The ZHIYUN M40 and F100—Lights You Didn't Know You Needed

Compact Versatility With The M40

The Zhiyun M40 is a mini panel light that combines two factors to grab your attention. First is high output; it kicks out 40 W of light and is surprisingly bright for a panel light. It charges via USB, and since it gets so bright, it's got fans that compensate for all that heat.

For such a small unit, the peak output of 14,000 Lux is very impressive.

The real sleeper feature of the unit, however, is usability. It has a built-in arm with various 1/4-20 mounts that work as a stand. You can prop it up at the arm at almost any angle or mount the arm however you need.

In practice, this has often saved us from needing a magic arm since once you have it mounted, it's just easier to point and adjust where you want it to go.

On top of that, the M40 offers on-body adjustment knobs for brightness and color balance. Ultimately, this is the killer feature that makes this unit the most likely we'll buy in the future.

Unlike other lights that require going into an app for even minor adjustments or have a finicky menu system that requires looking at the light, hitting tactile buttons to switch modes or settings helps make adjustments on the fly.

This tactile interface was great since we looked at the subject and the monitor while adjusting, not the light.

The F100 - Easy Controls 

The F100 is a wand-style light, with a lightsaber-style handle, that offers a few big upgrades over the M400. It puts out 100 W, which is pretty bright for a handheld LED, and it does it with full RGB control.

On top of that, it comes with built-in reflective barn doors. This is a huge advantage since one of the most common things you see rigged up to light wands like this are either purchased accessories or black wrap for controlling light spill.

Here, you can skip that and have built-in doors you flap around to ensure light is only going where you want it and not where you don't.

While the controls aren't quite as simple and "big and easy" as the M40, the F100 still offers a fast and easy setup for quickly getting the color or color mode you want from the light without too much extra fuss.

Our Thoughts

Overall, it's impressive precisely how flexible and intuitive the design of these units is. As Zhiyun continues to explore the lighting space, it feels like a promising start to an increasing future lineup of lighting units we look forward to trying as they get larger and more powerful.

However, these smaller fixtures from Zhiyun aren't for every lighting need. While they do provide high output that would be great for video, they won't have the output or usability for bigger shoots. In the latter scenario, they would be great for lighting small spaces or as fill lights in compact location like closets or cars.

Whatever your needs are, each fixture is affordable enough to have a few in your bag. For us, there have been several occasions where such a small but powerful unit would have saved us so much time on set.