Upon opening it, I found a very nice hardshell case containing the Spotlight Mount. The Aputure Spotlight Mount arrived in a large cardboard shipping box. More on how I used the Spotlight in a minute. Just a few weeks ago, a project came up where I could easily justify spending the money on the Spotlight Mount, so I fired up my credit card and ordered one.

I’ve been wanting to own the Aputure Spotlight Mount ($499) since it was introduced a couple of years ago, but it always seemed like a bit of a luxury to me. This type of light allows you very fine control also-much finer and precise control than you can gain from say, a Fresnel light and a set of barn doors. The big deal about an Ellipsoidal spotlight is that all of its control is built in. While all of these devices work well, they take up space and are extra things you have to haul onto your set. Since the most common lighting instruments used in video and film production today are LED, and more often than not, daylight color-balanced LED, most of the finer control over the direction of the lighting is derived through external accessories like softboxes, barn doors, snoots and flags. What’s The Big Deal About An Ellipsoidal Spotlight? The Aputure Spotlight Mount features internal cutters that can be manipulated to provide light output in almost any shape. So, while still in use, Leko lights on video and film sets have become rarer than they were 10 or 20 years ago. A classic Leko is a big, heavy, long instrument that was typically a Tungsten light with all of the attendant limitations about heat generation and power consumption.

Keep in mind that with the era the Leko was most popular in-the 1990s through the early 2000s-was well before LED lighting made the huge inroads into the market that they have over the past decade or so. The instrument was widely used in theatre and entertainment venues into the 1990s, particularly in the United States. Introduced in 1933, it was developed by Joseph Levy and Edward Kook, founders of Century Lighting, which eventually became a part of the Strand Lighting Corporation. What’s a Leko? A Lekolite (often abbreviated to Leko) is a brand of ellipsoidal reflector spotlight (ERS) used in stage lighting that refers to the half-ellipsoidal dome reflector within which the instrument’s lamp is housed.

If you’ve ever worked in live theater/stage, you’re likely familiar with the light that has become known in lighting circles as a Leko. For many of us, lighting isn’t really just about light itself, it’s more about how we can shape, bend, cut and control the light.

Ellipsoidal reflector spotlight