LED Framing Shutter Shootout

www.sardisevents.com
We at Sardis Events will be putting various LED framing shutter lights head-to-head in the ultimate shootout. As a production company that is focused on excellence in performance; it’s important to note that we did this shootout to cater to our purposes, and we thought it’d be great to share what discoveries we found with you. This shootout is simply our professional opinion on our observations of these lights.
Our Lineup...
1. Clay Paky Axcor Profile 900
2. Ayrton Ghibli
3. Vari-Lite VLZ Profile
4. High-End SolaFrame 2000
5. Martin Encore Performance CLD

[@glvrecords9313]

Clay Paky gobos seem almost printed on the wall it's incredible

[@glynodonoghue690]

This is a very interesting comparison. Thank you for taking the time to produce this video. By the way, Ayrton must have listened to you and other users, because they have now changed the foam insert to be lower. The body now sits horizontal, just like the excellent Claypaky foams.

[@ENPIus]

Ghibli is a brilliant fixture. Great comparisons! Thanks for putting this together!!

[@staticlightcompanyltd9373]

Great to see a real life unbiased comparison, Truly professional backed up with practical fact. Fantastic

[@lassi2954]

Really excited to see more content from you! A video about your production process from start to end would be just gold 🔥

[@examplewastaken]

Judged solely based on the light output and features, the CP is the winner for me. Colors all seemed on point (yes, camera may play a role in that), gobos where a bit weird but the focus was absolutely incredible. You are actually able to see the individual blades of the iris when fully zoomed in. There is a reason why you find either CP or Robe fixtures on every major concert stage.

[@ActionCamPOV]

This video is fantastic! Great editing too! I cant beleive you only have 6k views...but hope u keep them coming!

[@JeffADavis-qb6pw]

This was a great shootout video! The video editing was great, commentary to the point, and the results were in line with my observations on these fixtures from my own shootouts as well. nicely done!

[@psauter417]

My venue just bought several of the SolaFrame 2ks and we love it. The price for us was one of the least expensive out of all the fixtures we looked at.

[@JordanBalderas]

Mann top notch! I think I'm ready to buy some lights now!

[@aguilarnate]

Let us know if you need a quote!

[@mishakoz]

Nice production value. Really cool stuff

[@dougberry4674]

Fantastic video. Would love to see Chauvet Maverick MK3 Profile also against some of these products.

[@EmileChauvinLaser]

This is an amazing video, super clean, constructive, would love to see more like this, congrats ! :)

[@pauldavison8948]

fantastic video, well produced. thank you.

[@MadsSaxoNielsen]

Really nice video! Please do more of these :)

[@peterrubie5418]

Thankyou very much for doing this it's been quite useful. A couple of requests for next time you guys make one of these shootout videos; Show some pastel colors being mixed or even CMY flags at half. Often there's color fringing with these LED fixture but you only see it when the flags are partially inserted. Show framing shutters cutting an edge while a gobo is inserted. often they will cut all the light output out before they actually cut a gobo edge depending on the focal plane and which gobo wheel you're using. Also, If anyone wants a comparison breakdown of fixtures I did up a little spreadsheet of these + more.

[@christopherjones9436]

how can I get ahold of that spreadsheet?

[@superkaboose1066]

This was top, so much thank for this!

[@floptickle]

I need more like this. Thanks!

[@ajblessing4303]

Amazing Review! Keep it up.

[@davidgrindley813]

Great comparison. I personally love Martin's Mac Viper Performance and the Mac Encore series. Claypaky, Ayrton and High End Systems are great companies as well. I'm not a big fan of Vari*lite as I personally see Most fixtures being from Martin, Robe, or Chauvet pro.

[@Director_of_photography]

Wow! You guys are awesome

[@dinamokirov]

Good test! I want to know about white balance of camera. I think, there is need to test another 2 things: 1. illumination in the centre of spot and on the edge of spot - uniformity is very important for profile fixtures; 2. illumination after about 1/2-1 hour work in 100% output - cooling and flow stability are also very important. Will wait new videos. Of course, Axcor 600, P18 and mb SGM, DTS Synergy5, Chauve or other China's clones. Thank you ) PS: at start Ayrton presented Ghibli as 1000W LED source fixture, I did not know that they can't do it )

[@nyekygabor]

Would've loved to see the SGM G-Profile also in this test. Nevertheless, awesome video!

[@chadbeverly4926]

It's funny to see the different saturation of cyan , magenta, and yellow within the fixtures . It reminds me of the prg demon of the bad boy when it first came out how they specifically didnt put in a regular cmy color mixing system but instead put in an cyan, magenta, and yellow color wheel so they can take that saturation as far as they wanted. Only down side is cant really do a color fade by it's super fast at doing color bumps . And the VLZ from what I hear was fixture that was doomed from the beginning

[@Lightguycalvin]

Which version of the Ayrton Ghibli did you use for comparison, the S or TC?

[@elyesbobo]

a very interesting video and the comparison is very clear. I wanted you to add the DTS SYNERGY 5 PROFILE. I think he is a good lyre report quality price

[@richardbelliveau34]

First I have never commented on a video before/ever LOL. Thanks for the hard work and production. I hope to be able to help next time if I may. Suggestions (humble): 1) Setting all the lights to a particular zoom value is not the way to do a center FC comparison. Make sure the diameter of all the beams are the same and then if you wish to measure FC you will get a least some useful comparison! 2) All instruments have a particular zoom size they perform better at. So not just one measurement of a particular zoom setting (like in the video) provides any useful FC comparison information. 3) It would be important to note to the viewers that the "camera" does a poor job of rendering any reasonable or useful example of color to the viewers. 4) Through most of the video the Clay Paky (a good product) was zoomed to the smaller zoom so OF COURSE it will be appear brighter and have higher FC!!! This is not a useful comparison for any of the fixtures. 6) It would be best not to use a low cost photography meter in a comparison of expensive electrooptical instruments. It's just not right. Still you guys worked hard and did a great voice over and it is appreciated! Kind regards.

[@MCasterAnd]

He did inform viewers about 3) at 1:14...

[@oscarpierson6892]

Incredible video

[@willford2675]

Great video

[@Atomicunderware]

We took delivery of six Ghiblis at my theatre last year. They're an excellent fixture, glad to see this comparison which vindicates the choice. Agree regarding the jog wheel - it's a terrible way to navigate the menus. One other thing I dislike is the design of the handles, it is possible to get your knuckles caught in them when lifting the light, particularly with two people lifting it above shoulder height. It wouldn't be impossible to break your wrist or drop the fixture due to the pain if you're not careful. Hard to describe, but if you ever come across one you may understand what I'm talking about...

[@garywestcott5363]

Good well rounded review

[@lukewalker3905]

Guys the only piece of feedback would be just having a quick wander around the colour mixing and show us some pastels and saturated colours just to see how well they do the whole spectrum, I don't care if they don't match between them.

[@VegasDominic]

Goldensea China / Terbly would be so proud 😊

[@ikramantaki]

Amazing¡¡ I want to learn how to repair these....do you have courses??

[@baskin321]

How does the Chauvet MK3 Profile compare to these?

[@duanejoseph7249]

The martin doesn't at all hang with these other lights. Additionally, it's more of a fair shootout between the encore and sola if you go with the solaframe 750, it's smaller than the encore and vastly out performs it in brightness and framing, however I may prefer the lower intensity mixing on the encore.

[@Globerson]

Very useful thank you so much

[@simonlaferriere3145]

Now add SGM and Robe in the mix for a next review!

[@renelacson8646]

thanks

[@robocow2]

I concur!

[@szalailaszlovid]

And what about testing of the dimming? Dont you think about theaters?

[@Socapexxx]

They're all LED fixtures. LED's are pretty renowned for having excellent dimming, many offering 16-bit as a standard. Mostly due to using electronic dimming and not mechanical. NO fixture in a high-end lineup like this would have a bad dimmer.

[@szalailaszlovid]

@@Socapexxx LED's are pretty renowned for having terrible dimming, but I dont seen many of latest high-end fixtures. So it would be good to show us. I think it would give more interesting results as pan speed test... May 16-bit dimming, but possible it is jumps in at 1-3 percent. The Clay paky B-eye is an older model, it has good dimming in halogen mode, but it doesnt work well with colormixing. Other fixture has dimmer curve the only effect out fade. So there is much aspect that can be examined I think. Thanks

[@cassiharvey2153]

László Szalai you can change the LED refresh rate dumass

[@lukasrembeck]

Sad not to see the P18 but anyway great Video !

[@matlightfxproductions]

do more shootouts please

[@steveremue]

Is there a reason why we don't see a Chauvet Professional demo?

[@cassiharvey2153]

Steve Remue Because they’re shit

[@lukewalker3905]

@@cassiharvey2153 lol you aren't wrong. The Chauvet are child's toys compared to these fixtures performance.

[@Krislights1]

But what you see on a screen, a bit like telly or film.. Or live.. A good yardstick and gauge, chaps. Ten gold stars for the side by side thing. Inspired.

[@stangman1208]

Stoerp!!

[@ericcarabetta1161]

Holy shit, that Ayrton Ghibli is $12,000! That’s worth more than my car. Guess I won’t be using that light at home.

[@lampini636]

#TeamCP

[@llibressal]

Ayrton jog wheels are sad. Last shop prep I did we had to address them via rdm which was way faster.

[@jarredcoelho6740]

I believe that Ayrton, VL, and HES all have the same light engine. Down to the part number sticker on the engine.

[@pauljhancock1]

This is inaccurate.

[@jarredcoelho6740]

Ayrton and VL for sure.

[@euroliter]

possible, because min 2 modells comes from same factory

[@jarredcoelho6740]

HES, VL , Ayrton, and Elation are from the same place I think.

[@Mallikeet]

Appotronics Atria line. They seem to be the most common in moving heads, Robe uses them too. But I can't seem to find a product catalog or even any mention of LED engines on their website. All the Appotronics website seems to mention is their laser projectors.

[@sharpeillusions]

I’ve never used gobo shake before I don’t know anyone who has either lol

[@VegasDominic]

Robe Esprite please 🙏 😅

[@thomasgriffin3474]

Didn’t even compare the VL to the others

[@Angel-rz1ev]

I prefer clay paky

[@JohnReeVolt]

Great Work, but I think that it will be better to optimize zoom, set up and distance for beam output. And after that the difference between fixtures come to minimum. In the end to say words about quantity of steps to optimize for every fixture. In that way the winner will appear quickly)

[@Krislights1]

I may be slightly biased, but HES has the edge, on a points score. I still like the VL judder. The clever bits should be left to the console. The ‘FX’ channel should be banned. Perhaps it’s all down to source. If the colour isn’t there in the first place, you can’t subtract it. Interesting to see what components exist where in the lens/focal train. Colourmix.. OK, HES has a bit of a ‘planet effect’ rather than an even Hue across the field, but part of the magic. Also interesting is to see how hobos behave. In the olden days we used doughnuts, to remove the lens flare...

[@davidgrindley813]

The Martin is definitely better for theatres.