Aputure Amaran 672 Recommendations

L

Luke Bacich

Active member
Hi there,

I can get the HR672 in a 3 light kit for a cheap price. It comes in two variants though; (2 x S + 1 x W) OR (2 x W + 1 x S). I was leaning towards grabbing 2 x S (spot). I know there is the T888 coming out soon but I'm looking for something very portable and they have these handles which won't work for me. Could anybody help me with the choice between the spot and flood variants?

The kit also includes; 6x Sony-type Batteries, 2 x 2.4ghz Remotes, 1 x Carry Case.

I was also chasing some portable light stands if anybody has a good recommendation that will work with these.

Any other useful accessories you can think of would also be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Luke
 
Are you going to use these professionally? If so, buy better built lights. While the 672s put out great light, they are really fragile and will break quickly in professional use. If you are a hobbyist and these are all you can afford, if you are careful and you don't drop or tip them over, they may last you a little while. Friction fit batteries, plastic cases though. The new Tri-8s will be built much better. I have the Aputure Lightstorm LS 1S, two of them and even they are not going to last a long time being used on pro shoots. I have already had the power supplies sitting in dirt and weeds, some mud and the fittings on the cable connections and the controller are definitely more prosumer than pro. Love the output and the light quality though. You should check out the new Kamerar Brightcast V15-345 bendable LED panels. Bi-color, SUPER rugged, waterproof, mudproof, and cheap and they have a TON of output compared to 672s. I have a coupon code where you can order them for $269.00 ea. including AC power supply plus they will run off of V-Mounts. http://www.photographyandcinema.com...120033477&mc_cid=34e0fd0334&mc_eid=4a9c12cc66

Another thing, running LED panels off of small camcorder lights is sort of an impossible dream, you'll begin to lose full power output in about 8-10 minutes. If you want batteries to run LED panels, you need the biggest V-Mount batteries, at least 160 wh but they cost quite a few hundred dollars each. http://www.came-tv.com/cametv-160wh-battery-sony-v-mount-for-camera-camcorder-battery-p-222.html There is no free lunch, they are LEDs but at full output, they still suck down some serious power. Buy once, cry once. If you buy the 672s, they will probably not have enough output for you, they will crack and or break and you will be changing camcorder batteries every 10 minutes. Just buy the real stuff.
 
Thank you so much for this response. Very informative.

I could just get these very cheap and have been waiting forever to get something. I'm not a pro but I have still heard that the build quality on these are terrible. That is why I was waiting for the T888 but the problem is the handles as well I expect the cost to be a lot more.

That battery is out of my budget - significantly more than I'd be paying per light. It is a problem I had not considered though. Is there something else I could get in the meantime, I do appreciate your argument.

I got an email from aputure with the attached diagram. They said they recommend the (WWS) kit. "Two HR672W for key light and fill light . One HR672S for head light."
 

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The Amarans are great lights for the money. Will they last for a long time? No, but they get you lights now, rather than waiting for something on the horizon. And when new lights come out, maybe you'll get those too.

Anyway, I have them as well as a Lightstorm and still prefer the Amarans for many scenarios. If I were you, I'd skip the "kit" they sell and put together your own kit, including one spot, one wide, and one bicolor. All of them come with AC adapters, remotes, and a couple Sony NP batteries.

For accessories you'll want more batteries, one of those dual Sony NP battery chargers, a couple D-Fuse portable softboxes, and three Manfrotto 5001B nanostands.

Cheers,
Slavik
 
And being pro doesn't always have to mean dragging your lights in mud and abusing them. You can be a pro and still handle your equipment with care ;)
(although with very frequent use I can see them wear out no matter how careful you are)

Nice thing with the Aperture lights is that they can all be put in the same system and be controlled with the same remote control! So getting the 672s now and expand with their better quality ones later on is a good move, I believe.
 
To me the biggest determining factor for the use of "pro" gear is whether there will ever be anyone else touching them. If you are the only person adjusting and otherwise handling these lights, by nature of ownership you will baby them. If you have another crew person ever come in contact with them, assume that they will take the standard "don't be gentle, it's a rental" attitude and they will quickly be destroyed.

For years I had a kit of Lowel lights and home-brew fixtures in a couple of tiny cases that I could run around with for doc work where if I would almost always be dealing with the gear on my own. During this same period I also shot a couple dozen features, countless music videos and other work where I had plenty of crew. My little run & gun kit would stay on the truck and I would only bring out any of those lights when I needed to a special trick light for which a standard industrial fixture would not be appropriate. My Gaffer used to refer to them as "Daddy's Bag O' Tricks" and "Mitch's Kinda-Kinos". When those things came out it was pretty much understood that either I was doing it myself or you were gonna be extra careful with the DP's weird lights because if they didn't electrocute you, if you broke them he'd kill you himself.
 
slavikb said:
If I were you, I'd skip the "kit" they sell and put together your own kit, including one spot, one wide, and one bicolor.

For accessories you'll want more batteries, one of those dual Sony NP battery chargers, a couple D-Fuse portable softboxes, and three Manfrotto 5001B nanostands.
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Thank you so much for this information Slavik. It is really helpful. I had not even considered the bicolour. I can get the the 3 kit for $890 in Australia or buying each individually will cost $1020. Do you think it would be worth the extra money for a bicolour over a second flood or spot?

I'll add the 5001b stands and the d-fuse softboxes - they look great. Do you think aputure's ez box + softbox would be worth adding?

Is there a specific battery you'd recommend?
 
The lights come with a gel to turn them into 3200k so if you save on the kit, I'd say go for that. It will give you a great starting point. From there you will start to realise what you are missing.
My only problem with the Amaran 672s is that they have no barn doors. And that it's kinda fiddly to get them back into the bags they come in. There was a 3 light kit I saw on eBay that came with a bigger bag for all three lights. That looked great.
 
Luke Bacich said:
Thank you so much for this information Slavik. It is really helpful. I had not even considered the bicolour. I can get the the 3 kit for $890 in Australia or buying each individually will cost $1020. Do you think it would be worth the extra money for a bicolour over a second flood or spot?

I'll add the 5001b stands and the d-fuse softboxes - they look great. Do you think aputure's ez box + softbox would be worth adding?

Is there a specific battery you'd recommend?
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Don't bother with the ez box + softbox. It's a total pain in the arse to rig and will make you look stupid if you try and build it in front of a client! Waste of money IMHO
 
Not sure, I have two S models only, and sure wish I had a W as well... But I also sometimes wish The S ones had barn doors to control them further. So I guess I'd go SSW.
 
Luke Bacich said:
I got an email from aputure with the attached diagram. They said they recommend the (WWS) kit. "Two HR672W for key light and fill light . One HR672S for head light."
Click to expand...

That lighting diagram is bunk, & would not produce great results. You'd likely be better off using a reflector for fill then keying & filling with relatively small LED panels.

Never touched any of Aputure's LEDs but really dislike the mounting system used on the HR672. Screwing a 1/4-20 or 3/8-16 threaded stud into the LED's case is poor design, & imagine won't last too long before breaking.

Rather have one decent light then three barely passable units, & suggest mastering the use of one light before spraying a set with multiple. If it were my choice & had your budget, & had to buy now, I'd look hard at the bi-color Aputure Light Storm LS 1c to use as a key, & maybe pickup a smaller unit for highlighting the background. Or possibly pickup the flexible LEDs mentioned earlier, though I'd wait to see how the color quality works out on those.
 
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That's good savings - in this case you might as well get the kit. As mentioned here they do come with the tungsten filters. The choice of 2 spots or 2 wides is tough but maybe decide based on whether you'll shoot outside much, in which case 2 spots together could fight the sun better than one. In fact, two Amaran spots provide more light than one Light Storm LS1S, at 1/5th the weight, and using Sony batteries - now that's portability.

I'd skip the EZ box. The D Fuse takes no time to setup and works well enough. And any batteries will do, but might as well get the biggest Sonys available. I've been using the DSTE 970 batteries from Amazon.
 
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I second most of the advice here. I've been using them for a year.

I started out preferring full spectrum tungsten light but over the last couple of years I've been shifting my kit over to daylight for many reasons (CTB costs more light, lower heat/power draw, kino daylight is actually really nice light and in the last year or so colour balance on LED has improved dramatically). I bought these initially as supplemental lights, mainly for backgrounds and tight spaces. They have moved from my after thoughts to the lights I will always keep in my kit, primarily due to convenience. I prefer not to use them as my primary lights on talent due to lingering anti-LED bias but when I've had to (heavily diffused) I haven't been upset by the result. Flesh tones were fine.

So the light that comes out of them punches well above their weight. I wondered how they got the balance right at a quarter of the price. I figured it out when caught out on location without my gel bag and had to use grease paper as diffusion. When you put a piece of paper directly over the LEDs you can see that half of them are white, the other half are a mix of magenta and green. Essentially rather than buy the expensive LEDs, they just balanced the cheaper ones against each other so that the summed result is spot on. Clever. Working as AC to a well established ACS accredited DP earlier this year I was able to save the day with these when the generator died just after sunset and we lost our kinos. He was impressed enough with the light to ask me for the model numbers afterwards. This is the good.

The down side is as others have mentioned is build quality. This is where most the cost saving is. They won't take the abuse. You don't want to use AC power while shooting, someone will hit trip on the cord sooner or later and that will break the flimsy socket. If you break it you lose not just AC power but your charger. The big batteries hanging off the back still feels really precarious a year on but smaller batteries defeat the purpose. I dread the day the plastic battery receiver cracks/snaps off. The supplied batteries will give you about 2hrs of continuous light at 100% which is very nice. Turn them off between takes to milk them for longer. The housing is plastic and won't take the abuse but I've babied mine through somewhere in the range of 20 shoots and they are still in mint condition. As Bern said the mounting system like the batteries hanging off the back is a bit of a worry but nothing bad has happened yet.

You are better gelling with CTO than using the supplied 3200K filter but it works in a pinch. Because they run cool I often drape flag fabrics over them for further light control. I can't comment on the softbox since I don't have one but it doesn't look great. I just bought another one that they threw the softbox in with so I might be able to comment in a few days. It also has a little remote which I only used for the first time the other day and think it is a feature I will use more often.

These lights are one of my best bang for buck purchases. I don't know if I'd recommend LED as your only lights but I have used them as my only lights on a couple of fast and dirty shoots and was happy with the results. My kit is SSW which I recommend. The wide I don't use as a fill but more as a flood on a wide shot when I need to light a large area or raise the ambient light level. The spots are the work horses. 30 degree gives you all the beam angle you need in a mid shot or tighter and is easier to control spill. Use heavy diffusion, softbox or a bounce to turn a spot into your fill light. Plus the spots are a lot punchier so more flexible.
 
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I'd say go for more spot version since you can diffuse them to widen the beam but you can't spot a wide beam light.
 
ozmorphasis said:
Why are you selling Erik, if you don't mind me asking? I remember you making a very positive review about these units.
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I have too many panels now and need more focus-able fresnel type lights so I bought three CAME-TV Boltzen lights. (1) 30 watt and (2) 55 watt. And will get another COB 120d daylight with fresnel accessories when they ship. Add in the Lightstorm LS 1s that I have and this will give me a nice kit.
 
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