Initial Thoughts: Aputure B7C SmartBulb
Lighting has been on my mind a lot as of late. Well, lighting and photography in general.
This is largely due to my recent collaboration with the lovely and hyper-talented Cathy Reisenwitz on… shall we say… spicier content. But while spicy content often suffers from a lack of creativity, our collaboration has so far suffered from nothing of the like.
Instead, it’s provided several oppurtunities to expand and experiment, particularly with photography and lighting, as we release a new photoset each week.
This recently led to the purchase of two Aputure B7C smartbulbs. Today, I’d like to briefly share my initial thoughts and impressions for anyone else looking to expand their lighting toolset.
I finally had a chance to try one of the bulbs out a few weeks back during a spicier photoshoot, Placed inside a lightbox, one of the bulbs was used to softly illuminate the couch from which Cathy posed.
The bulb was configured to emit the same warmth of white that the table lamp seen just to Cathy’s right cast. This made it appear as if the lamp was much brighter, but without introducing the harsh shadows that would have come with increasing the brightness of the lamp’s Edison bulb.
This was a multipart photoshoot, with each part shot from a different part of our condo, so eventually, it came time to do the first equipment move and reset. It was honestly a pretty surreal experience to unplug the softbox that the build was in and watch it remain illuminated as I carried the softbox to the next room, aside from briefly flickering as it automatically switched to its built-in battery.
Which brings me to my favorite feature of the Aputure B7C: each bulb is capable of operating without external power for up to 70 minutes at full intensity, or up to 20 hours at minimum levels, thanks to each bulb’s built-in recharable battery. This is such a game-changing feature, as it opens up so many possibilities when it comes to where and how you can shoot. You can throw the bulbs behind object, throw them into softboxes inside a forest, the possibilities are endless.
Recharging the bulbs is ridiculously easy. Simply screw the bulb into a standard lamp socket and turn the socket on. That’s it. Dead simple.
Overall, these bulbs are pretty great. But that’s not to say that they’re perfect. The bulbs could be a little brighter, the mobile app provided to control the bulbs isn’t the greatest, the onboard control buttons are not very intuitive or useful, and the $70 price point per bulb is a little steep.
But if you want to greatly expand your lighting possibilities, especially if you don’t want to always be tethered to wall socket for shoots, I would recommend them. So far, the pros have far outweighed the cons,
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