Gaffer & Gear 271 Aputure Spotlight Max

[@Ed.Mantle]

What a team at Cine Gear. Looking forward to watching the panel.

[@joewebb5138]

Look forward to hopefully seeing you at Cinegear. Love to meet you face to face to show my respects for your work on this channel. As for the spotlight max… This feels like a mixed bag. I really love how far Aputure has come with their products and continue to push the envelope in terms innovation and user feedback and how they incorporate it. You can tell a lot of work in R&D has been brought to bear. But I feel like this is a fail. Not a complete fail, but one I wouldn’t feel comfortable releasing into the product line of great products. There’s high expectations that they themselves have set. But if you are going to make a product make it better than it was before. This is an extremely well built product. But sometimes even if something is great in build quality, if it doesn’t live up to the hype in terms of what ultimately what it is there to accomplish: -superior Optical clarity with all the use of accessories -Great color accuracy with minimal aberration -Output magnification well above native lumens -Rotating barrel and physical functionality I’m really inclined not to fall in love with this product. I know a lot of us out there really wanted this from Aputure. They clearly put a lot of work into this but I don’t know where they ran into trouble. I don’t build lights and I’m not prevé to how challenging it must be to make this sort of product for basically multiple different point sources and make it good for all of them. I’m only a Gaffer and I know what I’m looking for. This isn’t it. Love your channel, love Aputure, I don’t love this.

[@RobertHollingworth]

The price point as you say is tricky to work out. The ETC Series 3 X8 Lustr with a 26 degree lens is the same price as the 600C Pro, without the Spotlight Max, and has the same light output. Which means buying a Spotlight Max for a 600D is tricky to justify financially, and ETC products are outstanding Re shelf space, in theatres we used to hang all the lights from pipes in the ceiling of the lamp store to use max amount of space. Works really well, and same trick works in vans

[@Dfproductions865foryou]

I think the biggest thing for field gaffers is that a fixture is more valuable if it's more versatile. Yes, the X8 Lustr is a great fixture at a respectable price, but the 600C can be used open face, with fresnels, with bowen's modifiers. One light that can tackle multiple jobs is much easier to justify, not to mention the rental market for 600C's is arguably better than ETC's.

[@RobertHollingworth]

@@Dfproductions865foryou I do agree with you. I use the Series 3 in the studio where they are permanently rigged and fast to use there. They aren’t, however, an easy item to fly and use remotely off batteries for example. About half of my work is abroad in often remote environments and for those I take the 600D and accessories as it’s more practical in that environment. However if purely talking about light quality, then the Series 3 is by far better. Different lamps for different purposes I guess, and it gives us all something to chat about! 😆 Oh and let’s not forget the ETC is born with theatres in mind. They have true theatre blood in their veins and for live entertainment work there really isn’t anything better. I am naturally drawn to them because of my background working as a spark and then LD in theatres before moving into film and telly

[@lightforce3642]

Have a great time at Cinegear 👍

[@caleb-snaps]

Have you considered having a look at a ETC Source Four Series 3 Lustr X8 with one of the XDLT lenses?. Would be intersting to see just as a comparison point for the more film and TV orriented equipment usually reviewed.

[@gaffergear]

I would be very interested to see these. I've had a few staging lights come in but none have passed. Usually the CCT is limited.

[@RobertHollingworth]

I’ve got 6 ETC Series 3 with 26 degree tubes and fresnel lenses in the studio which I shoot a lot with Aputure lights on the same set. Anything from interviews to products with 1000 fps Veo 4K camera. The Series 3 leaves everything else standing when used at the same time. Their colour is amazing , and dimming is like nothing else especially tungsten mimic mode when dimming (if you like that!). My gaffer here in the UK loves them and their panel lights are great too aside from weighting a tonne. Really recommend trying them. I can intro you to ETC if you’d like Andrew?

[@formatogrande397]

you make great videos

[@GrillingwithPapaJ]

Looking to get a Max setup and need help picking a lens. I am shooting in an atrium 3rd floor about 75-85 feet from my subject. Looking to know how wide the beam will be wit the 19 or 36 lens? Any way to calculate the width? thanks

[@gaffergear]

@@GrillingwithPapaJ this is what I do, I make a 36⁰ or 19⁰ angle with my fingers, and then put that Infront of my eye standing where the light is going to be.

[@SimplestUsername]

The focus shift / chromatic aberration at the edge of the gobo is very dissapointing. Especially for a fixture of this size, cost, and build. They should have done better.

[@douglasgander]

If you’re looking for more chromatic aberration when you use the source four adapter with the source four lenses, there is more chromatic aberration and that is sometimes desirable.

[@timkang1980]

it varies with the lenses. 36 has the softest performance, but 19 and 50 fare much better. I tested every conceivable combination you can think of ...

[@SimplestUsername]

@@timkang1980 Fair point. I made that comment after observing the 36 degree lens performance, then rewatching the Amaran Spotlight 36 test. It's not good when there's such a noticeable improvement in projection quality coming from the cheaper little brother.

[@brtfilms]

@@SimplestUsername You can't use the Spotlight SE with anything more than a 300W fixture. Sometimes that is not enough for the job. But I agree the aberration should be better for the price

[@dcslyxe]

Slightly off topic but I have a question for you. I'm doing mostly Doc and low budget commercials. If you had to choose between a Aputure 600c Pro II or a Nova P600c which would you choose? Thanks.

[@gaffergear]

@@dcslyxe if you can only buy the one, I think the 600c would give you more versatility with a dome in the mix. Also the nova isn't weather proof.

[@olson9065]

Thanks, I appreciate your opinion.

[@Cinegavo]

aye nice

[@joramhartmann7101]

Can you do a Video about Aputures Sidus one CRMX transceiver?

[@calvinliu1012]

Hi! Does it work well with the nanlite forza 720b? Thanks!

[@gaffergear]

@@calvinliu1012 I have not tried it, and unfortunately I sold the attachment because I needed the cash

[@tasothdevil01]

Hi, will you review the Nanlite 10 degree projector lens?

[@gaffergear]

@@tasothdevil01 yep, it arrived last week

[@jontedanielsson1279]

Are you hired or sponsored buy apature now or are you still independent?

[@jontedanielsson1279]

Aunce you are in theere bioth at cinegear?

[@gaffergear]

The "Paid Promotion" notification refers to me receiving the spotlight free of charge. So that's technically a payment. That's now on all of my reviews. I'm also appearing at the Nanlux booth at Cinegear.

[@sganzerla]

There is so much chromatic aberration that I doesn't feel too bad with my Spotlight SE anymore. It should be unnacceptable for this cost.

[@gaffergear]

I was very impressed with the SE.

[@labinsky21]

do an LIVE epi from CineGear!!