The three different types of light fixtures include conventional, LED and intelligent or moving. Conventional are the most basic and simply turn on and off. LED have the added ability of changing color and intelligent or moving light fixtures can also change direction, size and shape and more. All types of lighting fixtures are classified as spots or washes.
These days, there are three basic types of lighting fixtures.
The first are “Conventional” Lighting Fixtures – these are lights that do one thing really well: that is turn on and off.
The second are LED Lighting Fixtures. LED lighting fixtures, of course, turn on and off, but often also have the ability to change color by running the colored LEDs inside them at different levels.
To change the color of a conventional fixture you would need to add a Gel. Gels are thin sheets of colored heat resistant plastics. They shift the color coming out of the light by blocking some of the light from coming through.
The third type are Intelligent or Moving Light Fixtures. These Lights Turn on and off and change color, but they can also change where they are pointing, change size and shape, add texture, and many other tools!
No matter the type of lighting fixture, all lights fall into two camps:
Spots and Washes
A Spot fixture has focusable optics – the relationship of lenses inside the fixture can adjust to change how the beam of light looks. When the beam looks like a crisp clear circle, we say the fixture is “Sharp”. When the beam looks fuzzy, we say the beam is “Soft”.
With the ability to sharpen or soften a beam of light comes options to change the shape of the beam of light. Spot fixtures like Ellipsoidal Reflector Spotlights have metal blades inside them called Shutters. Shutters allow you to “cut” light off where you don’t want it. You can bring in 4 cuts and turn a circle of light into a square.
Sometimes you want to change the size of the light, but you want the shape to remain a circle. In that case you would install an Iris. An iris uses lots of little blades to open and close the circle of light – think the beginning of James Bond Movies.
The last most common way to change the shape of light is by adding a Gobo or Template. Gobos are thin metal or glass sheets that allow you to project a pattern, an image, or words from a light. Gobos can create the shape of a window, or the feeling of light through trees – helping support location in design.
A wash fixture doesn’t have focusable optics, so it is always soft. That softness is great for using many fixtures next to each other to light the whole space without watching a performer move from bright spots to dark spots.
Without focusable optics you can’t add an iris or a gobo, but you can place a barn door on the front. Barn Doors are like shutters, but instead of sliding the blades into place you fold them over the front of the light to shape it.
There are many other lighting accessories that get used on both spot and wash fixtures:
Top hats, to shield the audience's eyes from the direct source of the light; Color Extenders, which give the gel more distance from the hot lamp and keep it from burning; and even effect equipment to give Conventional Fixtures more movement like Gobo Rotators or Film FX loops, or to change color like Scrollers!