350: Aputure Storm 1200x: A First Look and Comparison

Meet The Gaffer #350. An exploration of the 1200x from Aputure, a tunable white unit that incorporates the new BLAIR light engine. My first look reviews are somewhat from the hip, in much the same way when you bring a new unit on set. You have some idea of how it will perform, but you're not sure, so you plug it in, turn it on, and see what happens. I don't spend weeks with a unit before I turn the camera on to talk about it. I take it out of the box and see what it does. Sometimes I have to reshoot, but my goal is to give you my initial reactions, just like you would if you were pulling the unit out for the first time. If this sounds like an excuse, you're right! I only have so much time before I have to be on set again. LOL. And that's why I prefer to use units on set for a while before talking about them. I would rather talk about fixtures that have some road miles on them, but that's not always possible when you receive a unit a week before it debuts to the public or if you receive the unit with plenty of time but have few shoots in which that fixture could work well. Plus I don't want to over-hype a unit I haven't spent much time with in the field. I realise these are first world problems, but I did want to write down why my first look reviews are not very slick. www.seerveld.com or meetthegaffer.com or sanfranciscogaffer.com for more Chapters: 0:00 Intro 1:00 Test Set up 3:11 Daylight + 2X diffusion 4:38 BLAIR light engine 5:56 1200D 6:09 1200Bi 6:50 1200B 7:54 1200x intro 8:32 Constant vs Max 8:59 Quick Comparison 10:06 CIE and Blackbody 11:08 Max and CIE 12:18 Constant and Blackbody 13:14 Conclusions re color settings 13:53 Head lead connector and final notes 14:46 Post Roll - 1200x in the field