Strand does make a good
fixture when they try. Their last generation before the SL series sucks and is dangerous but I have not tinkered with any of the SL series. From the old series I can say they are lighter but that’s because they are using thinner materials in making them up. Those thinner materials during unnatural circumstances will be much more prone to catastrophic failure than on a
ETC or
Altman fixture. Again I have not tinkered with the SL series much less the
zoom. Reason for this is
Strand is a bitch to get parts from and it’s always more expensive. I have a bunch of Bambino fixtures. Great lamp bases and in general, good lights, but hard to get parts to.
I used to love working with a
Zoom fixture as long as it’s not a architectural designed
Colortran Mini Ellipse which was never designed for theater use or a true
zoom. I worked with some older
Altman Zooms and in spite of the extra weight, I did not note too much a difference in lost light. But it’s been a long time and I was not actively looking.
Weight is a big thing. Changing lenses is cheap and fairly easy but still takes time. I would do a shoot out between fixtures at given ranges to tell what the
Strand verses the
ETC will do for you. Plus than abuse the
fixture to see if it breaks easily. You know at least with the
ETC fixture what’s going to break and it’s easy and fairly cheap to get parts for. The only
fixture I do hate is the S-4 Junior. One of your lamps break and you have to completely disassemble the
fixture to get it out, much less cleaning is a hassle with them screws to take it apart inside the
barrel. I had to service some once, they were not fun.
Think part of my chasing down rental gear was in finding something like 100 rented 19 degree
lens trains from six different companies. Should you need extra lenses, everyone has them so it’s not something you have to invest too much into.
Lamps, Philips makes the best GLC in balancing output to life, but the Osram has a higher
color temperature. Neither is as bright in output as a
HPL 575w lamp of the same wattage. That said and if
Strand’s specs are right, the
reflector and
filament make up for this lower output in making the SL either more or the same in
intensity. I don’t remember for sure what the catalog or reviews say about this
line, and nothing about the
zoom. Pop a HPR 575/115 lamp into the
Strand fixture and I would assume it’s going to be much more powerful than a
ETC fixture. Again I have not looked at the
Zoom to see if it’s going to loose efficiency or if the improved lamp will fit. I know a FLK lamp while similar does not have a compact enough
filament to work in the SL
line. For theater use, I would be going with long life lamps anyway such as the GLA. Philips makes the best GLA lamp and it is more powerful than the long life
HPL lamp in
intensity and
color temperature. Darn good lamp, only slightly less intense as a high output one.
Also I don’t know if you can put the new range of 750w lamp into the
Strand zoom. I would given
Altman Zooms were rated for 1Kw lamps and the Shakspere was always rated for a 750w lamp unlike with
ETC, I would assume you can at least put a 750w lamp into the SL series. That’s the GLD/GLE range. Again it’s the same story with the high output lamp being lower in output but the long life lamp being better in comparison to the
HPL. On the other
hand, the High End Color Command uses a Philips #6982P
OEM 750w lamp with the same specifications as a GLD or EHG. It’s also the most powerful 750w lamp on the market, at least for a non
HPL lamp. I would use it instead of a GLD for high output. Again, if the
Strand claim of being the most efficient
fixture is true than this improved lamp should easily both be brighter than the
HPL given a more efficient
fixture, and at least in your
zoom given less efficient make up for a lot of that.
One note about this GLA series of lamps is that not a huge amount of suppliers
stock them yet, especially the 750w ones. This means a much more expensive lamp to that of the
HPL. In other words, operating costs will rise for the very industry standard lamp
base, but not yet standard lamps for it.
Selcon I hear also makes some really good fixtures. Tried the 90 degree version of it at one
point. Interesting. Some say they are the next generation.
I take it budget is not a factor in this number of fixtures thus buying 75 of something instead of buying the S-4 plus a few extra lenses to save money. I’m not a extreme fan of any brand at the moment. Given they all have the same output, and you need to cut down on weight, I would determine what’s necessary to go
Zoom, than get the rest in
conventional fixture especially if it’s taking the same type of lamp as the rest of your equipment. If you already are a S-4
house, I might give a
bit of extra thought to keeping to one lamp. If not than the
Strand’s lamp could become the lamp for the rest of your fixtures as an upgrade and for simplicity.
As for weight, you realize that now you are going to have to
drop DMX to the 1st
electric, plus this cutting down on weight is only a temporary fix. A 8'
arbor is decent for normal uses but for a true 1st
electric probably insufficient in a pro
house. Might look into a triple pipe or
truss first electric and a double
arbor or at least a 12' one given the rest of the fly gear can take it. I would go for a double carriage and beef it up plus rig the
first electric for more weight given it’s only a single or double pipe now. That will also expand the room available because as we all know, all fixtures must be hung in the same position, and once you add scrollers, even if it counts down on
fixture count, it’s still going to take up more space. Than of course, using a couple of hoists for the
first electric might also be easy.