Adding yet another impressive super portable light to its already stellar catalog of small LEDs, Aputure has officially announced the very small (and very cool) MC Mini RGBWW LED.
This thing is essentially a pocket-size lighting effects machine complete with 9 built-in lighting effects modes, full HSI color control with 360 degrees of hue and 100 levels of saturation adjustment, as well as a super portable design that allows you to do all of this with a light that fits in the palm of your hand.
Let's take a look at the promo video so we can get nice and pumped up to look at the specs.
The Aputure MC has quite a few things going for it right from the get-go, from its size to its lighting modes. Let's go over some of its most impressive features.
Color Accuracy
Full HSI Color Control
The MC is the first Aputure light to include full Hue, Saturation, and Intensity (HSI) color control, which allows you to reproduce pretty much any color imaginable.
RGBWW
It's also an RGBWW light, not simply an RGB, meaning the light not only uses red, green, and blue LEDs, but two white LEDs, balanced at tungsten and daylight respectively, to give the MC a color quality you don't normally see in units this size. Not to mention the high 96+ CRI and TLCI, and SSI scores of 84 (tungsten) and 74 (daylight) that help bolster that accuracy.
Lighting Modes
Aputure packed this thing with multiple lighting modes that you can employ when you find yourself in different shooting situations, including CCT, HSI, and 9 FX lighting modes: Fireworks, Party, Fire, Cop Car, Faulty Bulb, Paparazzi, TV, Lightning, and Pulsing.
Portability and Versatility
The MC is tiny. It weighs just 130g, is 17mm thick, and basically fits in the palm of your hand. It's also designed so you can mount it where you need it, with built-in magnets and a 1/4" -20 screw mount.
Sidus Link Mobile App
This might be one of the coolest things about the MC—not necessarily its compatibility with the Sidus Link mobile app, though that's clearly a plus (it's also the first RGBWW light to have it). It's what you can do with the MC when using the app.
Sidus Mesh Technology
The Sidus Mesh technology that is built into the MC allows each light to communicate with each other and with the app at the same time. That means you can control up to 100 lights within the network, whether you want to control one at a time or all of them simultaneously. You can adjust each light's HSI, CCT, and FX functionality.
Color Picker
This technology is awesome, and it's one of the things we were most excited to see at NAB last April. The Color Picker function allows you to point your phone's camera at a color—any color—capture it, and boom, your light will reproduce it. Yes, it's a real-life color picker.
Tech Specs
- Full HSI color control
- CRI and TLCI: 96+
- SSI: 84 (tungsten), 74 (daylight)
- RGBWW
- HSI/CCT/FX lighting modes
- Bi-color range: 3200K-6500K
- 9 FX lighting modes: Fireworks, Party, Fire, Cop Car, Faulty Bulb, Paparazzi, TV, Lightning, and Pulsing
- Lithium-polymer battery
- Output power: 5W
- Battery life: 2hrs (max brightness), 15hrs (min brightness)
- Weight: 130g
- Thickness: 17mm
- 1/4" -20 screw mount
- Sidus Link mobile app compatibility
- Qi wireless charging
We got our first look at Aputure's new light at NAB, but now that the MC has finally made its way into the wild, we can actually see what first impressions are among those in the filmmaking community.
Here's a review by Caleb Pike of DSLR Video Shooter, a filmmaker who is no stranger to inexpensive yet very robust LEDs.
The Aputure MC is now shipping for $90. Head on over to Aputure to learn more.
Source: Aputure
