These Lights Are UNBEATABLE! – amaran Halo Series

Hey, today we're talking about lights. Five lights to be precise, all from the Amaran Halo series. We've got the 60, the 100, the 200, the 300, and the 600. Now, for disclosure, if you watched any of my Amaran videos in the last year, I keep saying I'm an Amaran ambassador, they sponsor my studio shooter series, we have an ongoing financial relationship, so these are not objective reviews. This is more of a show and tell on these new lights. But the reason why I opted to do so and was excited about it is because I think that of all the lights I've covered from Amaran, all of which provide crazy value and are like really good lights we're talking about, these are the valuest of all of them. They are just stripped right down to what you need at the bare-bones cost for the bare-bones performance, and they do what they need to do really well for the most competitive pricing you're going to see for the quality of these lights. Just my utmost recommendation on a price-to-performance ratio. So if you just need lights for your studio or something, this is going to be my recommendation moving forward. We did cover the Ray series last time, which are also excellent, but they're full-color lights and they have a few extra bells and whistles. So while they offer tremendous value for their range, if you want something even cheaper and you don't need full color, you don't need the extra bells and whistles, this is going to be it, the Halo series. All right, so let's do a quick overview and

then I'll get into performance and price. So you could almost split them right down the middle of the shot here with the bigger lights and the smaller lights. The smaller lights are these like slim design ones that can be powered over USB-C power delivery, and you can see both 60 and the 100X are pretty much identical for form factor. And then the larger lights over here, which is the 200, 300, and 600, they're a bit more of your typical mono light COB design, and they're virtually identical as well. They just get longer as you increase with the output, but interface and everything are the same and functionality and features and that's all the same. But when it comes to interface, as I'll show you in a minute, it's the same across all five and it's actually been the same across the last like three, four, five series of lights from Amaran, which I really appreciate that if you're jumping from one of their portable lights to one of their bigger lights, to one from a different series, you're not going to get lost in the interface. The menus are the same, what things are called, where to find them, and so that's always convenient. And the interface on these Amaran lights are really good. And if you've been using the Amaran app either for your computer or for your phone, it's also really good. And once again, these are all going to work on that. One

note about connectivity, right beside the USB-C port for power delivery, there is one with a locking connector, and that is for this DMX dongle here, which is the same one that I talked about in the Ray video, and it provides DMX support for all five of these lights, actually. Where on the larger lights, they just use mains power, so they still have the USB port, but in this case, it's only for DMX, but it's good that all five of these lights can use DMX if that's something that you're into. I mentioned that both the 60 and 100 were the same. There is one part where they're different. On the 100, so on the 60, as I showed you, there's two USB-C ports, one for DMX, one for power delivery. On the 100, the USB-C port doubles as both power delivery or DMX. The mains power is a DC plug, and the one that comes with it is a DC barrel connection for the mains power. But if you wanted to connect it to a peak or your own battery bag, then you would use the DMX USB port. You can kind of see on it says PD/DMX. Where on the 60, they're separate. One says DMX and one says PD. Now, on the smaller

lights, the 60 and the 100, it comes with a locking quarter-20 on the bottom, which you can use with the included adapter that goes from that locking thread to, you know, your classical light stand baby pin thing on the bottom. And when connected, it looks like this. It's nice and strong. This thing is metal where it counts. But despite its compact size, the Bowens mount is very capable. In fact, you can use pretty much like the largest modifiers that Amaran provides, which they have a full suite of modifiers, by the way, from different size fresnels and octaboxes and different softboxes and stuff. You will hit a point of diminishing returns, though, like you can use modifiers larger than you should, I guess is my point. Because on a 60 W light, you probably don't want to use the 90 softbox because you're not going to fill it as well as you would on one of the bigger lights, but it will support it. I have a an Octodome 60 here to give like a little demo. This isn't a huge modifier, but by the way, these as you just saw, these Amaran modifiers are so sweet how quickly they set up. There's just this little blue tab here, you just pull on it and just pops in place. All right, so here's just a little demonstration. I've got the Octodome 60 on there on the smaller light, and if I hold the light and push on the modifier, you can see, hopefully from the tight shot there, that there's not much give or flex. It's very like it's very secure on there, and it's erect, you know? There's no sagging. And then I take it off pretty simple, press the button on the side, comes right off. Easy breezy. Now, let's

talk a little bit about the interface. Like I said, this interface has been the same over the last few series of lights, so if you've been comfortable with it, it'll be the same here. And if you're new to it, it's very intuitive and easy to use, which I like a lot. As you can see, this is just a bi-color light, so we basically just have two primary controls, one for intensity and one for color. If I can offer a bit of criticism, though, and I already told this to Amaran, my muscle memory wants me to use the top knob for brightness, but that always switches it over to color temperature, which by the way can range from 2,700 up to 6,500. But the bottom knob is intensity. Both the knobs are nice, they they're precise down to single percentages. If we press the back button, then it brings us into the menu, and then we have effects, uh Bluetooth for connecting to the app, studio mode, which I like, in case you don't know what that is, on and off means that whether or not power when you resume power to the light, whether it turns on or not. So, one mode allows it where you can plug the light in and nothing happens until you turn it on. Another mode allows it where as soon as you plug it in, it resumes where left off. This is advantageous if you want to do a studio setup like mine where you just sort of flick on a master switch and then all your lights turn back on without needing to go and turn them on independently. I like having the two options there. Language settings, DMX like we talked about for that adapter, and then I think fan mode is the last one, right? Yeah, and then version I've

said. So, for fan mode, smart and silent. We do want to talk about fan noise because all five of these lights are probably the quietest lights I've heard in each of their respective powers and classes. Just you know what? Why don't we do it right now? I'm going to So, right now it's on smart. First, I want to show you the silent mode and then we'll make the fan make as much noise as it makes. What I like about silent mode is when you switch to it, now when you turn up the intensity, it will stop, as you can see it won't go any higher, than the brightest mode that it can be at while still being silent. This is preferred over the older method that other lights used to use where they would have two separate scales, the regular scale and the silent scale. Both could go to 100% but 100% on silent might only equate to 10% of regular power. On this one, there's no equating. It's just 15%. So, your silent mode is 15%. If you took turned off silent mode and you set it 15%, it would still be the same but now you can go all the way up to 100 without silent mode. Just it's more intuitive and I prefer it this way. So, if we go back and then go back to the fan mode again and set it to smart. Smart will just only run the fan when it needs to and at whatever speed it needs to. But now if we jack the power all the way up to 100% and we'll wait until the fan starts spinning, then I'll let you hear what it sounds like. It is crazy quiet. But this is a baseline without the fan running. But while we're waiting for that light

to warm up, let's talk a little bit about power delivery because both the 60 and the 100 support USB-C power delivery and it's the more intuitive method. Some other lights in the past would have it be as a 100 W power delivery light but you need 140 W power delivery. It's because the output is 100 W but the input is 140 and then you plug in your 100 W thing and it says insufficient power. The 100 W light takes 100 W power delivery. The 60 W light takes I think 63 W or whatever, so it's the 65 watt. Like the those are the standards, right? Uh but we can test it. So, here I've got the Amaran Peak, which on their other lights you can use the Ace Lock to actually deliver power. In this case, though, uh I would just use the USB-C cord. And of course, if you don't want to get the Amaran Peak, you can just use whatever USB brick that you want. In the bag, it also comes with its own sort of mains power USB-C option. So, you have the typical part that plugs into the wall, which I would suggest is around 6 ft or 2 m based on my wingspan there. And then the other part, which is longer than that. Like, I don't know. What are we looking at here? Maybe 8 ft or something. Should probably measure that. But on this end of it, it's a right-angled USB-C connector, so you can just plug that in there and then plug it into the wall. But with this approach, you can use, you know, battery power in a sense. Uh which is cool if you want to go mobile with it. And if we turn this light on and we set it to 100%, the Peak is reading 65 watts. Okay, this has been running for a little while at 100%. I

can hear the fan because my ear is right here. If I give you just a little bit of silence, and then I'll bring the fan closer. And they're all like that. They're all just like the quietest I've heard. I think they have them rated for like under 28 dBA or something, which in many cases is going to be below the room noise. So, it's one of the first lights that I probably wouldn't even really worry about the silent mode most of the time. Over on the bigger lights, it's pretty much identical. You press the back button, you go in the interface, got CCT, effects, Bluetooth, studio mode, language, DMX, fan. And as you can see, the fan modes are the same. And I believe the range is the same. This one goes up to 6500 and down to 2700. Now, on the full-color lights, you're going to get an extended range that you can do more because you're using the colors to expand the CCT. But because these are just pure bi-color lights, you're going to get your more sort of constrained, but accurate. Let's jack the light all the way up to 100%. As you can see, it is certainly bright. It basically just erased one whole half of the frame. Uh but we'll let that run, and then you can uh hear the fan on that one. Okay, so the fan is running at its loudest that I've heard anyway, and I can hear it, and I do think it's a bit louder than the other light, or maybe just moving more air. Uh but it's still extremely quiet for a 600 W light at 100% power. I'll stop talking so you can hear it. And for reference, the fan is right here, and the microphone is right here. Like that's I don't know. Like 60 cm away? 2 ft? It's not even So, you're not going to have a light that close, and this is what it sounds like. Now, I did want to point out one

quirk, which I think is actually uh a feature that is backfiring a little bit, but it's pretty minor. Just try to follow me here. So, on the larger lights, when I put them in a silent mode, because they don't have USB-C power delivery, they just put a tiny little symbol up in the top there that shows you that it's in silent mode. And then again, it's restricted as to how bright you can make it. But on the 100x, I think because it does both power delivery and non, that when you put it in a silent mode, it gives you a warning on the screen that says the power source that you're providing is limited to 15%, and I think that error message is incorrect. based on if you give it insufficient power delivery. Because for example, if I plug it into a 65 W power delivery source, which I have right here, the screen will say, "We can only power it up to 65% because of the power that you're supplying. " But when you put it in silent mode, I think it's pulling from the same error message, and it's saying, "Your power is limited to 15%. " Not because of silent mode, but because the power you provided, when the power didn't change. I'm still on mains power. So, isn't that just like a messaging thing that Aputure needs to fix in the firmware. But, if you see it, don't panic. Your power supply is still fine. It's just it's in silent mode. But, the cool part that I'm also trying to say is a good job thing is that you can plug in a 65 W power supply to the 100, and it'll just say, "Hey, you're only giving it 65 W, but you know, here's 65% of the output then. Have fun. " And I think that's cool, and I like the versatility there. But, maybe Aputure can just fix that messaging thing for when you're in silent mode.

Something else worth pointing out are the umbrella holders here. Now, this is the adapter that comes with the 60 and the 100X, which again is well-made, but has an umbrella holder. But, you also get them on the larger lights, as you can see on the 600X here, and the 200 and 300 have it. And the mount on the larger lights is nice as well. This is all metal here, feels really solid. And apparently, you can use it as a handle. They shaped the bottom of the mount in this way, so you can actually use it as a handle. So, you can put it between your fingers, and if you need to sort of carry the light under slung like that, it's actually quite comfortable to carry. I wouldn't have thought of that on my own, but I asked Aputure, I was like, "Why is the shape like that? " Like, "It's a handle. " Then I tried it, I was like, "Oh, yeah. That actually it's quite nice. " But, it's well-made. It feels really, really strong, and there's a button here that you can press to reposition the handle, you know, ratcheting it or whatever. Umbrella holder. Just it's well-built for what it is. It's very, very simple, but it's well-built. The chassis on the outside there is metal. It feels strong. It it's really well-made for the price, which I'm about to get to, which I think is going to surprise you. Oh, and I forgot to

mention the power cord for the larger lights. As you can see here on the 600, just a single right-angled AC cable that runs from the light to the wall. Power supply's built in here. One light, one cord. Easy. And it is 5 m, 16. 4 ft. Which I'm able to actually validate. Remember earlier when I said, "Ah, it's about 2 m on the one segment, 8 ft. " Yeah, so it is. So, on the two-piece cable for the smaller lights, it is 2 m or 6 and 1/2 ft, and then the other part is 2 and 1/2 m or 8. 2 ft. So, my little wingspan measurement thing was actually pretty decent. Okay, now let's talk about performance and price.

So, Amaran usually sends me the photometric ahead of time and then I take my C800, which is hidden behind the light right there, and I validate all of them and I'm usually within like one of what they say if not the same. So, let's do output at 1 m bare bulb. Now, I know there was some questions in the previous video because beam angle changes from series to series. I think the beam angle in these ones is a little bit wider than on the Ray series. So, you won't be able to do exact apples to apples unless you were to fill it with a modifier, but Amaran does provide so you can go to the website if you want to see like with their light dome or with the reflector and stuff like that if you want to see, but just for comparison's sake, this is an 85° beam angle, I believe. So, a little bit tighter than old generation lights, but a little bit wider than the last series of Ray. Uh but they fill their modifiers really well is the point of it. So, on the 60, the smallest light, you're going to have about 3,200 lux at 1 m bare. On the 100, 4,900 200, it's 10,500. Then 16,000, then 32,000. So, kind of makes sense that it goes up in a sort of linear way with the output. And all these numbers are very good for what you should expect here. I don't want to do apples to apples comparisons because again, it can be disingenuous based on the beam angle. So, I don't want to say, "Oh, this 300 is 35% brighter than the last one. " You're like, "Well, the beam angle changed. " Let's just say this. These lights are more efficient and more powerful as they tend to get with newer generations. So, you will be getting more lux per watt per dollar than you would have on previous lights beam angle factored in or not. It's just it's they're just more efficient, which is good. And then when it comes to color quality, SSI, which is how close is a match a known source like tungsten or the sun, uh they're pretty much the same across the board. So, 84 when it comes to tungsten and 74 when it comes to daylight. That means that these are not part of the new era of like we've perfected the indigo and you know the fluorescence to make it look just like sunlight and our SSI is much higher. These are not those. These are just good quality standard SSI lights, but they hit the upper end of what you would expect from not specifically optimizing for SSI, if that makes sense. They're just trying to make a good quality light with a regular chip at a really good price. And if you want more in-depth photometrics, again, I really recommend checking out these products on Amaran's website because they provide like a crazy amount of detail and I validated them all. They're all really accurate. But we're getting CRIs at 96 plus, TLCIs of 97 plus, TM30s of 102. They're very color accurate, so that's good. But let's move

on to price because I think that's what tells the whole story here. So, we'll start with the smallest and work our way up. So, the 60 starts at 119 US dollars. The 100 is 169, so only $50 more for again a really good, nice, compact power delivery capable light with DMX. The 200 though is 249. So, it's only $80 more and only really twice the price of the 60. But the 300 is 299. So, now it's like a dollar a watt, which I don't think I've really ever seen before in lights like this. $299 for the 300 watt light. And then the 600 watt light is only 469. Can you think of another like metal, well-built, well-featured, DMX, app, all that stuff 600 watt light for $469? Like that is crazy. And I know there's a lot of people out there that are either using lights for their studio or their podcast, and they just want a good quality bi-color light that, you know, is well-made, easy to set up, and that isn't going to break the bank. And that's these lights. And because they're on the same, you know, now with this sort of Amaran ecosystem they've built, you can mix and match them well with the Ray series and you can use the same modifiers and you can they've got their portable lights and everything. It's a really fleshed out system now, but I think the part that they were missing was that bare-bones, great value solid bi-color light at a really good price. And now we have them and we have them all the way from 60 watts up to 600 watts. So, good job, Amaran. This is a pretty exciting launch. Thanks everyone for watching this video. I hope it was helpful. I think that's all I have to say about these lights for now. I'll catch you in the next one. All right. That's quite nice.