Aputure Electro Storm Series – First Look at High-Power RGBWW and Bi-Color LED Fixtures

by Jeff LochJune 8^th, 2023

The Electro Storm series is Aputure’s upcoming LED lights lineup with impressive power outputs: the CS15 and XT26. Both fixtures feature a new electronic accessory mount called the A-mount, and the first two light modifiers have also been announced: the F14 Fresnel and Spotlight Max. Lastly, a motorized yoke lets you adjust the fixtures from your smartphone, ballast, or DMX controls. We stopped by the Aputure booth during Cine Gear 2023 to take a first look at all these upcoming products that should be available in Q4 this year!

Aputure announced the Electro Storm series of LED lights and accessories a few days ago. In the meantime, NANLUX also announced the Evoke 2400B, a 2400W bi-color LED light. We could say that the Aputure XT26 2600W bi-color fixture and NANLUX Evoke 2400B will be direct competitors. Still, I prefer to look at all these new fixtures as a push in the right direction for content creators, meaning more powerful creative tools for your next project.

Aputure Electro Storm Series – key features

As I already mentioned, we wrote an in-depth article about the Electro Storm series and accessories that you can read here. Here are the key features of the Aputure CS15 1,500W RGBWW and XT26 2,600W bi-color LED fixtures:

Both fixtures have many things in common, including an IP65 dust & water-resistant rating and a new A-mount to attach lighting modifiers.

Aputure A-mount

The Electro Storm series will have a new proprietary A-mount with electronic contacts. However, if you already have a bunch of Bowens mount lighting modifiers, they will also be compatible with the CS15 and XT26.

As Brandon Le from Aputure mentioned, the A-mount allows the control box to “know” which lighting modifier is attached to the light head. Since no lighting modifier is “color neutral”, the control box will be able to slightly adjust the CCT of the fixture to compensate for the lighting modifier color shift.

A-mount lighting modifiers

At launch, Aputure introduced a couple of A-mount lighting modifiers, including the F14 Fresnel, Spotlight Max, and AM6820 hyper reflector.

The F14 Fresnel has a massive motorized glass lens that can be electronically adjusted from 18 to 45°. You can change the beam angle with the control knob on the side of the F14, the control box, or via DMX and the Sidus Link app.

Motorized yoke

Since the Electro Storm series are heavy fixtures, Aputure also introduced a motorized yoke compatible with the CS15 and XT26. This motorized yoke has an extensive range of motion: 360° pan and 270° tilt. You can control it from the Sidus Link app, DMX, and the fixture’s control box.

Aputure Electro Storm control box

The huge control boxes have all the input/output ports you could wish for, including two DC and one AC input, two Ethernet ports, a USB port, and DMX input/output ports. In terms of connectivity, according to Aputure, you’ll have “advanced connectivity options, including Sidus Link app control, LumenRadio CRMX, Art-net & sACN via etherCON, and 16-bit DMX512.”

Pricing and availability

There is no word on pricing yet, but Aputure expects to start pre-orders in early Q4 this year.

For more information, please visit Aputure’s website here.

What do you think about these new Aputure Electro Storm LED fixtures? Could they be useful for the kind of content you shoot? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments down below!