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Automated framing shutters on moving lights were once not as common as they are today. The most popular framing-shutter fixture in existence is probably the venerable ellipsoidal reflector spotlight, but motorized framing shutters remained a somewhat uncommon feature on automated lights for many years. A few reviews ago (PLSN, Sept. 2017, page 72), I looked at the SolaFrame Theatre from High End Systems, whose engineers have wholeheartedly embraced LED technology as the lighting source behind all their fixture lines. This time around, I'm looking at the newest member of the SolaFrame family, the SolaFrame 750, to see how its feature set stacks up in the world of framing shutter moving lights.
* The Light Source
The source for this light is a sealed 270W white engine from Appotronics, with an output color temperature of 7,000 Kelvin. A linear CTO flag in the color mixing module smoothly adjusts this down to 2,910 Kelvin. Dimming is extremely smooth, even down to the last few clicks before blackout. Like the other fixtures in this line, the SolaFrame 750 exhibits a very brief but still noticeable "fade" on zero-time dimmer channel blackouts, to emulate the look of a real mechanical dimmer. Conversely, the shutter channel snaps the output to black instantly. The shutter channel includes strobe functions, including synchronous and random functions.
The dimmer curve follows an ideal square law curve nearly perfectly, and the output field is very even and flat. I measured an initial output of 3,350 lux at five meters with the fixture at 50 percent zoom. After allowing the fixture to warm up and run for 20 minutes, this value dropped to 3,040 (±5 lux), an output de-rating of around 10 percent. A "studio" option in the menu system allows the user to reduce the speed of the fans for sound-sensitive applications, which throttles back the light's output accordingly.
The...