ARRI Orbiter Beam Optic Introduced – Punchy 4° Parallel Light Beam

Lighting News

by Francesco AndreolaFebruary 13^th, 2024

ARRI has just introduced Beam, a new accessory for their Orbiter directional high-output LED fixture. This newly designed optic allows you to create a bright, focused light beam as narrow as 4° to mimic the look of strong, distant, natural light sources.

Unveiled back in 2019, the ARRI Orbiter was advertised as a “versatile, tuneable, and directional LED fixture” fuelled by a 6-color RGBACL engine. Throughout the years, ARRI has developed a series of Orbiter accessories and their portfolio now includes softboxes, light domes, barn doors, and proprietary optics.

Specifically, as part of their optical accessories, we find 25° and 35° projection optics, Open Face attachments (15°, 30°, and 60°), as well as a fully motorized Fresnel lens that can focus the Orbiter’s output into a 15° light beam. However, nothing compares to the newly-announced “Beam”. Let’s take a closer look!

ARRI Orbiter Beam – features

According to the German manufacturer, pairing the Orbiter with the new Beam attachment produces a laser-focused, parallel light beam (4°) whose output is comparable to that of an ARRI M18 HMI fixture, albeit with a narrower angle.

This means that the Beam optic can come in handy to reproduce strong, natural light sources – like the sun and moon. While you can choose to point the light directly at your subject to mimic the harsh midday sun, the Orbiter/Beam combo should also provide plenty of output to bounce it off surfaces for a softer look.

The optic consists of two independent parts, a reflector and a snoot. These can be separated for storage and the reflector could potentially be used in a standalone configuration, but ARRI strongly advises using both parts for maximum performance.

The Beam optic measures 57.3×54.8×54.8cm / 22.6×21.6×21.6”, weighs 5,9kg / 13lbs., and attaches to the front of the Orbiter via ARRI’s proprietary Quick Lighting Mount (QLM) system. This means that the light can automatically detect the accessory (this requires LiOS2 or later).

Price and availability

The new ARRI Orbiter Beam optic is now available to pre-order via ARRI’s website and will be on display at the upcoming BSC Expo in London. Currently, there’s no official pricing information, but we will update the article as soon as we find out.

For more information, please visit ARRI’s website here.

Have you ever used the ARRI Orbiter on set? What applications can you think of for this new Beam optic? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!