DEFINITION October 2018

USER REVI EW | ASTERA T I TAN

PRICE €580 HERALD THE TITAN Astera comes to the pro world with a tube light designed specifically for the film and TV market

WORDS PH I L RHODES

ots of lights have been made in the form factor of a standard, four- foot fluorescent tube, covering applications from office blocks to film sets. Astera’s new Titan Tube does so many things that it’s distinguished from the crowd just by its feature set, but it's also described as “optimized for ultra-high TLCI”. If that’s the case, this might be a truly universal light, capable of both effects and basic illumination. Titan is built to resemble a T12 fluorescent, with built-in batteries so it can be handheld on a single- camera drama, or as easily go into a gameshow set in large numbers. It has a total of 72 watts of LED drivers, using up to 48 of them at any one time. The light is

is either via a radio remote device, which receives commands by DMX or from a cellphone app, or via the onboard menu. The app makes things easy, with a tile interface presenting preprogrammed effects for use or modification. The onboard menu is fairly complex, given the number of options it needs to cover, but it reveals roughly the same fundamental features as the app. EFFECTS The effects are so varied that there’s no way to detail them all, with flicker, strobe and chase effects all available. While clearly inspired by club or

configured in 16 segments, each with conventional red, green and blue plus two more that Astera call “mint” and “amber”. Control “TITAN IS BUILT TO RESEMBLE A T12 FLUORESCENT, WITH BUILT-IN BATTERIES SO IT CAN BE HANDHELD” music video lighting, it’s not hard to imagine film and TV applications. The “fire” effect is useful because the length of the tube allows it to accurately simulate the movement of firelight. Each pattern can be used with any programmable colour, as with the default “ice” effect,

IMAGES Control of the Titan is either via the onboard menu or separately through the app.

essentially the fire effect in shades of blue. Chases might simulate moving light sources. Set the speed low and the relatively limited, 16-segment resolution of the tube can cause a slightly staccato appearance, but that’s a reasonable, avoidable limitation. Practical features include the motion-sensing anti-theft alarm which sounds a siren and makes the tube flash white, and an option to turn the Titan into an emergency light if there’s a power failure. It’s very complete; the feature set is huge. The question is whether the white light is just as good. The colour menu, accessible via the colour-palette button on the control panel, provides white light options from 1750K to 20000K. A UPRTek CV600 colour meter reveals that the least-accurate settings are at the extremes. TLCI and CRI fall below 90 at 1750K, with TLCI reaching 83.7 (which is still quite usable) at 20,000K. At more sensible CTs, results are uniformly excellent. TLCI exceeds 97.1 at all intensities and any colour temperature between

70 DEF I N I T ION | OCTOBER 20 1 8

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