Amaran 200X S Review

A year ago, I invested in my first artificial light to begin learning the craft of cinematography. Today, after dedicating significant time to understanding color science and lighting, I finally feel confident in creating naturalistic images.

This entire learning journey was driven by my dissatisfaction with LED color reproduction, initially thinking I might be doing something wrong. However, the release of the Amaran 200X S has completely changed that perspective.

The brand Amaran

Amaran is the budget-friendly ecosystem within the Aputure family, offering high-quality lighting solutions tailored for content creators, filmmakers, and photographers seeking professional results without breaking the bank.

Designed to complement Aputure’s premium line, Amaran focuses on delivering reliable, versatile, and color-accurate LED lights at an accessible price point.

Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned professional, Amaran provides a wide range of tools, including compact portable options and advanced bi-color and RGB fixtures, all crafted to elevate creativity and visual storytelling while staying within budget.

The advent of LED lights

LED lights have quickly replaced tungsten bulbs in homes thanks to their practical advantages, including up to 10 times greater efficiency. With the introduction of the blue LED by Nobel Prize winner Shuji Nakamura, LEDs also gained the ability to produce white light, further solidifying their dominance in modern lighting.

Why LED lights look unnatural?

Most white LEDs are based on blue light-emitting diodes coated with a phosphor layer that converts some of the blue light into other colors, creating a spectrum that appears white to the human eye.

Just because the light appears white to our eyes when mixed doesn’t mean it ensures an even distribution of colors and saturation in a reflective environment. An uneven spectrum usually results in the light producing certain unnatural colors that are easily noticeable to the human eye and brain.

Essentially, natural organic light has come to be associated with sunlight, while tungsten bulbs, also known as incandescent lights, have become the artificial equivalent.

Each light has its own distinct look, and while LEDs can mimic tungsten light quite effectively, they struggle with daylight. To achieve this, LEDs often have to compensate for blues, resulting in a significant spike in the blue spectrum.

Camera sensors and computer chips analyze these spectra to determine how to convert colors for an accurate representation suited to human perception. This is because human vision functions differently from that of other animals or camera sensors. Since Tungsten and daylight are essentially the same in every parts of the world, it becomes easy to do the translation.

With LEDs, there is significant variation between manufacturers, leading to greater inconsistencies. These two reasons are why HMI and Tungsten lights continue to be used in the cinema industry, even after over 30 years.

What’s so special about the S series?

The S series essentially introduce the new technology of indigo LED which serves to fill the gap in the near ultraviolet section of the spectrum.

If in theory near and UV lights aren’t visible for the human eye, in reality they do have an impact on the reflective nature of object notably fluorescent object.

For example, laundry detergents use these fluorescent compounds to help keep your clothes white. For the same reasons teeth, nails, eyes, and skin emit fluorescence under indigo light. However, this near-UV spectrum also adds that “je ne sais quoi,” as Tim Kang, one of the leading color scientists at Aputure and the mind behind the 1200X, would say.

What stands out most to me about this innovation is its ability to produce more natural skin tones, thanks to the skin’s reflective fluorescence, as well as significantly improved color accuracy in areas like whites. This results in a spectrum precise enough to replicate daylight without looking overly artificial. Tungsten or warm light, at around 3200 Kelvin, also benefits from this technology, though the improvements are more subtle.

How to measure this color accuracy?

This is likely the most complex topic of this article. Essentially, lights have numerous metrics, such as CRI, TLCI, and TM30, that can help you determine if an LED is of poor quality, but they can’t tell you if the light quality is truly excellent. These metrics primarily evaluate the degree of variation and saturation in colors.

That’s why the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, yes, the Oscar committee, developed a metric that bypasses subjective observation by directly comparing the spectrum to that of the real thing, meaning tungsten and daylight. This metric is called SSI or Spectral Similarity Index.

It’s essentially a metric that helps you assess how closely the light’s spectrum matches that of daylight and tungsten.

Comparing the SSI of different lights & technology

If the Spectral Similarity Index is a good tool to see if a light match another one, on the other hand it won’t tell you on which end of the spectrum there will be gaps and errors.

For instance, a light that includes UV and near-UV wavelengths, will naturally achieve a higher SSI score, even if the rest of its spectrum especially the human visible one is not especially well-balanced, so keep this in mind while reviewing these scores.

The Amaran 200X S

In my view, the Amaran 200X S serves as a testing ground for Aputure to introduce their new indigo LED technology within their budget-friendly lineup, allowing them to gather feedback before integrating it into the premium Aputure range.

This is why it’s kind of odd that this light has better metrics and color rendition than the Aputure 1200D or even the XT26 for example.

The features

• Bi-Color LED from 2700K to 6500K
• 200 Watts
• First use of indigo LED chips
• SSI D56 : 89
• SSI P32 : 91
• Dimming with 1% increment
• Bluetooth connectivity for Sidus Link control via Phone
• 9 lighting effects via Sidus Link

Overall, the Amaran 200X S offers the essential features you’d expect from a light in its price range. Its dimming at low outputs is actually better than the Aputure 600D Pro, and personally, I prefer having better low-end dimming capabilities over granular 0.1% increments.

What I really appreciate is that, despite its affordability—selling for under $269 on sale at BH Photo—this light still includes Bluetooth connectivity for remote control through the Sidus Link app.

While the light doesn’t come with any flashy features, as it’s an entry-level option, it would have been nice to be able to control the lighting effects directly via the physical controls.

In my opinion, the standout feature is the SSI score, which shows a significant improvement in daylight color reproduction.

The build quality

Naturally, the quality won’t match that of Aputure’s latest high-end products, which are commonly used in professional rental houses.

This is a lightweight fixture made primarily of plastic, which, as a freelancer, I personally don’t mind. After all, Glocks are made from polycarbonate, and this light features metal reinforcement in critical areas.

The only area that might benefit from being metal is the Bowens mount, as this part typically endures a lot of stress. I frequently bump into my softboxes, but so far, the plastic mount has held up surprisingly well.

In summary, I wouldn’t use anything larger than a 90cm softbox with this light, which is somewhat disappointing given that it has similar power to the Aputure 300d Mk II in terms of output.

The light features an umbrella mount, which is a great addition. Larger umbrellas are typically lighter than softboxes while delivering similar results. Alternatively, you can always use Skylite Rapid frames or diffusion fabrics to soften the light.

The LED chip design doesn’t feature a checkerboard or specialized pattern optimized for projectors or gobos. Instead, it uses a straightforward arrangement, but given the price and its outstanding color reproduction, it’s hard to complain.

What is in the box?

The light comes with the essentials: a power cord, an AC adapter, a standard bowl reflector, and a plastic cover to protect the chip when not in use. However, I wish it included a case, whether made of fabric or even polystyrene, for added convenience and protection.

As usual, the cover is either red or marked with red stickers to ensure you don’t accidentally leave it on and risk it melting.

This light has an optional ballast that accepts V-mount batteries, which is not included. This means you’ll need to plug the light into a wall socket.

The performances

Interestingly, while this light primarily adds more near-UV spectrum light and theoretically should be quite similar to other Aputure lights aside from this specific region, the impact is surprisingly significant.

The reflector bowl appears to differ from the one used with the Aputure 600D, featuring fewer small rectangular patterns inside. These shapes are likely designed to enhance light reflection and distribution within the bowl.

The most striking feature right out of the box is the light’s color, which, for some reason, appears more natural than standard daylight or bi-color LEDs. This difference is easily noticeable to the naked eye, particularly on lighter-colored surfaces. At 5600 Kelvin, for instance, it lacks the yellowish, artificial appearance often associated with electronic lighting.

While it’s not a perfect match, and you can still detect a slightly more yellowish tone, it’s a significant improvement over older generations of LED chips.

With older generations of LEDs, a lot of post-production work was required just to make the colors look decent. The blue spike often caused a yellowish or brownish cast on skin tones.

To remove the cast, you would have to adjust the other colors in the image to be slightly cooler than they actually are. This was a clever workaround, especially for narrative work, and to be fair, it was already quite close to tungsten, with an SSI of 85 for the key light.

The difference between a classic tungsten halogen light and this one is barely noticeable after white balancing, especially when bouncing off a wall. The contrast and smoothness of the transition might be the only noticeable improvements, making it more pleasant overall.

While both the LED and tungsten lights offer good overall color reproduction, neither of them, in my opinion, truly resembles daylight even after adjusting for the white balance in post-production. This may be due to differences in their spectra, particularly the emphasis on reds which makes skin tones look great.

On the other hand, the Amaran 200X S at 5600K is highly impressive in replicating the feel of daylight. Honestly, if I were looking at the image, I would easily believe it was taken under the sun on an overcast day.

The most impressive part is that even when shooting at 3200K and adjusting the white balance in Photoshop, the light still convincingly replicates daylight. Adjusting the color temperature in Photoshop feels like a completely different experience.

It’s very similar to adjusting the white balance of a raw file from a Canon camera. The color science is so precise that, no matter where you set the white balance, the colors still look realistic across various temperatures. In contrast, with a Nikon camera, it’s much harder to find a sweet spot where skin tones look natural and not overly strange in color.

It’s not just the colors that appear realistic, but also the way the light reflects off the skin, giving it a more organic feel rather than an artificial, electronic look. To put it into context, it feels like being in front of a window, rather than under a studio light.

Are Indigo LED dangerous?

Ultraviolet (UV) rays are generally categorized into three types based on their wavelength:

1. UVA (315-400 nm): These rays penetrate deep into the skin and can cause premature aging, DNA damage, and an increased long-term risk of skin cancer. While they are the least harmful UV rays, prolonged exposure remains dangerous.

2. UVB (280-315 nm): These rays are more energetic and are responsible for sunburns. They are particularly harmful to the skin, significantly increasing the risk of skin cancer and eye damage.

3. UVC (100-280 nm): These are the most energetic and dangerous UV rays. Fortunately, the ozone layer blocks almost all natural UVC rays before they reach the Earth’s surface. However, artificial sources (like germicidal lamps) can emit UVC rays.

Harmful UV rays generally start at 400 nm and become increasingly dangerous as the wavelength decreases, especially in the UVB and UVC ranges. Technically, the Amaran 200X S indigo LED emits wavelengths starting from 400nm, so it should be safe.

Should I replace my conventional LED lights?

This advanced technology, with its improved color accuracy, SSI, and daylight reproduction, is likely to become standard in most Aputure LEDs and their competitors—unless, of course, there’s some kind of patent involved. That said, I doubt any single company can hold an exclusive patent on indigo technology.

Gradually, if you want this naturalistic look across your entire frame, you’ll need to upgrade your gear. For now, I still believe conventional LEDs, particularly bi-color models with a robust P32 SSI, continue to have their place, even in larger productions.

For instance, I plan to use this light primarily as a key light to illuminate subjects and enhance skin tones, placing it very close to the talents. In my view, the rest of lights and the other parts of the frame doesn’t need the same level of color accuracy, just as lighting detail isn’t as critical in wide shots.

It’s worth noting that skilled DP and colorists can make almost anything look impressive, although achieving a naturalistic feel may require more effort and could be somewhat compromised.

Verdict

9.0 out of 10

This LED light is exactly what I’ve been looking for since the day I bought my first LED a year ago. I spent a whole year struggling to figure out why I couldn’t produce decent, natural-looking colors as daylight.

It’s been a real learning experience, as I tried almost every technique to make the lighting as natural as possible—diffusion, double diffusion, bouncing light off walls and surfaces, book lighting, cove lighting—each time yielding decent results, but it always required a lot of effort.

The images always looked decent at 3200K, but very artificial at 5600K. This was exactly what the SSI data was indicating.

I don’t regret the time spent, as it allowed me to deeply explore the science of color through this challenge. Now, I simply understand that different light spectra will naturally appear different to the human eye—it’s as straightforward as that.

That’s why daylight and strobes still outperform any LED currently available on the market, though the Amaran 200X S and all the competitors with an SSI around 90, represent a significant step forward.

Informations

Amaran 200X S

Official website: https://aputure.com

Official page: https://aputure.com/products/amaran-200x-s

Our Video Production Company : https://www.neonnight.fr/en/