Clay Paky A-Leda B.Eye as you have not yet seen
Few days ago, Paolo Dozzo, Sales Manager of ClayPaky, amazed by the post about Elita Ouverture, invited me to visit ClayPaky company. There I had the opportunity to be one of the first who have been able to see a technical demo about Clay Paky A-Leda B.Eye
Until few days before we thought to be at the end of the race: “All have been invented!”, “Pan, Tilt, Color Mixing, Iris, Gobos, Beam etc… There’s nothing else!”.
Instead, as often happen, a flash of inspiration, sometimes unwanted, born by mistake or obtained by determination and tenacity, opens new horizons, moves few miles further the limits and makes we enjoy the victory of the victories: the feeling that everything is not finished and there’re other dimensions to explore.
This thing happened with the new invention of ClayPaky. While felt rumors like “Now with spot, wash, beam etc… all has been done”, here the surprise. Yes, given by the birth of new technologies that improve what has already been invented, but also by real insights so trivial as ingenious: take a particular lens and move the angle of incidence, perhaps through a simple rotation system and…
Clay Paky A-Leda B.Eye
The new product of ClayPaky (which I have defined a big company which create carefully crafted products where each fixture is assembled with great care, by hand, piece by piece, by highly skilled workers, where there is a team of “electronics artists” with maximum freedom of movement who invents and creates, where the quality test is carried out on 100% of production, and more), is the evolution of early k5, k10 and k20 led wash of about 2 years ago.
But let’s step back talking about the “old” A.Leda k20-k10 and k5 with the advice of Marco Zucchinali (Sales Support Engineer). This will allow us to understand the evolution, innovations and improvements adopted by the new B-Eye.
ALeda k20 – k20 – k5 Series
A.LEDA LED
characterized by 15w led sources, today the most evolved and widely used standard.
A.LEDA OPTICAL
ClayPaky relies on a more efficient lens, with a light efficency equal to 80% and very specialized on Wash tipology.
A.LEDA ZOOM
Another news of A.Leda, happened using the dual-lens, positive and negative, instead of two positive lenses. Approaching the two lenses is obtained a narrow beam with luminous efficiency of 80%. Instead, with the two lenses distant, you get a luminous efficiency equal to 65% but with a much more homogeneous beam, obtaining a linear degradation instead of steep. Definitely the lighting was not “beam”, as the market demanded, but an evolved and performing “Wash”.
A.LEDA PIXEL MAPPING
It has implemented the management of single led, something never made on similar fixture by other manufacturers.
A.LEDA DMX
Both in classical A.Leda and in B-Eye there’re 3 dmx mode
- Standard Mode (pan-tilt-rgbw etc…)
- Extended Mode (with 20 dmx channel of standard mode more 3 rgb channel for each led)
- Shape Mode (32 dmx channel with the possibility of use of smart macros, therefore with a distinction between the background of the “Wash” and the foreground, in which are managed the parameters of the shape)
The parameters in this mode allow a totally and independent management of the “background” through
– Shape Selection
– Adjustament of speed and direction
– Management of “fade” curve during the transition beetween shapes. It is important because it is not a classic fade effect, but an intelligent management of the transition which take into account the state of background, the LED lighting curve etc… Very usefull for TV set.
– Two level of intensity (background and foreground) in addition to the master intensity
– Foreground shape RGB channels (indipendent of the background)
– Offset management between multiple fixtures
– Split fader that controls the transaction mode between multiple shapes avoiding the scrolling effect
Let’s move now to the Clay Paky A-Leda B.Eye, to see what has been improved and what else was invented.
A.Leda B-Eye series
B-Eye Optical
With the Clay Paky A-Leda B.Eye, starting from A.Leda, ClayPaky wanted to give a result projected to the “beam” technology of a product which was born completely like a “wash”.
Has been eliminated the positive-negative collimator system devising to a new method.
I could tell you more, but then I would have to kill you (cit. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly) 😉
What I can tell you is that the light source of B-Eye is sharper and smooth. Looking at it, in fact, you no longer see the individual LEDs, but a single big light source.
B-Eye Zoom
The camber of the lens, as is easily to see, is much steeper and it make the beam more closely. Zoom range is 4 ° to 70 ° and the light intensity in the center of beam and at the extremes is the same. The B-Eye is 3 times brighter than the A.Leda classics.
It is obvious that, with the new lens, the management of the individual LEDs is sharper than before. In fact, if we put the zoom below the 10% we obtain the focus of the LEDs, obtaining a projection of a square beam. Oh! I forgot! The single LED is able to light up and is not just an effect that can be seen by looking at the B-Eye.
LEDs cluster rotary system
As told by Pio Nahum (Sales Director), who was present during the demo, the
continuous experimentation that improves the experiences and professionalism typical of ClayPaky, has led to consider a new dimension in addition to the pan and tilt movements: rotating the optical system relative to the axis of the source, the angle of reflection/refraction with which the light beam hits the lens, turns out to be always different, obtaining a cyclically kaleidoscope effect.
But not only that! We have now the ability to create 3 ways of dynamic effect:
- Lens stops and dynamism given by the effect
- Effect stop and dynamism given by the displacement of the lens
- Combination of both dynamics
And if it is not enough for you, if I put a single line frame, I get an effect similar to a Source Four with zoom. So it can be also used in this sense, making curious the “conservatives” of incandescence lights 😉
CTO Management
Another important feature is the management of the white balance. In fact, this DMX channel becomes the RGB reference in the management of the b-eye. This means that if a show will be recorded by the cameras, you can simply set the correct color temperature of the show, obtaining the automatic setting of all the scenes of the show with this new temperature.
Weight and performance
And finally, the weight of the k20 is about 20kg and there is also the version k10 with the same characteristics of k20 but without rotation of the LED cluster. Even for speed ClayPaky have been able to obtain an excellent performance: the speed of k10 is similar to Sharpy.
So… What kind of fixture is the new Clay Paky A-Leda B.Eye?
With Marco Zucchinali during the demo
Is a Wash 2.0 evolved and able to be over the top, thanks to the characteristics described above. Very flexible, can be used as a backlight, as an effect, as pixel mapping, architectural and why not? as frontal (not comparable to conventionals but still usable in many other situations).
Now we have to use it. Everyone, including ClayPaky, want to see it at work controlled by the imagination of the various LD around the world. We will begin to see the B-Eye working in 2014 when it will be produced and will be distributed.
Here technical specifications
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