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FIVERAY M40 / Zhiyun
The FIVERAY M40 is Zhiyun's pocket LED light that refuses to behave like one. Most palm-sized panels top out around twelve watts; the M40 pushes forty, bright enough to act as a real key light rather than a fill, from a body that still slips into a pocket at around 320 grams. It runs 176 warm and cool LEDs for a variable colour temperature from 2700 to 6200K with high colour accuracy, controlled by two knurled wheels, one for brightness and one for colour, giving direct adjustment with no menus. A gyroscope-controlled cooling system lets it sustain that output. It suits the vlogger or on-location creator who wants genuine key-light power in something packable, and accepts the price of that brightness: a runtime under half an hour at full output and audible fan noise.
Design intent
- +The defining decision is to prioritise raw output over the category norm: forty watts in a pocket body, roughly triple a typical pocket panel, so the light functions as a true key rather than a supplementary fill, which is the whole reason to carry it over a smaller one.
- +Control is deliberately physical: two separate wheels for brightness and colour temperature give direct, tactile adjustment without menus or screens, so settings are dialled by feel, though at the cost of fine repeatable precision.
Trade-offs
- -That brightness has a hard cost in endurance: at full forty-watt output the internal battery lasts under half an hour, so sustained use depends on running it from a USB-C power source rather than untethered.
- -The active cooling needed to sustain the output is audible, and reviewers single out the fan as intrusively loud when the light works hard, which is a real problem when recording sound nearby.
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The FIVERAY M40 is Zhiyun's pocket LED light that refuses to behave like one. Most palm-sized panels top out around twelve watts; the M40 pushes forty, bright enough to act as a real key light rather than a fill, from a body that still slips into a pocket at around 320 grams. It runs 176 warm and cool LEDs for a variable colour temperature from 2700 to 6200K with high colour accuracy, controlled by two knurled wheels, one for brightness and one for colour, giving direct adjustment with no menus. A gyroscope-controlled cooling system lets it sustain that output. It suits the vlogger or on-location creator who wants genuine key-light power in something packable, and accepts the price of that brightness: a runtime under half an hour at full output and audible fan noise.
Design intent
- +The defining decision is to prioritise raw output over the category norm: forty watts in a pocket body, roughly triple a typical pocket panel, so the light functions as a true key rather than a supplementary fill, which is the whole reason to carry it over a smaller one.
- +Control is deliberately physical: two separate wheels for brightness and colour temperature give direct, tactile adjustment without menus or screens, so settings are dialled by feel, though at the cost of fine repeatable precision.
Trade-offs
- -That brightness has a hard cost in endurance: at full forty-watt output the internal battery lasts under half an hour, so sustained use depends on running it from a USB-C power source rather than untethered.
- -The active cooling needed to sustain the output is audible, and reviewers single out the fan as intrusively loud when the light works hard, which is a real problem when recording sound nearby.
