We all know the expression "just Hollywood it," when you are moving quickly and you want something to be held in someone's hand really quickly to get a shot so you can keep moving.
There isn't time to set up a stand, but there is time to grab something and go. Beyond that, there are countless times the very nature of the job demands something easily handheld, like a long walk-and-talk on a city street.
To that end, Aputure is launching two powerful lights, the P60 (available as C and X), and the COB 60, available as D and X.
NP mounts, RGB output, camera mountable.
The P60
Let's talk about the softlight unit, the P60, first. It's a 60-watt light (hence the 60 in the name), but in it's X flavor (X for verstaile that it can shift between daylight and tungsten balance), it can kick out 5,900 lux at three feet in daylight mode.
That is a fantastic amount of brightness for a soft lift panel, especially one that you can power off 2 Sonly NP mount batteries, as you can with this one when you don't want to use the included wall power adapter.
That amount of punch should even make it useful as an on-camera fill light on overcast days or in the shade, though it won't have enough output to compete with full-on sunshine where a bounce will remain your best friend.
The P60 also has an available softbox, which is a great combo unit for making the source a little bigger, and thus softer.
The P60 is also available as a C version for "color," that will offer full RGBWW output. The brightness comes in identical to the other version, which is a huge plus, since often you need to sacrific some brightness to get an RGB unit, but with the C (which will cost slightly more) you get full RGB lighting control of millions of colors.
Aputure held off on RGB for awhile, until it felt like it could do it well, but has now been on a roll of RGB releases and is making it clear it plans to have a big presence in the space.
Interestingly, Aputure is also selling the P60C in a three-light kit, and it appears they are going to be targeting this as a great package for students and doc filmmakers who want something to compete with the traditional three-light ARRI kit.
This is frankly a smart move, since the time has come to move on to an LED based "interview/doc" kit, and something with three of these ready to go, with soft banks and folding stands, will be incredibly useful for anyone doing a quick setup interview.
The COB 60
Rolling out the same two are two new COB (chip on bulb) units, the 60X and the 60D, with the X being adjustable from daylight to tungsten while the D is just daylight only, though will cost slightly less.
This is a bright, punchy unit designed to put out 37,700 lux at 3 feet from just 65 watts of power draw, which should make it super useful in a host of scenarios. But it's built around a handle and battery configuration to make it easy to hold in your hand for when you need to do that.
This is a lot of output for such a small amount of power draw, and its handle can be rigged up to be powered by either Sony NP or a bigger D-tap type battery. While we be the NP's work, it's likely you'll be pushing through them pretty quickly so if you have D-tap supporting batteries around you are likely to be better off using them. They feature entirely onboard controls and an info screen that will let you see all the information you need while you are working.
Of course, both the P and COB lights have all the hardware to be mounted in a variety of traditional places, not just handheld, and their small size should make them popular light units for mounting on cameras or being used in car work.
To be honest, I'm particularly excited about the COB 60X due to the volume of work I'm doing lately on bicycles. The ability to light up a scene with something punchy with one hand while keeping the other hand on handlebars is kind of a dream, with any cables to strap down or ballasts to mount.
Or even being able to rig up two COB 60D units onto a set of handlebars will offer a lot of flexibility for night bike work.
All units of course integrate with the Sidus Link app from Aputure that allows for full control of all units over a Bluetooth mesh network as long as units stay within 300 feet of each other, something we had fun testing when the update rolled out last year.
Check out the Aputure site for more.
