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CPM Reviews: Good Things Do Come in Small Packages – The Elation Design Spot 250
by: David Martin Jacques

Published in the January, 2007 issue of Church Production Magazine
By: David Martin Jacques
For: Church Production Magazine

In this world of super-sizing everything from hamburgers to SUV’s, it is exciting to welcome a new trend in automated lighting where manufacturers are designing smaller, and more affordable intelligent lighting fixtures. Elation has recently released the Design Spot 250 automated fixture that no only packs sophisticated features found on more expensive (and significantly larger) models, it does so at a very competitive price.

Until recently, moving lights could be classified into two designs: spot and wash fixtures. Spot fixtures are designed to be essentially moving Ellipsoidal Reflector Spotlights with added effects like spinning gobos, color changers, prisms, motorized irises and shutters. Wash fixtures are basically movable Fresnel Spotlights that can pan and tilt, zoom, and change colors, but do little else.

Elation designed the Design Spot 250 as a “hybrid” moving light. This fixture is designed to offer the designer effects found only in spot fixtures, and at the same time be able to produce a soft beam similar to automated wash lights. Although there are other hybrid lights available that accomplish this feat, Elation is the first to include so many features into such a small light for significantly less money.

How did they do this? First Elation chose to design this fixture around the Phillips MDS 250/2 arc lamp (250 watts, 8500 Kelvin, with a lamp life of 3000 hours). Although the lamp is only rated at 250 watts, it produces a very bright, even field due to its luminous-parabolic dichroic reflector and sophisticated optical system. It should be noted that Elation offers the designer a variable 14, 17, or 20 degree interchangeable lens system, included with the fixture.

But the features of this light do not end with the optics. Also included is a nine position color wheel (7 dichroic colors, UV, and open) with continuous, variable speed scrolling, two gobos wheels (one with 7 indexable, rotating gobos and one with 7 fixed gobos), variable speed shutter/strobe, dual flag mechanical dimmer, iris, variable frost, and a wonderful 3-facet rotating/indexing prism. The Design Spot 250 has a maximum pan movement of 630 degrees in 2 seconds and a maximum tilt movement of 265 degrees in 1.5 seconds (very fast!). The list price of this fixture is only $2499.95!

Elation sent us a beautiful solid white Design Spot 250 for testing at California State University Long Beach (the fixture is also available in black). We quickly set up the Design Spot 250 in our light lab for testing. Due to our initial skepticism regarding multiple optics systems, the first thing we tested was the variable optics. The standard 17 degree lens system was pre-installed and we were pleased to discover a surprisingly intense beam of light. The field of light was already silky smooth and required virtually no adjustments. We then tested the 14 degree option and found a slightly smaller, but intense optical performance. Finally, we added the extra lens for the 20 degree option and noticed a significant improvement in light intensity. This was quite surprising as going with a larger beam option usually cripples the fixture as it almost always severely compromises the optical performance. We found that the Design Spot 250 produces impressive performance in all its optic angles.

After our initial optical tests we decided to hang the fixture in our smallest theatre space, the Players Theatre. This theatre holds 99 patrons and has a stage that is only 24 feet wide. In addition, the lights are hung only 12 feet above the patrons, so a small, quiet fixture is essential.

Mounting the fixture was a breeze due to its relatively light weight. After completing simple power and DMX connections, we loaded the fixture personalities into our Expression console and powered up the Design Spot 250. The lamp struck with ease and quickly produced the same quality of light found in the light lab. As the stage is only 24 feet away from the fixture, we were initially concerned about the size of the field. We were pleasantly surprised as the field size proved quite adequate for full body actor specials. In addition, we were able to make the beam significantly larger through the use of the focus adjustment and prism, but more about that later.

There are two gobos wheels and fourteen gobos provided with the Design Spot 250 (11 metal and 3 glass). The gobos are in removable cartridges that allow for easy installation. The standard stock fixed and rotating gobos are all quite usable. These include a variety of break-ups, geometric, spirals, organic, and multi-color images.

The gobo wheels can also independently spin at various speeds. Changing from one gobo to another is very quick as the fixture will automatically spin in the direction of the shortest path to the next gobo (this is also true of the color wheel). During our testing we did find some slight focus inconsistencies across the field of the gobo. But this is not unusual for gobos of this size.

The fine focusing system in the Design Spot 250 will create an incredibly sharp beam of light with a wide variety of focus play. When using both gobo wheels, it is very easy to clearly see the focus morph from one gobo image to the other. This is accomplished smoothly with no strange optical artifacts. We were able to discover some amazing fire and smoke effects by combining gobos in each wheel and placing the rotating prism on top of the image. This is very sophisticated for a light in this price range.

The overall speed of the fixture is very impressive. The Design Spot 250 moved accurately with no hesitation. It always hit its mark and never drifted from its programmed focus point. Most importantly, it accomplished all this with very little noise. I am sure that this is due to the small size of the fixture and the excellent motors incorporated into the drive mechanisms.

The color wheel is limited to 8 dichroic filters. However, since the gobos are interchangeable, multiple combinations of colors can be achieved by adding dichroic filters to the gobo wheels, and placing those filters in front of the color wheel. There are no breaks between colors on the color wheel. This allows you to split colors for interesting effects. You can also spin the color wheel for a very fast rainbow effect. Our only suggestion is for the addition of a good CTO (tungsten color correction) filter. Since the lamp is at a relatively high color temperature (8500K), it may be desirable to color correct the light with incandescent fixtures in the light plot. However, a 3200K CTO filter could be added to one of the many gobo slots which would solve this issue.

The dimmer and strobe mechanism consists of a dual flag system. It allowed us to smoothly dim in and out the light at almost any speed. We noticed no visual dimming artifacts throughout the range of the dimmer. The Design Spot 250 also offers several strobe options, including an impressive lightning effect!

Finally, the frost mechanism will completely soften the edges of the light. This was most useful for wide color washes. However, when fully frosted the light loses a great deal of intensity. A neat trick that we discovered was to just add the prism to the unfrosted beam and focus the light out to create a large, soft field of light. We even added a breakup gobo which gave the beam a wonderful soft texture. Add a rotating gobo, slowly rotate the prism, and voila, your fire effect!

It is refreshing to see automated lighting manufacturers design smaller, more compact moving lights that not only offer some of the more sophisticated effects of their larger and more expensive models, but are also affordable to churches with lower budgets. The Elation Design Spot 250 is an ideal automated light for these smaller churches as it offers features of both spot and wash fixtures. This fixture would be an excellent choice for throws between twenty to forty feet. Unless you are the Chrystal Cathedral, this little gem would be a perfect addition to your lighting tools.

David Martin Jacques is a professional lighting designer and consultant. He has designed the lighting for venues in the United States, Europe, and Canada. He serves as Head of Design for California State University Long Beach and can be reached at djacques@csulb.edu .