Company moving beyond its monitor-recorders and cloud production tools

Atomos Sun Dragon lighting

Atomos has launched Sun Dragon production lights, moving beyond its monitor-recorder and cloud production tools. 

First signalled in Broadcast Tech’s interview with CEO and co-founder Jeromy Young and COO Peter Barber earlier this year, Sun Dragon is a 16 foot, five-colour HDR LED production light in LED strip form, consisting of a malleable strip of ultra-dense 5-color LED lights. It will be available from June, with an expected price of USD/EUR 999, excluding local sales taxes.

The density aims to avoid micro shadows, and increases the brightness to 2000 lumens from end-to-end. While able to flex easily, it can also be wound into a spiral to act as a panel light, and it has an output that’s 99% of the sun spectrum - with the claim that it needs no correction in post-production as it has a colour rendering index of 99 and television lighting consistency index of 98.

The Sun Dragon is water-resistant, dust proof and waterproof to a depth of one metre, and weighs one kilogramme. Each Sun Dragon comes with a spiral carry case, with metal mounting options on the rear, and magnetic removable diffuser covers for more traditional light panel use.

It also includes an active controller with a large display and wireless/wired DMX remote control. Basic setup (Brightness, Color, Hue, etc.) is available via Atomos AirGlu RF devices. Sun Dragon is also Bluetooth compatible for DMX control from iPad and iPhone apps and can be battery or mains powered. The lights can also be controlled with Atomos’ monitor-recorders, and the Ninja Phone, which Atomos also launched at NAB 2024.

Young said: “Atomos has always focused on maximizing performance for an affordable price, and that’s absolutely the case with Sun Dragon, which is a production and cinema lighting system with a difference. Conventional cinema lights come in the shape of point sources, panels, or linear strips, but Sun Dragon changes everything with its novel form factor, its technical advances in LED density and its advanced controls. It’s a new dimension in flexibility and performance.”

He added: “Wherever there are cameras, there are lights. We’ve always wanted to make a production and cinema lighting system, but we didn’t just want to replicate what’s out there, and we wanted to have them controlled from our monitor-recorders. So, we’ve taken advantage of the very latest technology and our innovation DNA, to create something that’s completely new. We can’t wait to see how creatives use them! These lights are genuinely different, adding an extra dimension to illuminating a shot. There’s never been a production and cinema lighting system with such an extreme combination of affordability, flexibility, and sheer performance.”