are "Wow, that's impressive!" and others are "What a clever solution and why doesn't every manufacturer offer something so simple?"

 

[cpreston]

I recently did a basic test with a 400 JoLeko and my Prolycht. I was using a Joleko with a 25-50 zoom, though, and comparing it to the Prolycht with and without a the 2x spot attachment which comes out to about 50 and 25 degrees repectively. I was just trying to get some basic ideas for myself for what I would want to use for bounces. The 400 JoLeko was about twice as bright as the Prolycht. I didn't write down any numbers, sorry. It sounds like the Nanlite would make the Prolycht competitive with a 400 JoLeko. The spot attachment for the Prolycht cuts the basic prolycht output by about a third at around 10' for comparison.

I want to mention that the Source 4 ellipsoidal is surprisingly efficient. For example, I was comparing a 750W Source 4 into a 4x bounce with an Arrilite 750W into the 4x bounce. The Source 4 easily beat the Arrilite for brightness as a bounce source in any setup I tried. I actually have a Source 4 Lustr Series 2 coming in the next couple of days. I'm really intrigued to see if ETC has figured out a decent design for projecting RGB LED's. It seems like a really complicated problem. I'm hoping the Prolycht/Dedolight collaboration will result in something impressive.

 

[cpreston]

An update to my previous post about projector attachments for LED's. I have now tested an ETC Source 4 Lustr Series 2. I had always wondered why I heard so little about these instruments for location work and now I know. First, the onboard controls are very limited and you can't just input a color temperature or color and saturation. Second, the LED's are not diffused at all. Instead, they are focused. As long as you have the LED;s focused on the shutter barrel or on the gobo, you will see minimal color fringing. Any other objects creating shadows will show color fringing from the various LED's. If the gobo is slightly defocused, it creates a mess of colors. The light might work fine for creating color patterns on a stage using a DMX controller, but it is poor for lighting a scene. Surprisingly, the fan is actually fairly quiet.

I am looking forward to what Dedo and Prolycht can do for creating a projection lens setup for the blended RGB LED's on the 300FS. Arri just came up with something for their Orbiter, but I am sure it will be in an entirely different price category.

 

[chris_f]

^ That’s a bit disappointing about the ETC - thanks for sharing that information.

I feel like the Arri solution will be inferior compared to a Dedolight optical attachment anyway. No doubt the Arri will be more expensive too.

I am lucky to own a Dedolight DP400 optical attachment with the 70mm lens. It’s equivalent of a 58 degree lens - so 3.3m circle at 3m distance. The chromatic aberration when mounted to a 650w tungsten Dedo is almost 0 (nothing that shows on camera) and distortion is essentialy 0 too. Black levels are also very dark with great shadow rendition. Other manufacturers struggle to make a 36 degree barrel without distortion, stronger CA or milky black levels (sometimes they have all three flaws).

The 400 size Dedo projectors are relatively expensive though - but not so bad if you find the right dealer or buy from Dedo direct in Germany. They are much more like a high end camera lens than the big beefy barrels companies like Aputure and ETC tend to use.

Just a few of the reasons I am personally really excited for the collaboration with Prolycht! Going to be awesome..

 

[Mitch Gross]

It is definitely true that the ETC design is really meant for the stage. Set & field production tools are a very different breed and frankly there isn't a great deal of crossover between them.

I'm hoping to have some new stuff to share fairly soon. Not the Dedo collaboration just yet -- that takes a bit more time to brew. Exciting stuff all around.

 

[rob norton]

An update to my previous post about projector attachments for LED's. I have now tested an ETC Source 4 Lustr Series 2. I had always wondered why I heard so little about these instruments for location work and now I know. First, the onboard controls are very limited and you can't just input a color temperature or color and saturation. Second, the LED's are not diffused at all. Instead, they are focused. As long as you have the LED;s focused on the shutter barrel or on the gobo, you will see minimal color fringing. Any other objects creating shadows will show color fringing from the various LED's. If the gobo is slightly defocused, it creates a mess of colors. The light might work fine for creating color patterns on a stage using a DMX controller, but it is poor for lighting a scene. Surprisingly, the fan is actually fairly quiet.

I am looking forward to what Dedo and Prolycht can do for creating a projection lens setup for the blended RGB LED's on the 300FS. Arri just came up with something for their Orbiter, but I am sure it will be in an entirely different price category.

Thanks for the report Casey. Now that you have experience with the lustr series 2, do you think a series 3 would have taken care of any of your issues?

https://www.dvxuser.com/forum/production-tools/lighting-gear/5673762-etc-source-four-led-series-3

 

[Guest]

This is a cool discovery! thanks for sharing Mitch!

 

[cpreston]

Thanks for the report Casey. Now that you have experience with the lustr series 2, do you think a series 3 would have taken care of any of your issues?

https://www.dvxuser.com/forum/production-tools/lighting-gear/5673762-etc-source-four-led-series-3

This video does a good job of showing ETC's new fixtures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtOKt-LFvhk

The ETC design for their ellipsoidals will always have an issue with color fringing on RGB lights. They do, however, have a fresnel that looks pretty nice. The problem is still that they do not have any decent onboard control of the color control like the Prolycht or Arri's have. The prolycht app camera based color picker is really impressive.

Also, to get back to the 300GS, I just tried printing out a logo on overhead transparency and placing it in the Prolycht Projector. I was somewhat worried it might melt, but the projector reduces the beam intensity quite a bit. I have to defocus the projector somewhat to remove the inconsistencies in the ink transfer from the laser printer, but it works quite well as a slightly out of focus gobo.

 

[Mitch Gross]

This video does a good job of showing ETC's new fixtures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtOKt-LFvhk

The ETC design for their ellipsoidals will always have an issue with color fringing on RGB lights. They do, however, have a fresnel that looks pretty nice. The problem is still that they do not have any decent onboard control of the color control like the Prolycht or Arri's have. The prolycht app camera based color picker is really impressive.

Also, to get back to the 300GS, I just tried printing out a logo on overhead transparency and placing it in the Prolycht Projector. I was somewhat worried it might melt, but the projector reduces the beam intensity quite a bit. I have to defocus the projector somewhat to remove the inconsistencies in the ink transfer from the laser printer, but it works quite well as a slightly out of focus gobo.

Our lamphead design projects very little heat out the front of the emitter, unlike other manufacturers. That's why we have such a large heat sink. So it won't blast a lot of heat at a film transparency in the projector.

Glad to hear you like the Color Picker feature in the Chromalink app. There's also the Recording function, which allows a single-pixel video recording so you can mimic changing lighting conditions over time like in a process driving shot. If you haven't updated the app recently, you'll be happy to hear that we've listened to client requests and greatly expanded the controls for the Color Picker and Recording functions. Now you can adjust them on the fly both during capture and output. Color temp, green/magenta tint, and brightness are all available and the interface is intuitive. Pretty powerful for a free app!

 

[Run&Gun]

This video does a good job of showing ETC's new fixtures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtOKt-LFvhk

The ETC design for their ellipsoidals will always have an issue with color fringing on RGB lights. They do, however, have a fresnel that looks pretty nice. The problem is still that they do not have any decent onboard control of the color control like the Prolycht or Arri's have. The prolycht app camera based color picker is really impressive.

Also, to get back to the 300GS, I just tried printing out a logo on overhead transparency and placing it in the Prolycht Projector. I was somewhat worried it might melt, but the projector reduces the beam intensity quite a bit. I have to defocus the projector somewhat to remove the inconsistencies in the ink transfer from the laser printer, but it works quite well as a slightly out of focus gobo.

I have two of the Rosco iPro Pattern Projector kits for the Source 4's and there was a span of several years that they paid for themselves several times over, by what I was able to offer clients. You should be able to use them in similar barrels, as long as it has the same size opening for the holder. And you shouldn't have to run the fan, either...

 

[Run&Gun]

Our lamphead design projects very little heat out the front of the emitter, unlike other manufacturers. That's why we have such a large heat sink. So it won't blast a lot of heat at a film transparency in the projector.

Glad to hear you like the Color Picker feature in the Chromalink app. There's also the Recording function, which allows a single-pixel video recording so you can mimic changing lighting conditions over time like in a process driving shot. If you haven't updated the app recently, you'll be happy to hear that we've listened to client requests and greatly expanded the controls for the Color Picker and Recording functions. Now you can adjust them on the fly both during capture and output. Color temp, green/magenta tint, and brightness are all available and the interface is intuitive. Pretty powerful for a free app!

I think the color picker and record/playback functions are kind of underrated.

 

[Run&Gun]

Mitch, is it possible to rename the fixtures to something of your choosing, so that you can easily ID them when you are choosing from multiple fixtures to control in the app? Or is this an option that could be added via firmware?

Also, I noticed while playing around today, that the date is wrong in the system time on the ballast. I told it to sync via the app and the time is correct, but the date is off by a few months and I can't figure out how to correct it. When I go into the menu on the ballast, I can only adjust the year. I can't figure out how to jump over to the months, days, etc. It's probably not a big deal, maybe unless you are tying into a larger controlled system, but wondering if it is a bug that slipped through. Or I just can't figure out how to change it...

 

[Mitch Gross]

Hmmm, interesting. Please email me directly at mgross(at)prolycht(dot)com and we can investigate.

 

[Run&Gun]

Hey guys. I did figure out how to adjust the date/time info. In-case anyone is wondering, you have to use the MODE button on the ballast to toggle/move between the different fields.