Rayzr MC 400 Max – Super Bright RGBWW Light Announced

April 29^th, 20198

Rayzr MC 400 Max - Super Bright RGBWW Light Announced

by Nino LeitnerApril 29^th, 2019

Rayzr just announced a super high output version of their impressive MC 200, the Rayzr MC 400 Max, which rivals the output king ARRI Skypanel S60-C.

In March, Rayzr surprised everyone by announcing a series of RGBWW panels in different sizes which we reported about here. In our first tests, they proved to be quite impressive, and we are currently working on finishing a review of these lights. I can already say that the output surpasses the specs slightly, and the build quality is much better than what I expected at that price point. According to light meter readings, they are also very color accurate.

Twice the Output, Quiet Fan Cooling

The newly announced MC 400 Max shares the form factor with the MC200 (roughly a 2×1 light, a bit smaller), but offers about two times the output. What’s different is that this amount of output requires active cooling (as opposed to the passive cooling in the MC 200 and smaller fixtures). They decided to go with 8 small fans instead of fewer larger ones, which is certainly a good idea in terms of total noise. Rayzr claims 18dB only with the MC 400 Max. (I’m really glad they didn’t call it the “Max 8”, we know that that name can ground you indefinitely.)

Double V-Mount Battery Powering

Apart from running it through A/C, the light can be powered with batteries despite its high output. You need to use two standard 14.4V V-Mount batteries. Rayzr claims you can get full brightness from the light using the two batteries, which is impressive. Not having to use higher-voltage batteries that could be a nightmare to fly with is absolutely welcome.

Light and Slim

Compared to The ARRI Skypanel S60-C, it’s about half as heavy at 6 kilograms (or 13 lbs). Net weight without the yoke is 4.6 kg. The light is 93 mm thick.

Rayzr’s own comparison with ARRI Skypanel and Litepanels Gemini

Shared Features

It shares its other features with the existing Rayzr MC lights. The CCT range is 2400-9900 Kelvin, which is wider than most other RGB lights in the market, thanks to the RGBWW technology employed (well explained in our original article about the Rayzr MC lights). There’s convenient +/- green and magenta adjustment to adjust for the tints of other lights or the sensor-inherent looks of various camera manufacturers. The Rayzr MC 400 Max also has more than 300 digital gels build-in which should make it easy to mimic the look of all kinds of LEE and Rosco filters in the market.

What’s fun is the effects mode that allows you to easily mimic the look of fire, a flickering TV, flashlights (“paparazzi”), a police car or thunderstorms. It’s nice that those effects are highly customizable in speed and sequence, so you can pretty much adjust them fully to your needs.

The light also features a high-speed mode, effectively adjusting the base frequency of the fixture so that high-speed recording with cameras should be a flickerless experience. The base frequency can be adjusted anywhere between 400 Hz to 20,000 Hz.

The Rayzr MC 400 Max also has DMX and Wifi control built-in, so it can easily interface with existing lights.

Pricing and Availability

Rayzr expects to ship these lights at the end of May, and until then they have a special price of EUR 1599. After May 27, the price will rise to EUR 1799. See links below the article for order details. (B&H links will be added shortly.)