Just over a week ago, Nanlux announced the new Nanlux Evoke 900C (buy here), which was said to be on display at NAB 2023 in Las Vegas. We have a team at NAB this week, so we chatted with Nanlux US GM and VP of Sales Mark Bender at the Nanlux booth to see the Evoke 900C for ourselves and learn more about it. The Nanlux Evoke 900C is a powerful 940W RGBLAC LED light designed for high-power use on film and TV sets.

It’s IP55 rated and built to go anywhere. As well as being rugged, the Evoke 900C is pretty powerful, with an output of up to 40,300 lux of 5600K daylight at 3 metres when using the 45-degree reflector. It has a CRI/TLCI of 96 and offers an array of colours that aren’t possible from more traditional RGBWW LED lights.

Nanlux Evoke 900C – RGBLAC LED

The Nanlux Evoke 900C is an RGBLAC LED light. This means that as well as the usual Red, Green and Blue, it also outputs Lime, Amber and Cyan. This technology has a wider colour spectrum and allows it to produce a broad range of colours, saturations and intensities that are impossible to reproduce with standard RGBWW LED lights. The technology is still quite young, with only a couple of brands in the market producing them so far. But it seems to be picking up speed, particularly on higher-end sets.

This formulation of LED beads, with six different colours, means that the Evoke 900C’s Advanced HSI Mode, RGBW Mode, XY Coordinates and GEL modes can produce a larger range of colour than many lights on the market. This allows for better colour matching on set, helping them to seamlessly blend into light that may already be available at the location or to produce more realistic colour effects lighting. It also offers colours matching the entire LEE gel filter product range.

It also allows for a very wide colour temperature range for white, from 1,800K all the way up to 20,000K. And this white balance setting can be included in the Advanced HSI Mode selection. So, for example, you’re shooting a scene with an ambient daylight white balance, and you’ve got your Evoke 900C projecting a certain shade of blue. Then, later on, you shift to a different environment with a tungsten ambient. The Evoke 900C can shift that blue over to match the new white balance so that once you’ve matched the white balance of the ambient light from both shots, both blues look the same in the final footage.

IP55 Rated for all weather conditions

The Nanlux Evoke 900c is built tough. As well as having the usual solid build quality we’ve come to expect from the Nanlux Evoke product line, the Evoke 900C is also IP55 rated. This means that it’s protected against dust and low-pressure jets of water from all directions with limited ingress. This does not mean that it’s fully waterproof. You can’t dunk this thing in a swimming pool and expect it to light up your underwater scene, but it can handle some pretty extreme weather.

Nanlux demonstrated this at their booth at NAB by having the light and its ballast controller in a tank, being rained on 24 hours a day. And as you can see in the photo above – and in the video – the light’s still going strong. Mark says that some of their customers are using Evoke LED lights in very extreme conditions on news broadcasts, during hurricanes, and even chasing storms.

Extended Control

Nanlux offers a generous bounty of methods to control the Evoke 900C supporting both wired and wireless control. Dimming and other adjustments can be made locally, via Bluetooth, over DMX/RDM, or by using other advanced options.

• Onboard, Nanlink app via Bluetooth, and 2.4 GHz wireless control
• DMX control allows you to adjust your light using an optional DMX console
• You can also use wireless DMX via LumenRadio
• Supports Art-Net/sACN protocols
• Includes remote controller

Specs

Price and Availability

The Nanlux Evoke 900C is available to pre-order now for $4,660. Shipping is expected to begin towards the end of May.

DIYP’s coverage of NAB 2023 is sponsored by Sennheiser, Zhiyun, B&H, and SmallRig.