Aputure releases Light Dome III & Light Dome Mini III

Aputure's new Light Dome III and Light Dome Mini III take two already successful lighting accessories and refine them yet further.

When a company gets to the third revision of a lighting accessory, it’s pretty clear that company is paying quite a lot of attention to detail. At the same time, if there’s a single benefit to LED lighting beyond efficiency, it’s flexibility, and the ability to do a larger variety of things with a smaller selection of stuff. Aputure’s recently-announced third revision of its Light Dome series might seem comparatively straightforward in the context of recent announcements such as the muscular 2.6kW XT26 which was announced at Cine Gear. Still, with ever more powerful lights likely taking up a non-trivial amount of cargo space, the option to squeeze more accessories into fewer flight cases is no bad thing.

The Light Dome III, yours for $219

The two new light domes follow a familiar pattern. They’re pop-up softboxes, albeit with a round rather than rectilinear front and Aputure’s crafty approach to creating a shape that’s nearer to circular, a 32-sided polygon. There are two- and three-foot versions supplied with two different textiles, both approximating grid cloth of differing densities. Aputure’s accessories in the past have used something close to ripstop nylon, which experience shows isn’t excessively noisy under wind loading since the structure of the dome keeps it under sufficient tension not to ripple (though it’s inevitably a big sail, so keep the stand well-sandbagged). 

Those textiles aren’t to be confused with the actual light-control grid, which is described as creating a forty-degree spread of light. Grids won’t ever be the most optically efficient way to create a large-but-directional source, but they’re effective, create pretty results and take up very little space either packed down or set up. A softbox-based setup is never going to be exactly pocket sized, but the grid will often obviate a lot of ancillary light control equipment and velcros into the front much like the diffusion panels.

The flat-folding Bowens mount ring saves storage space

Aputure’s principal innovation on its latest light domes is that the Bowens mount ring now folds flat against the bundled spring struts that form the ribs of the the umbrella shape when the dome is deployed. The company’s existing options already include an approach to popping the umbrella up which is quick to use and hard to describe. They’re easier to erect than to collapse, perhaps, but still considerably quicker than the competition and already seem admirably compact. Folding down the Bowens ring should at least double the storage density by fitting two into the space previously occupied by one.

Bowens mount accessories, LEDs shaped like flash heads, and even the entire concept of an interchangeable-modifier light, are things that moviemaking has essentially inherited from the stills world. As kilowatt-plus LEDs become more available, the value of that can only increase. The XT26, for instance, implements not only the mechanical Bowens attachment point, but also electronic services for power and remote control. That’s not necessarily relevant to a softbox or a simple dish or multifaceted reflector, but it certainly opens up options for active accessories like the F14 Fresnel.

The Light Dome Mini III is compatible with lights with up to 600W of output. This means that the most powerful lights it can be paired with are the Aputure LS 600d, LS 600d Pro, LS 600x Pro, and LS 600c Pro. It is also compatible with all amaran Bowens Mount lights.

Given all that, we might conclude that lighting capabilities are increasingly defined by accessories rather than the lights themselves, so it’s sensible – even necessary – for companies like Aputure to keep polishing the design of their attachments. What that means for the future depends on the imagination of the product design people, but nobody’s ever going to complain about buying a light and discovering later that it’s become upgradeable with new capabilities for a comparatively modest price, especially if those capabilities are considered important enough by the company to be subject to occasional revisions of their own.

The Aputure Light Dome III ($219)and Light Dome Mini III ($129) are both available worldwide now as of now.