In the world of filmmaking, lighting is a critical aspect that can make or break a scene. While there have been numerous advancements in lighting technology, LED lights are becoming the go-to choice for filmmakers due to their efficiency, color accuracy, and versatility. Aputure, a leading name in the film lighting industry, has taken this a step further by introducing a groundbreaking LED light engine called BLAIR, part of their new line of lights known as Storm. For those unfamiliar with film lighting, let’s break down what BLAIR is and why it’s a game changer for filmmakers while diving deeper into Aputure’s new Storm LED lighting series.
(This video from Aputure is great, but it’s easy to get lost in the tech talk)
(This video is ~hopefully~ a bit easier to understand)
What is the BLAIR Light Engine?
At its core, the BLAIR Light Engine is Aputure’s attempt to revolutionize how LED lights function by closely mimicking the natural qualities of real sunlight or traditional incandescent light bulbs. Most LED lights have historically focused on brightness, but Aputure’s team wanted to go further, especially after acquiring former competitor Prolyct in 2023. They aimed to create a tunable white light engine that not only produces high output but also renders scenes in a way that looks as true to life as possible.
Much of our digital LED world is made up of RGB (Red Green Blue) pixels, the primary additive colors that combine to make white. LED film lights draw from the same concept, traditionally using Red, Green, Blue, and White color diodes to faithfully recreate all the colors of the rainbow. While RGBWW (Red, Green, Blue, Warm White, Cool White) was the industry standard for several years, RGBACL (Red, Green, Blue, Amber, Cyan, Lime) began making waves for its deep color accuracy. BLAIR is a play on these popular acronyms, standing for Blue, Lime, Amber, Indigo, and Red. Later in this article, we’ll dive deeper into how Aputure chose these 5 diodes.
Why Does Natural Light Matter?
One of the key challenges in LED lighting for film is that traditional LED lights can sometimes fail to capture the subtleties of natural light. A scene might be well-lit but still look “off” to the human eye. This can often be due to the LED lights lacking certain wavelengths present in natural light. For example, the presence of near-UV and indigo wavelengths plays a crucial role in how everyday objects reflect light and how the human eye perceives them.
To illustrate this concept, Aputure’s video presents a comparison between two pieces of cloth—one washed with plain water and the other with detergent—under a standard bicolor LED light and natural daylight. Under LED light, both look similar, but under real daylight, the piece washed with detergent looks much brighter and whiter due to the optical brighteners in the detergent. These brighteners convert black light wavelengths (which are hard to see) into visible blue light, making the fabric appear more vibrant. This phenomenon demonstrates how natural light, with its full spectrum of wavelengths, can affect the appearance of objects. Traditional LEDs often lack some of these key wavelengths, leading to less vibrant images on screen.
How Does BLAIR Solve This Problem?
To address this, Aputure’s BLAIR Light Engine includes Indigo emitters in the LED chipset, which are specifically designed to replicate those hard-to-see wavelengths that make natural light appear so rich. By incorporating these wavelengths, the BLAIR engine ensures that the light it emits is closer to true sunlight, helping to preserve the natural color of objects and skin tones in scenes. This is critical for filmmakers who want to achieve realistic color reproduction, especially when shooting outdoor scenes or scenes where natural lighting plays a big role
Enhanced Color Accuracy
Another standout feature of the BLAIR Light Engine is its significantly improved SSI (Spectral Similarity Index) values. SSI is a metric that measures how closely an artificial light source matches natural daylight or tungsten light. Compared to other popular metrics, SSI is one of the most in-depth and important ways to measure the true accuracy of light on camera and to the human eye. With an SSI score of 87, this is a huge testament to the improvement of the BLAIR chipset as compared to previous LED fixtures like the 1200d having a score of 73.
In the video demonstration, models were photographed using different lights, including daylight, a typical bicolor LED, and the BLAIR-powered Aputure 1200x Storm light. Despite the similar overall output, the models’ appearance under the BLAIR-powered light engine was much more true to life compared to the other lights.
Black Body vs. Daylight
Light quality isn’t just about brightness or color—it’s also about white light balance. The sun, for instance, is what’s known as a black body emitter, meaning its color temperature follows a certain predictable pattern as it moves through the atmosphere. However, sunlight isn’t perfectly white. As it passes through Earth’s atmosphere, it tends to take on a slightly green tint. Cameras expect either “black body” or “daylight” light standards, and different lighting technologies might lean more towards one or the other.
The BLAIR Light Engine gives filmmakers the option to choose between these two standards, ensuring they can match natural daylight light or other existing light fixtures in the scene with precision.
Precision Control Over Green-Magenta Shift
Aputure also integrated advanced control over the green-magenta shift into the BLAIR engine. This trend has become increasingly popular because many bi-color lights tend to shift green or magenta over time. It’s less likely for the BLAIR blended chipset to have this problem, but it is great to have finely tunable +/-1G in 1% increments to help match other sources.
Aputure went with a Lime diode instead of a true technical green when building the BLAIR chip. This allows for higher light level output and increased efficiency, while still allowing for great green shift.
Dimming Capabilities Without Color Loss
Another major feature of the BLAIR Light Engine is its dimming capability. Traditional LED lights often struggle to maintain color accuracy at very low brightness levels. However, Aputure’s BLAIR Light Engine can dim to incredibly low levels—up to eight times lower than other lights of similar maximum brightness—while still maintaining its color quality. This is particularly useful in scenes where subtle lighting adjustments are crucial. This is another benefit of all five chips working together to create white light, instead of partial, selective diodes.
Why “Storm”
Aputure’s Light Storm, Storm, and ElectroStorm series each represent different tiers of professional lighting solutions, with distinct features catering to various filmmaking needs. Here’s a breakdown of how they differ:
1. Light Storm Series
Overview: Aputure’s Light Storm series is its well-established line of LED lights, known for delivering high-quality, affordable lighting solutions to filmmakers and creators. These lights are versatile, reliable, and often used on sets ranging from small-scale productions to more serious filmmaking.
– Key Features:
– Focuses on high-quality LED output at affordable prices.
– Popular lights include the 120d, the 300d and x, the 1200d, as well as the 600d, x, and c mk1 and 2.
– Excellent balance between power, portability, and versatility.
– Bowens mount compatibility, making it easy to use various light modifiers.
– App control with Sidus Link for remote operation.
Best For: Independent filmmakers, videographers, and content creators looking for professional lighting on a budget.
- Storm Series
Overview: The Storm series, piloted by the 1200x Storm, takes things up a notch. These lights are designed for more demanding productions where precise light quality and control are paramount. The Storm series introduces advanced lighting engines like BLAIR, which brings superior color accuracy and tunability. The main differentiating feature of the Storm LED Chip is the inclusion of the Indigo diode that can faithfully reproduce black body light and traditional sources.
– Key Features:
– BLAIR Light Engine in newer models, which replicates natural light with superior accuracy.
– Higher output than the Light Storm series, aimed at bigger production setups.
– Advanced green-magenta shift control and dimming capabilities without sacrificing color quality.
– Superior Spectral Similarity Index (SSI) scores, ensuring accurate reproduction of natural light.
– Features advanced emitters like indigo diodes to capture a full light spectrum, including wavelengths often missed by other lights.
– Prolock Locking Bowens Mount, a more secure mounting system taken from the Prolyct 675.
– Rigid build quality.
Best For: Owner/operators, production studios, and rental houses working on large-scale productions, commercial shoots, and environments needing powerful, accurate lighting.
- ElectroStorm Series
Overview: The ElectroStorm series represents Aputure’s new flagship high-end lighting solutions, designed for big-budget productions. These lights push the limits of LED technology, featuring top-tier power and cutting-edge spectral performance. They are designed for filmmakers who need absolute precision and reliability on large-scale film sets.
– Key Features:
– Highest output power in Aputure’s range.
– Currently occupied by the CS15 and XT26
– Designed for high-end productions that require extreme lighting control and power.
– Universal Bowens and Electronic Aputure Mount allowing advanced modifier control like in the F14 Fresnel
– Best used with generators, difficult to operate off household outlets.
Best For: Hollywood-level productions, big-budget films, and projects where maximum output and light fidelity are essential.
More info on the Storm 1200x
In addition to the groundbreaking BLAIR light engine, the Aputure 1200x Storm comes packed with several other features that make it a standout tool for filmmakers:
– Massive Light Output: The 1200x is designed for high-output lighting, making it suitable for large-scale productions.
-Tunable White Light: CCT Range 2,500K to 10,000K. Supremely accurate color reproduction.
– Precise Green-Magenta Adjustment: +/-1G. Full ASC MITC range of adjustment.
– XY Control for precise color matching
– Advanced Dimming: As mentioned earlier, the light can dim to extremely low levels while maintaining color accuracy, which is a significant technical achievement.
– Durable Design: The Storm series lights are built to withstand the demands of professional film sets.
– Prolock Locking Bowens Mount for additional accessory stability.
– IP 65 Weather Protection
– Every Control Option on the Market: Sidus Mesh, DMX, CRMX, Art-Net, sACN.
– New accessories coming soon including Compact Fresnel (similar to one previously produced for the Prolyct 675) and a Skid that will be shipping with the fresnel.
– Includes a 45-degree Hyper Reflector. A separate Reflector kit is available, including 15-degree and 30-degree hyper reflectors in a padded carrying case.
Aputure’s BLAIR Light Engine represents a significant leap forward in LED lighting technology, providing filmmakers with the ability to more closely mimic the natural light qualities of daylight and incandescent bulbs.