[Music] Now those of you that have been to the channel before know that I like to use a spotlight or ellipsoidal to put these patterns on the back wall, and in this case we're going to talk about the new Amaran Spotlight SE- a very quick review. Let me just talk about what this is first of all: it's a focusable lens that you can put on a Bowens mount LED light, and in this case it works up to the 300 watt COB LEDs from Aputure or Amaran. It is much, much smaller than the original Spotlight Mount, it's a lot lighter weight, so it's easier to pack around if you need to do that, and it has available either a 36 degree lens- which is what we're using here- and a 19 degree lens, and again, you can focus or defocus, intentionally, either a big circle of light, or, in our case, we put a gobo in- gobo stands for "go between"- and it is a little piece of metal, circular piece of metal like this, it goes in a little holder, you stick it into the light, and you can create a very distinct shadow or pattern of light on the wall, and you can either focus it or defocus it. Here we're defocusing it because we just want to create an ambiance, and that's what these allow us to do. We had a video previously that we'll link down in the description, or you can find it up here in the corner, where we talk about how we use this light for creating an interesting different look, and I love using these things.

For most people I would probably recommend the 36 degree lens unless you're working in a really, really large space. So here, for example, the Spotlight SE, and it's actually using the Amaran 300c, so a 300 watt full-color RGBWW light, and it is about 3 meters from the wall, so just to give you a sense, if you're going to use the 19 degree beam and you wanted to fill a space like this, you'd have to be quite a bit farther back. So the 19 degree, I guess I would consider that for either putting a much smaller circle of light somewhere, or for using at greater distance, so just something to keep in mind there. Again, as I mentioned, it works on all Bowens mount LED lights, so it works with all these lights that we list here, again up to 300 watts, which makes it really nice.

So it comes with one lens, so you either choose a kit with a 19 degree or 36 degree lens- again, for most people, unless you're working in a very large space or just want a very small circle of light, I'd recommend the 36 degree lens; you can buy the other lens as well. And then it comes with a gobo holder, it comes with 15 different gobos, and they're actually fairly useful- the Aputure logo as well, probably won't use that one a whole lot, love you Aputure, but probably won't use that one a lot- but lots of interesting patterns, especially again in my case where I generally like to defocus them, so I'm really looking for texture, is my general approach here, but if you wanted to really focus it in, you can do that as well. I think the Venetian blinds one can be useful, that can be helpful for interview situations, been used a lot, but it makes it look like light is coming in through a window, gives a nice ambiance.

Now there is also an iris, and what the iris allows you to do is it's essentially like an aperture on a camera, so you can change the circle of light- it focuses pretty nicely. There is a little bit of chromatic aberration around the edge, you'll notice here at least with the 300c- I don't see that as particularly problematic, but thought you should know in case that was important to you. Note, this does not come with a kit, this is a purchase that you make separately, it's $45 US at the time of this review.

All right, it does take any standard M-size gobo, that's a 66mm gobo, so it's a little bit different than the original Aputure Spotlight Mount, which was the larger size. These are available- you can get these about $16 each, Rosco makes a bunch of them as well as some other companies, so that's all good. The construction of the spotlight is all metal, and I assume glass for the lenses- these are precision lenses. It does have also four cutters in it, so this allows you to cut very distinct lines if you want to do that, as well as, as I mentioned before, you can focus it or defocus it if you want to create soft edges to things, or if you want really hard edges, and that applies to both the gobos and if you're just doing a circle of light.

This thing is much smaller and much lighter than traditional ellipsoidal lenses, so that makes it really useful, and that's why it's being sold under the Amaran line as opposed to the Aputure line- so this is really made for creators as opposed to professional lighting gaffers and designers and things of that nature. So pricing-wise, it comes in at $335 US with the kit, with the 15 gobos plus one of the lenses; you can buy the iris for $45 US, and then you can buy a secondary lens for between $149 and $159- if you're going to buy the 19 degree lens on its own it's $159, if you're going to buy the 36 degree lens on its own it's $149.

So any cons to this system? Well, if we're going to be really super nitpicky, first of all, it uses the M-size 66mm gobos- all of the gobos that I've bought before are the 86mm, so I can't use those in here, so I'll be investing in a new set of gobos, but again, delighted with the much smaller size and lighter weight- whereas before, with the Spotlight Mount, you had to put it on, it had its own yoke, so you would mount that to the stand and then attach the light to it- in this case it's light enough that you can attach it just directly to the light's Bowens mount, so that's a really nice feature here. Next con: there is no gel holder on the front of the Spotlight SE- now the original Spotlight had one, and most traditional ellipsoidal lights have those, however, I think the use case here is really for using this within an RGB light like the Amaran 300c or the 150c like we're doing here, so I don't necessarily see that as a big problem, but just something you should know. And then finally, the cutters in the Spotlight SE are a little bit fiddly- they work, they get the job done, but you may have to fiddle with them a little bit, just to address these sort of issues where light leaks out below them, so you just have to kind of move it around until you get it so it makes a nice, clean cut. This is also not unique to the Spotlight SE, I've seen this on others as well, it's kind of a trade-off between getting enough- like, enough area for you to move the cutter around, and then in some cases if you do move it around enough you end up with these spots where light leaks through a little bit, so they work, just a little fiddly.

Of course, we can do fun stuff as well- we could maybe, for example, do a little party color light chase type thing if you wanted to do that. As this video goes live through Black Friday, this is 2023, there is a sale over at the Aputure site, so if you are interested in this you can get it for even less, $285 for the kit, which is an amazing price- it lasts through the 30th of November, so if this is of interest to you, check that out, we've got a link down below to take you over there. Also that sale is for lots of Aputure and Amaran products, so if you were kind of waiting to buy, now is a pretty good time to do that. Hope that was helpful for you, if you have any questions go ahead and leave those down below, if you have not already subscribed make sure you do that, and we'll be sure to get you more great videos on how to improve your lighting and sound for video. Talk to you soon.