Personal View site logo
Aputure AL-M9 LED On Camera Small Light
  • 22 Replies sorted by
  • I ordered 3 of these and they showed up today - really nice/small/portable and they're surprisingly bright at full strength. They come in cute little pouches with clips too. I think they might work as the beginning of a really small portable lighting kit for my A7s and/or A7rII, potentially combined with Lumecubes (I have a small handful of them on the way too).

    The M9's feel light enough that they could easily be attached to things with moderately-strong tape if one didn't want to bring with a bunch of light stands to go with them (though the next step is figuring out what can be done for really tiny light stands - a few small gorillapods might be a place to start)

  • anybody know where this is ready to ship in Europe? aputure's eu store has it but they charge an absurd amount to ship. I am in Sweden.

  • Check out my review of this light. The Aputure Amaran AL-M9

  • The audio goes completely out of sync at 6:53 or so and it makes the rest of the video pretty much unwatchable.

  • Our video

    Later we'll have separate post and may be video about lab measurements.

  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev

    Thanks for good video.

  • Out SMPTE interview

  • PV Lab measurements, CV600 spectrometer, Russian lab processing

    We cover spectrum, color temperature, and all modern color quality standards, including latest 2016 and 2017 years ones.

    Never select light based on just CRI number.

    Focus on TM30 and CIE 244 and look for color distortion and Rf values.

    AL-M9 is very good little light with good light quality.

    image

    Color temperature

    image

    CRI color quality

    image

    CQS color quality

    image

    TLCI 2012

    image

    TM30 color quality

    image

    TM30 details

    image

    image

    All TM30 color samples Rf values

    image

    CIE 244 2017

    image

    image

    sample1062.jpg
    800 x 417 - 28K
    sample1063.jpg
    800 x 404 - 51K
    sample1064.jpg
    729 x 500 - 59K
    sample1065.jpg
    705 x 459 - 57K
    sample1066.jpg
    800 x 480 - 57K
    sample1067.jpg
    800 x 332 - 45K
    sample1068.jpg
    460 x 460 - 32K
    sample1070.jpg
    800 x 261 - 66K
    sample1071.jpg
    758 x 555 - 58K
    sample1073.jpg
    793 x 375 - 36K
    sample1072.jpg
    508 x 493 - 41K
  • PV Lab measurements, Lusin spectrometer, Russian lab processing

    Different batch light, different place, different spectrometer.

    Only basic items to see difference.

    image

    Color temperature

    image

    CRI color quality

    image

    CQS color quality

    image

    TLCI 2012

    image

    TM30 color quality

    image

    s756.jpg
    800 x 444 - 34K
    s757.jpg
    800 x 413 - 55K
    s758.jpg
    725 x 512 - 61K
    s759.jpg
    709 x 437 - 59K
    s760.jpg
    800 x 501 - 64K
    s761.jpg
    753 x 557 - 59K
  • BIRTV interview

  • Note how M9 controller can't keep up output

    image

  • This is exactly my problem. In my opinion, it makes the light useless for anything other than very short takes, yet no-one else seems to mention this in their reviews!

  • @Energy80s

    Yep, thanks. Very useful observation.

    For large lights it is not a problem as controller keeps up output.

    It is problem with controller design, I believe, made intentionally as if it'll properly rise current during battery voltage drop battery won't last much.

  • Aputure M9 PWM at 100% (battery at not full fresh charge)

    image

    You can see that controller dim leds even at 100%.

    See above that controller can't keep output level.

    PWM Frequency is 39,8Khz

    sa4108.jpg
    800 x 402 - 40K
  • Aputure M9 Inside

    Overall pretty cheap construction with most prominent element - large battery

    image

    Holes are made for battery cooling mostly

    Overall cooling design is bad, all you have for heat spreading is front board with leds.
    And it is covered with diffusion almost all the time.

    image

    Another reason for this holes can be for them to act as thermal barrier and not led heat each other too much, but idea seems to be poor.

    Simple small board with passive components and STM controller

    Notice usage of two same black colored wires for led output, really bad things happen at manufacturing.

    image

    image

    sa4220.jpg
    800 x 565 - 69K
    sa4221.jpg
    800 x 523 - 58K
    sa4222.jpg
    800 x 443 - 69K
    sa4224.jpg
    800 x 513 - 65K
  • M9 Thermals

    Most hot parts are solid middle lines of led board and also controller board near USB connector.

    image

    image

    sa4239.jpg
    636 x 477 - 31K
    sa4238.jpg
    636 x 476 - 38K