With the additional Aputure Fresnel, the LS C120D II has a brightness of 135,000 lux at a 1.6' distance. The most notable of these upgrades is its power unit – the C120D II is now powered by a single, all-in-one power box. Made of aircraft-grade aluminum but maintaining its lightweight build, a single power unit means less cabling and power components so filmmakers spend less time setting up their light, and more time being creative. In 2014, Aputure was founded. Its name was a play on combining the cinematography term " aperture" with "future." I recently reviewed the MC series and the new 300D MK II and it seemed like an oversight to not spend more time with the 120D II. As a longtime user of the first generation 120D, I was particularly interested in the design updates in the second generation. Is it worth upgrading? Or, if you own the original 120D are you okay waiting? Let’s dive in. You might find yourselves repeating this procedure several times. Having the ability to lower or switch off or on the lights from behind the camera saves time. Final verdict: Is the Aputure 120d II worth it?

The original C120D was revolutionary for its compact size and high build quality. The 120dM2 now takes this a step further with a new round of upgrades.

Pricing and Availability

Like China balls, they are ideal for table scenes that require evenly spread light across multiple participants. Just think, if you were to light a dinner table scene between three members of the family with three separate lights and a softbox/light dome, you’d need three individual light setups. With the Lantern, it’s one — positioned overhead. The 1200d Pro comes with a light, a control box, and three reflectors. This includes a rolling case for the 1200d Pro and a separate case for the other two reflectors. The complete kit is listed below. LS 1200d Pro and Rolling Case The LS C120 II has a CRI of 96 and a color temperature of 5500K. Its TLCI has also been estimated to be as high as 97. A high grade indicates that illumination will portray colors well in a film or photographic environment. While the C120D II boasts an impressive studio grade build quality, it still weighs in at just over 2kg (4.8lbs) allowing filmmakers to easily take this light anywhere without having to worry about the transportation issues that frequently come with larger tungsten fixtures. As the Lantern has a 270-degree beam angle, it’s the preferable choice for creating soft, ambient lighting to illuminate an entire area instead of a single subject. This is useful for shots with numerous people, podcasts, open spaces, and because of the the light’s size, scenes that have small spaces.

While it’s the same light, at the same power, you’ll notice that the lantern modifier wholly alters the tone of the image. There’s no directional over light, rather a projection of equal ambient light, with few shadows and little contrast. There’s also no overall direction that the light is directed. The 120d has a large fan on the underside of the unit as the high draw COB LED chip tends to produce quite a lot of heat. Along with the fan the fixture uses an intelligent temperature control system. The fans rotation will be varied based on its measurement of the corresponding ambient temperature. The fans go to maximum rotation speed when you press the Auto/Force button. Despite the size of the fan, it is barely audible and I doubt you would be able to hear it even in the quitest of environments. So now that the facts and figures are out of the way, what sort of scenarios would you use a light like the 120d in? Well depending on what type of attachment you put on the front, the light could be used for multiple purposes. If you already own a lot of lights and don’t need this to be a multi purpose solution I would be inclined to use the 120d as a bounce light to create a nice wide/soft source. Just bouncing this light into a ceiling, wall or piece of polly board works really well. When you just need some extra light and don’t want to make it obvious that you are using additional lights then using it indirectly works a treat.I also found the overall fan noise to be less, versus the 120D MK I. You shouldn’t have any issues using this light during quiet interviews where the fixture is placed close to your subject. The company was founded in 2005 when Xie first began the company as an online electronics store and used his hobbyist knowledge to keep up with camera-related trends and technology. With the growth of this business, Xie started creating small camera accessories like monitors and adapters before moving on to light-emitting diodes also known as LED. During this project, Xie travelled to Los Angeles where he met with Ted Sim and other Los Angeles filmmakers to develop his initial designs. Within three years, the team was contracted by several large cinema manufacturers to begin producing light fixtures under their own in-house brands, many of which became the first-ever companies to introduce LED lighting to studios and production houses. [1] Origins [ edit ] KPI releases Aputure's “Amaran LED light AL-H160” which has improved color rendering to CRI95 compared to conventional models" ProNews. Retrieved 2020-05-26.

In the shots below, the actor is positioned in a daylight interior, with strong natural light coming in from the window. As the direction is to have a high-key shot, we need to bring some fill light into the scene to save exposing for the light from the window. And, to equally avoid the highlights from the windows clipping if we were to expose for the interior ambiance. The Light Dome is the perfect modifier to illuminate your subject with a soft light that wraps around them, making it ideal for corporate shots, tutorial videos, conversation scenes, product shots, and even portrait photography. The result was Aputure's first lighting product, the Amaran series of LED panels. [2] [3] Amaran panels were lightweight fixtures that differed from traditional cinema lighting that was almost always heavy and intended exclusively for use by studio crews. A 25% output increase is nothing to scoff at. I first turned on the 120D MK II and lit most of the downstairs of my home with the bundled reflector mount. Before the neighbors started asking about alien invasions I turned it off and decided to try it in a few situations in real filming environments for this review. It still doesn’t quite have the output for most exterior daytime applications (depending on cloud cover and time of day), but for that, I suggest you use a 300D MK II anyway. The early team joined Xie and Sim with color scientists from Fujifilm and cinematographers from Los Angeles. Together, they engaged in product development of high-fidelity LEDs instead of low color renditioning diodes which were common at the time. [1]A funny thing happened on this journey.As I mentioned at the start, I did a little self-portraiture in my shed for a project I’m working on. I shared the image with Aputure and it’s now in their catalog! So, that was kind of cool…