I"ve been lighting my videos for the last several weeks with the Aputure LS1s LED panel and must say that I'm really liking it! I've ordered two more which are supposed to arrive tomorrow. Can't wait to put them all to use as a kit.
There are a few things I've learned about them that I wanted to clarify since I made the review video.
First, in the video, I said that the yoke can get in the way when aiming the panel down with its barn doors. It turns out I overlooked the fact that you can mount the panel from its yoke two different ways. I had mounted it the traditional way, but there are also two holes in the side of the yoke which allow you to mount it to a light stand like this, with full up and down range:
Secondly, while this panel has barn doors, they don't really cut the light like you may be accustomed when using a fresnel or other hard light source. LED by nature are softer than fresnel lights. Also, the fact that they covered the inner part of the barn doors with a silver coating sort of just reflects the light. You can use the barn doors to roughly prevent too much spill in any of the four directions, but you certainly won't get a hard line. For me, this is not a problem when I'm using this as a key or a flood where I want lots of soft light. However, you'll need to look elsewhere if you're trying to really sculpt the light for a backdrop or some other sort of dramatic lighting effect.
And thirdly, for reasons beyond my knowledge, either Aputure or their resellers have increased the price from $599 USD to $695 USD. Is that a show-stopper? Only you can decide that for yourself. I went ahead with the purchase of two because I really find them useful and convenient with fantastic color rendering.
I stand by my earlier assessment that this is the first LED panel that I genuinely like!
