Today I am going to review the Aputure AL 528 W LED Light.
Why am I reviewing this light honestly because when i’m location and I run into other videographers they alway ask me, hey where did you get the light, Does it get hot, are they heavy, does it flicker, and how much does it cost? I normally have to reply in short concise singular words, Amazon, no, not really, nope, and cheap. When I do a review I like to talk about the function-ability of the product, I always say I’m self financed but I say that because I want you to understand that before I buy anything I read reviews, look at the specs and gather as much information as possible before I lay down any money because equipment is hard to purchase regularly and I understand that. Before buying these LEDs, I looked at a number of similar products. They ranged from the higher end models to the lower end models. What I was finding out is that LEDs that were more expensive were possibly a better build but offered the same light exposure while LEDs that were on the lower end tended to have less exposure and at the same time be less durable. The Apture 528 LED was perfect for me. I do a lot of on location or run and gun style shooting. I of course shoot corporate interviews with them but I have shot music videos, short films, broadcasted commercials, I have even used them for green screen application that is currently running on air. I found that the usage of these are actually limitless, well almost don’t shoot super slow motion because they do flicker with the higher frame counts.
Lets jump into it, Aputure lists these LEDs as being 9.4 inches by 7.5 inches by 1.3 inches and they weigh 1.2 pounds. They come in a black carrying case that holds of course the light with a shade, the wires and a tripod adaptor. The unit turns on with a switch and it tells you the percentage of power it’s using for the LED. That’s enough on specs any more detail you can find it out their web, war you can’t find is, dose it work. Pluses for the light is it’s extremely portable. It comes with a decent looking black bag that can hold the light and it’s tools, there is even room to put some extra stuff in there just in case you need it. Aperture gives you the option to run the LEDs off of ion batteries . Now there are other LEDs that allow you to run off one battery but with these you do need to use two batteries per light but that’s a small price to pay for the longevity. In any case I would rather have to much power then not enough. I have used it on batteries alone for up to 6 hours with no issue. You just have to make sure that the batteries are completely charged and that’s another great thing about this light it shows you the charge power you have left before it goes out. The light gives you the option of mounting either horizontal or vertical which allows you to change the shape of the light being emitted. Is it bright. Yes. When using it for a two person interview I have a three light set up and have the ability to set my camera be it the DSLR or Canon c100 at a 160 or 320 ISO respectively with a 5.6 aperture. No shadow no dark spots. . I do have 8 of them just because of the versatility and the price point make it a great investment for the mobile videographer….