We’re starting
a new series today featuring
this beast right here, and I want your help
coming up with a name for it– the series, not the light.
The light already has a name, it’s the 300d II.
Let’s get Undone! [offbeat music] ♪ Gerald Undone ♪ ♪ He’s crazy ♪ What’s happening, everybody?
I’m Gerald Undone and I have a beginning
and a middle, but no– So, every once in a while,
I’ll be making a review for a product
that starts to take on a more conventional
structure when I realize that all I really
want to do is geek out about the build quality
or some particularly clever set of features, rather
than make a typical review, and that’s exactly
what I want to do with this light here.
I already know that there’s going to be
several, well-explained reviews covering this light, in fact,
Curtis Judd already uploaded one that covers
the specs and technical aspects of this light beautifully
that I highly recommend you go watch.
So instead,
let this be the first video in a series where
we focus on the craftsmanship, but I do need your help coming
up the name for the series, so please put your suggestions
in the comments below. I was thinking
something along the lines of “Really Well Made”,
as in, like, “Really Well Made: Part 1,
the Aputure 300d Mark II”, but replace “Really Well Made”
with something catchy that might potentially work
as an acronym or initialism.
Just so you’re aware,
this series will not contain sponsored videos
and that also goes for the Aputure
300d Mark II, this is not a sponsored video.
I just really love this light. Anyway, while you
work on that title for me, I’m going to switch out
this light with the one that’s currently lighting me, which is
the Aputure 120d Mark II, so we can see what
the 300d Mark II looks like on the face. Here, watch
this montage while I do that. [bombastic techno music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Okay, so here’s what
it looks like. I’ve got it in
the exact same position that the 120d II was, which is about 1.5 meters
or 5 feet away. Same modifier,
the Light Dome II, and I’ve adjusted
the power settings to match the output from
the previous light in Lux. Can you spot
much of a difference in the side-by-side
comparison? I feel like the 300d Mark II
can accomplish the same look
as the 120d Mark II and produces an equally nice
and accurate light, but with a much higher
power ceiling if you need it.
Now, I did measure
a slight change in temperature between the two
lights with the 300d being about
300-400K warmer than the 120d II,
but this isn’t a huge deal and I found it still pretty easy
to mix the lights together even if you don’t
change the white balance, which you saw on
the side-by-side comparison. Those are with the same white
balance for the two lights, so you can see that they’re
not really that different in terms of temperature
and it’s easy to mix these lights together.
But, I want to expand a bit on the 300d II’s ability
to become a 120d II. Because that’s one
of the features about this light that I think is worthy
of the praise that I referred to
in the beginning of this video.
So, the control box
has two battery slots, one red and one black, and
if you put both batteries in, it acts just like
it would on mains power, and is a fully
powered 300d II, but if you only put one
battery in and you put it in the black V-mount slot,
nothing happens. But, if you put one battery
in the red V-mount slot, it still turns on
the light but at half the power, basically
creating a 120d II. This adds so much
flexibility to this light and makes it much easier
to calculate your run-times when you’re pairing it
with an actual 120d II, because you have similar
battery life expectations if you only run
one battery on the 300, and one battery
on the 120d.
Plus, it makes it
for a leaner build and load if you’re only going
to be using the 300d up to the 120d’s capabilities,
you don’t have to strap two batteries on
and drain both of them if you’re not going to be
needing that extra 50% power that you would get
out of the 300d. And so, I measured the
different output combinations just to make sure
you actually were getting a 120d II, and you are.
If you do the 120d II at the 1.5 meters or 5 feet
away with no Light Dome, but just the reflector
that came with it on, you get about 2800 lux
and if you do 300d II with a single battery
at 100% power at the same distance,
I got 2795 lux. So, it’s pretty much
exactly the same which is also
very similar to putting both batteries in the 300d and running it only
at 50% power linear.
But, there is a caveat
to this and it depends on which reflector you use.
For this test, I used the same
reflector that came with the 120d II
on both lights, because if you
use the new reflector that comes with the 300d,
you actually get quite a bit more output
and we’ll talk about that a bit more when
we talk about the new reflector.
But the gist of it
is that it’s great that you can just put one
battery in it rather than two and then turning it down,
and with the one battery you get a 120d II,
so you get both lights in one. Now, just a second ago
I said 50% power linear, and that’s because
on the 300d II, you can actually
adjust the curve shape of the dimmer response,
which is a fantastic feature and something that
I’ve complained about a lot on previous lights. Other
lights can be unpredictable in this regard,
because maybe you’re adjusting the dimmer up and the first
80% seems to do very little, but then the last 20%
really increases the power of the light.
Well, on the 300d II, you can actually
customize that curve and choose between
an exponential curve, an S curve,
a log curve or a linear one, which is fantastic
when you want each percentage to scale evenly and represent an equal 1% of output as you work your way up
from 0 to 100.
Now, also in that menu,
you can change the fans to two different settings,
either Forced On, so that they’re always
running, or Auto, so they only run
when necessary based on
the temperature of the light. I found that
at lower power percentages, the fans
never really come on and even if you force the fans
on, it’s still very quiet, and the unit as a whole
is a lot more quiet than the previous edition, because the control box
is now completely silent.
But, here’s a little
sample of the audio with the fans
forced on and, again, the microphone
is about 1.5 meters away from the light and
this is what it sounds like with the fans on full-blast. [negligent humming] That control box, by the way,
is brilliantly designed and not just
because of the balanced left and right battery slots,
but the distribution of the weight, the shape and
the size for better gripping, and this terrific
paracord-esque lanyard, but you don’t need to
hang it from the lanyard because it also
has a shoe on the back that allows you
to quick clip it to the included super clamp
that attaches to your stand. This keeps it from
dangling and allows you much more precise
height adjustments when it comes
to cable management, and both of the included
cords are pretty long as well. The one that goes from
the control box to the light will allow you to get this,
at least, 4 meters or 13 feet in the air if you attach
the control box to the stand in a position
that supports that, and the cable that runs
from the control box to the wall outlet is about 6
meters or nearly 20 feet long, and uses a Neutrik connector
for safe and secure attachment.
The control box also has
four metal bars on the side which can be used as feet
when placing the unit on the floor or a shelf,
which keep it stable while still providing
access to the interface. And speaking of that interface,
the controls are laid out intuitively and carry the same
channel and group settings from before, which means
you can use your old remotes when you set it to
the 2.4 G wireless mode, but now it also
supports Bluetooth, so you can connect this
to the upcoming SidusLink app, which will allow you to control
this light with your phone. But where Aputure
nailed it again is by providing a solution for their
previous lights as well. You’ll be able to get
an accessory for all of your old lights to get them up and running
on the same app. I’ll cover
the app in more detail once I get that accessory
for the older lights and once Android support
is available for the app, but this is another
brilliant move by Aputure to not exclude customers
who bought your previous lights.
Stuff like that makes it
so much easier to recommend and invest in
a company’s products. The 300d II also has
a series of lighting effects that can have their intensity
and interval adjusted, as well as the ability
to trigger some of them with the push of a button.
Overall, this is easily the best control box
I’ve ever seen for a light and it’s definitely
deserving of praise. Moving on to the light itself,
it’s a thing of beauty. The prominent red accents and the immaculate
honeycomb grill punched from a solid
aluminum chassis, and the perfectly rounded
edges near the rear handle make this the best-looking
light in Aputure’s lineup. The yoke is much stronger
with an easy to use brake that has no issues
supporting the Light Dome II, and the Bowens mount
release lever has a smooth action
and a satisfying click.
As I was saying earlier,
the light comes with a reflector which will actually
improve your output more than the previous editions due
to a new incremental grid design that is very
pleasing to the eyes and captivating to look at,
and teetering on an optical illusion.
And, it’s a lot more rugged than some of
the competitors foil reflectors that tend to crumble
under any side pressure. Now, if you
remember a moment ago, I said that both the 120d II
and the 300d II, with just a single battery,
got to about 2800 lux when using
the 120d II’s reflector, but if you switch
that reflector out to the new
300d II’s reflector, that power pretty much
doubles up to about 5500 Lux on either light, and
that improvement is even more dramatic when you put the second
battery in the 300d II and push this light
to its full potential.
This new reflector design
actually has a rather impressive impact
on the total output, and that reflector, as well as
the other components, come safely packaged
in a carrying case that’s not only pleasing
to look at and touch, thanks to
high quality fabrics, and great colour coordination,
but it’s incredibly robust. You might have
seen my Instagram story where I was able to
stand end-to-end on this thing without any issue
and I’m well over 200 lbs or over 90 kg, so this
can easily double as a stool or even
a table base on set.
If you didn’t see
my story on Instagram, that means you
probably aren’t following me and you should
fix that immediately. Alright, so I think those
are all the features that I wanted
to gush about, but obviously I’m going
to have to address the fact that while this is easily
Aputure’s best light to date, it’s also
their most expensive, but I wouldn’t let
the price dissuade you. You’re getting top
quality here and in many ways, better quality than
some of the industry standards that can cost up
to three times as much. Aputure is still
a terrific value brand and so when a product
of theirs reaches $1,100, you know you must be
getting something special, and you definitely are,
with a 300d II, and now that Aputure
has proven their longevity, and now legacy
support with this new app, I have no issues recommending
this light to anyone that has
the budget for it.
But that’s gonna be it for me.
I hope you found this video helpful or at least entertaining
and if you did make sure you leave it
the old thumbs up and consider subscribing
if you haven’t already, but if you did not find this
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the dislike button twice. Alright…I’m done!.
