Aputure have been on good form for a fair bit of time now, and splitting Amaran (one of the first lines of Aputure lights) into a sub-brand of Aputure proves to be a masterstroke for helping them to appeal to different audiences. When Aputure first burst onto the lighting market they were known as a good value-for-money lighting company, but as a company's reputation grows that image can be hard to retain. This presentation feels well and solely like a passing of that torch to Amaran. It cannot be mistaken though, Aputure are now setting their sights on bigger and better things; with their lights performing as well as the likes of Rotolight and ARRI technically for prices reasonable for those who want to own their gear rather than rent it. The lights showed off in this presentation from Aputure probably fall into the "rent rather than buy" cost bracket though if you want their full potential, although Amarans showing is distinctly aimed at the "buy rather than rent" category.
While Amaran is now the beacon that independent filmmakers look to (like myself who has owned an AL-M9 for about 5 years and still considers it a great light), both brands showed up and shared the stage at this latest, high-budget product launch. In taking a look at the talking points I'll be focusing less on the technicalities and stats (they'll be available in the screenshots) and more so on how the products want to help filmmakers and prosumers with various types of content creation.
You can find the link to their presentation here, if you'd rather than read me babble on feel free: https://youtu.be/85d04Jnd3RU
Amaran's Reset
The presentation kicked off with Amaran's renewal of their COB series of lights. With this series of products starting back in 2020, like everything Aputure has done with their own products Amaran has expanded the line over time to include different technology and capabilities; however this presentation made it clear this line serves a complete refresh of what has come before. A fresh start for this series particularly.
A prominent complaint I remember from their launch (and admittedly mainly from YouTube reviews) was that while their ability and versatility was good quality for the price point, for both their daylight balanced lights and RGB type lights, they could get noisy if run for a long duration of time. Of course for a light that advertises itself for its versatility and suitability for social media content creators, commercial workers and indie filmmakers having someone record your sound is more than a luxury. To combat this they have an integrated cooling system within the same form factor of the original collection. More so their key improvement has been made to the LED Chip set, which now uses a new Dual-Blue chipset design, allowing the light to have more accurate colour at brighter outputs. Even so this hasn't resulted in substantial statistical boosts in either the CRI or TLCI output between the updated version and the original.
Although if you thought they would change the price for these lights for that extra percentage in stats, you'd be wrong. Not only did Amaran presenter Brandon Le announce this series of lights will replace all that have come before so far, but also that they would all sell for the same price point as before when the original line launched as well. A welcome thing to hear considering the rising costs of products like this in the prosumer market. In this sense, it's seen as a win as the technology is inherently updated to keep the longevity and at no extra costs for its price as well. Keeping these products firmly in that bracket of around £185-£300 if you buy from CVP and depending on the strength of light you buy. Overall, its a good step that the company can afford to take at this point which also regains and reassures its market as well.
For more information, this section of their presentation happens between 8:35 and 16:22 on the stream replay. And you can loom prices for the COB S series here: https://cvp.com/catalogue/search/amaran+cob+s/manufacturer/amaran.
Amaran's Evolution
Tube lighting has been a trending topic in narrative filmmaking since I want to say the late 2010s. Popularly used in music videos before their emergence in the filmmaking space, this form of light was greatly used for its versatility for rigging, lightweight focus, and power in numbers. Amaran's introduction to their new PT1c, Pt2c and PT4c products highlight these attributes front and centre.
Their promotional video highlighted its ease of use in different scenarios; as a producer inspired by the product calls their friends it uses the setup to show one creator using the tubes for a vertical social media coming together with another creator using three of them for a one-person commercial shoot, indicating that they want the product to be ready-to-use and ready-to-go for any content creator willing to use them. More so with the second half of the video showing the various different mounting options for the tubes it again gives that idea of versatility inspiring creativity. Specific touches I like, as someone with not many mounting options available to them instantly, is that the end caps of these lights are 5 sided (so you can choose the angle to tilt the light at, and not have to make it lean against something to move) and that both ends of these lights are magnets as well meaning you don't necessarily need mounting options to use them to their full potential.
Secondly although Aputure and Amaran have taken a while to get into this new trend of lighting technology, only releasing the MT Pro and T2c and T4c in 2022, both this launch and their headline launch show they're ready to innovate in this area further. During the presentation there was a clear message that Amaran and Aputure were addressing the shortcomings of those aforementioned lights. Firstly they addressed the fact that if you wanted a 1ft Tube light before this release you had to buy the more expensive MT Pro; this was fixed by the new PT1c being marketed specifically as a cheaper and updated alternative to the MT Pro. Secondly they addressed the hindrance of using the T2c and T4c as practical lights due to these models being powered through swappable battery handles rather than having integrated batteries inside the system like this new line does. Finally in highlighting that the PTs had the "same number of lighting engines as high end fixtures but with an indie filmmaker focus"it reaffirmed its value for money approach was still strong and well.
Starting at the slightly cheaper price than the COB S Series, the PT1c is currently retailing on CVP at £125 (MT Pro is valued at £180), while the PT2c jumps up to £265 and the PT4c is valued at £371; making its range of cost wider than the COB S lights previously mentioned. However various production kits are available with this product instead to make it more budget friendly.
For more information, this section of their presentation happens between 16:23 and 26:40 on the stream replay. And for PT series you can look at their prices on CVP here: https://cvp.com/catalogue/search/amaran+pt/manufacturer/amaran.
Aputure's new frontier
For the rest of this event, the Aputure Infinibars took centre stage. And while the MT Pro and Amaran original tube lights signalled how this company was dipping its toes into new waters with this form factor, the Infinibar bar lights showed how they were diving into these waters with the belief that they can bring something new to the table. More so like the Amaran PT lights, these come in a 1ft, 2ft and 4ft size (abbreviated as the PB3, PB6 and PB12), making them the Amaran PTs more expensive and more elusive cousin.
These lights were actually on display at the BSC Expo (which took place in the week before the livestream reveal), and in a way it was better to understand their USP up close like this. What perhaps you don't see so well in the presentation is how its diffusion cover slightly overextends the light itself on both sides, this is what Aputure allude to when referring to how the light creates an “Infinite Blending Design” with no visible gaps. To create this effect, as they show in the presentation, Aputure have created their own range of fixtures to link light together side by side and to link lights to create different shapes. While it doesn't sound too innovative the effect it creates is absolutely fantastic, as shown in the video, because it can make a light effect last for however long it needs to; whether that is in terms of longevity in time or in space, hence the word infinite in the new products title.
On the other hand the limitation to creativity has always been logistics, in the case of setups like this the question then becomes How do you power all of it? And again Aputure have been savvy abut this. One light on its own will work independently (each light in this range also has an integrated battery like the Amaran PT lights), however when linked together the lights have the capacity to share power between them as if it works like a power line connecting a house to the grid. In contradiction it isn't exactly limitless, as at the expo I was informed that these lights would share power between them but would need more powerful sources for other inifinibars you may want to add in as well. While that sounds annoying mathematically say if you need one A/C Plug per every three lights, and say you had 12, that would mean you'd only need 4 plug points to run essentially four sets of these lights. That seems good value and innovation to me. Additionally as you can control INDIVIDUAL pixels within the light itself, using their robust Sidus link system (the stats show that the PB3 alone has 24 individual pixels), there really is the scope for "unparalleled flexibility and creativity” with this brand new option from the company.
As an advancement of both the Amaran PT lights and Aputure's own MT Pro, it more than lives up to the billing. It sounds and looks great to use as an individual light, although I sense to get the full potential out of this innovation you'll need to buy into the Infinibars as well as the line of fixtures they are releasing alongside it. With that in mind, the reality things will get incredibly expensive really quick. An individual PB3 costs £265, a single PB6 will bring that up to £424 and one PB12 costs you £568. However the respective 8-light kits for the PB6 and PB12, which also include all the accessories needed to connect and power said lights as well, are retailing for £4,200 and £5,600 respectively. In this sense the individual lights could be brought by any individual filmmaker (at a stretch when you look at the PB6 and 12) whereas the production kits feel much more orientated at productions that have a higher budget in mind, but don't necessarily want to blow their lighting allocation on an ARRI Skypanel (£5,000 mark) or want a competitive alternative to a set of 8 ASPFP1 Astera Titan Tubes (£6,000 mark). For a different market therefore, it still comes in at good value.
You can look at their prices on CVP here: https://cvp.com/catalogue/search/aputure+infinibar .
Conclusion
Overall its a signification that Amaran is now the brand to look at, for filmmakers with a bit of a budget, for good value, good money buys for their lighting needs; while it doesn't entirely pidgeon-hole Aputure products into a ridiculously expensive bracket (Remember that the MC, B7c and their fresnel lights are also great lights with great value for Prosumer buyers as well) it does show that's the direction they could potentially go in; while Amaran can do its own thing and release more budget friendly alternatives to Aputure products. In fact Aputure have hinted to his, as the next launch from Amaran will be held exclusively on the Amaran YouTube channel; could that potentially mean Amaran launches products that are their own rather than cheaper alternatives?
As a prosumer that means I'll probably look more towards Amaran products to buy for permanent use, whereas I'd look at Aputure as a rental alternative for products like their Fresnal, Nova and Infinibar lines of lights. While they are undoubtedly impressive and brilliant, like I said the limitation of creativity is logic; and my bank account.
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