The Rogue RH1 Hybrid is one of Chauvet Professional’s latest offerings in the fast-growing area of hybrid fixtures — fixtures that fulfill more than one “traditional” role in a lighting rig, be that wash, hard-edge projector, or beam fixture. I spent a few afternoons playing with this new beam / spot hybrid light to see what this new fixture from Chauvet Professional can do.
The first thing you’ll see when powering the fixture up is a color settings screen with four menu options from which you can set the DMX address and other settings for the light. This screen is very easy to read, and it’s nice to not have to hunt through several layers of confusing menu options to get to the settings that you really need. The luminaire is powered by the Osram Sirius 330-watt lamp, which has a native output color temperature of 8000 Kelvin. Chauvet’s optics knock that down to around 6655 Kelvin. Chauvet Professional tells me this is not necessarily deliberate, but it has the effect of outputting a very nice crisp white that doesn’t appear to have any nasty spectrum spikes or dips. After dousing, the lamp cooled down enough after about 30 seconds to allow it to restrike.
Beam and Spot Modes
“Beam mode” is the first that I looked at, and it’s the mode where the raw power of the 330-watt lamp really shines through in the dramatic beam of white that comes out. The beam has a very clearly defined center peak in this mode, which is exactly what you expect in a light like this; this mode is clearly optimized for aerial beam effects. When spot mode is activated via a control channel, a flag that looks like a frost filter moves into the beam, which significantly smoothed the field of the light. This flag is the first thing in the optical train past the hot mirrors, and its effect is to change the peaky beam into a flat, even field, which is optimized for patterns. Output drops when this lens is inserted, which can be expected, as the light is now spread out, not concentrated in a tight, lightsaber-like beam.
Gobos
There are two gobo wheels included with the Rogue RH1 Hybrid; the first is a stamped wheel that provides smaller-diameter patterns for use primarily in beam mode. There’s a good selection here of gobos for breaking up the beam, and these are especially effective when used in conjunction with one or both of the fixture’s prisms; they can also switch between patterns very quickly. The second gobo wheel contains the rotating patterns, with both aerial-type patterns and some breakups, for use in scenery projection. All these patterns on the second wheel index and rotate. I noticed that the light automatically inserts the “flat-field” flag when a rotating gobo is activated to maintain even brightness throughout the pattern, which is a nice touch, though there is a minor lag (less than one second) for this lens to be removed when switching the rotating wheel back to the open position — something to be aware of.
Gobo selection is never a place where all users of lights agree, but the gobos included with the light are versatile enough to fulfill the needs of most of the likely users of these lights straight out of the box. If not, the rotating gobos are all replaceable.
Colors
The light includes 13 non-interchangeable dichroic colors plus open. An especially nice touch here is that the colors are all adjacent to other colors that work well together. For instance, green is next to magenta, yellow is next to blue, Congo blue is next to a color correction filter. I really appreciate this kind of thoughtfulness as a designer, as this is a wheel very amenable to creating interesting color effects. The saturated colors cut down on light output quite a bit, but the 330-watt lamp provides enough punch to keep the output to usable levels. The fixture does split colors quite well too, and these are especially effective in combination with a gobo or one or both prisms inserted. The color wheel channel starts out snapping between colors, and the second half of the channel allows full indexing and scroll functions. It’s very nice to not have to make a trip to the fixture to change a color wheel mode.
Prisms
The prisms are where this light really shines, and it includes both an octagonal pyramidal prism and a six-facet linear prism. Both of these provide impressive image separation with very little center-to-edge falloff. Another new trick this light showcases is the ability to use both prisms at once without a large drop in output, which creates some very interesting layering effects in conjunction with the gobo wheels, or used alone. Prism insertion is very fast — fast enough to use as a chase or an effect. There’s a “swirly” gobo on the second wheel that works very well with both prisms overlaid, resulting in a cool hypnotic pattern. There’s also a frost filter here, which smoothes the field and widens it significantly, allowing the light to be used as an effective wash light.
Speedy Zoom
Next in line is the zoom lens group. This moves back and forth very quickly — gone are the days of a light taking a full four seconds to cover its entire zoom range. The zoom on the light in beam mode goes from 3° to 10° in less than a quarter of a second, and from 5° to 19° in spot mode just as quickly.
The dimmer flags are also the strobe flags, and are right after the flat-field flag. Like the assortment of strobes, random strobes, fades, pulses and a strobe where the flags only close halfway, they were very effective. Because of the (deliberately) very peaky light distribution, dimming these types of lights smoothly can be very difficult, and this light is no exception. The dimming works okay, but is not a straight linear curve one might desire. I feel that the dimming is patchy, but the same is true of every other light in this class of beam projectors, so perhaps this doesn’t matter. This is a light meant primarily for aerial effects, not aberration-free dimming effects on a giant white cyc. Chauvet Professional notes that this is a pre-production prototype and they are still making changes to the unit and the software, so I have no doubt the top end dimming will be smoothed out in the production unit.
The fixture includes two carrying handles, and it weights close to 55 pounds. It rigs with two of the now-familiar Omega brackets on the bottom, and the fixture auto-senses input voltage from 110V to 240V. It also includes pan and tilt locks for transport.
At a Glance
One Fixture, Multiple Roles
This is definitely the sort of offering I like to see from lighting companies — a single luminaire that can fulfill more than one role within a rig. This fixture can act as a wash, a beam, or a spot as the situation requires, making it very designer-friendly. —C.R.
PROS
Bright, excellent quality of light, a variety of operating modes makes this a very versatile luminaire. The modular construction makes servicing easy.
CONS
No color mixing available, less-than-ideal dimming curve.
STATS
Price (MSRP) $3,199
Manufacturer Chauvet ?Professional
More Info chauvet?professional.com
