The Zhiyun M60Ultra plays in another league!
Hey all, I run a small photo/video studio in Switzerland and do lab tests of LED lights as a side thing. Zhiyun sent me the M60Ultra a while back, and since there aren't many hard numbers on it floating around yet, I figured I'd share what I found. Fair warning, this is a bit of a nerdy post.
How I tested it
Everything was measured at 1 m, no modifiers, in linear dimming mode. I took 33 measurements in total across white light (2700K to 10,000K) and the RGB primaries and secondaries, with CRI, R9, TM-30, SSI, CCT deviation and Duv.
Brightness is the big surprise
At 5500K I got 5,958 lux at 1 m, and 6500K was basically identical at 5,950. To put that in perspective, the Godox VL150 I tested earlier (a 150W COB light) did about 5,050 lux at 5600K. So this little thing beats it while drawing less than half the power.
The reason is the built-in lens. It focuses the light instead of spraying it everywhere, which is great for usable output but comes with a catch I'll get to below. The warm and cool extremes (2700K and 10,000K) drop about 20% to roughly 4,500–4,700 lux, which is pretty normal for this kind of light.
Dimming was also really clean. Setting it to 10% gave me 11–11.5% of max output at every CCT I tested. If you like knowing exactly what you'll get when you dial it down, that's nice to have.
Colour accuracy
CRI sits between 94.7 and 97 across the whole range, which is very good. R9 (reds, important for skin) is excellent at the ends, 98 at 2700K and 89 at 10,000K. In the middle, at 5500K and 6500K, it drops to 86 and 84. That's still totally fine for skin tones, it's just a little odd that the daylight range is the weakest spot, since that's where a lot of people will run it.
TM-30 Rf is 93–95, and Rg is 104–105, which means colours come out slightly more saturated than the reference. Most people will see that as "pleasant" rather than wrong.
SSI is where you can tell it's a conventional RGB engine. It's 82 at 3200K but falls to 74 at 5500K and 71 at 6500K. That's not a Zhiyun problem specifically, it's just what you get without extra spectral channels. Lights with fancier multi-channel engines (Blair, Nebula C8, PalletteLab) do better here.
CCT accuracy is honestly one of the best parts
I measure deviation in MK-1 (mireds) since Kelvin isn't linear. Around 10 is roughly where you'd start to notice a shift. I got:
2700K → 2,785K (11.3)
3200K → 3,320K (11.3)
5500K → 5,625K (4.0)
6500K → 6,630K (3.0)
10,000K → 10,777K (7.2)
The 10,000K result is what impressed me. A lot of lights go off the rails up there, and this one stays well under control. Duv stays close to neutral the whole way, and 2700K is basically sitting on the Planckian locus.
The green thing
This is the catch with the lens. Without the diffuser, there's a faint green tint at the very outer edges of the beam. Within the main spot you won't notice it, but if you're using the edge of the beam or it's spilling into frame, keep it in mind. On top of that, the "zero" G/M setting isn't fully neutral and leans slightly green, so I usually ended up adding a touch of magenta. There's G/M correction built in, so it's fixable, just a bit annoying out of the box.
RGB mode
It got an RGB score of 135 in my system, which is higher than most RGB lights I've tested so far. Red came in at 99.4% purity and blue at 97.6%, with basically only the one LED channel firing for each. The result is very punchy, clean colour.
Mixed colours are weaker, like with every 3-channel RGB light. Yellow was the worst, landing at 70.6° when it should be 60°, and magenta (+8.1°) and blue (+7.7°) were also a bit off. Red and cyan were spot on. If you need a precise yellow or amber, a light with a dedicated amber/lime channel will do better.
Also, if you look at the lux numbers and wonder why blue (347 lux) and red (684 lux) look so weak compared to yellow (1,660 lux), that's just how lux works. It's weighted toward what the eye sees best, which is green-ish light. The red and blue channels aren't actually underpowered.
Day-to-day stuff
The grid and diffuser are included and attach magnetically, so you can swap them in seconds without fiddling. The fan is really quiet, which matters a lot for a light this size, since it'll probably be sitting right next to your mic or someone's face. You can run it continuously over USB-C, which is good because the battery on its own doesn't last very long. For longer shoots away from power, plan on a power bank.
Bottom line
I'd happily use it for interviews, talking-head and YouTube content, on-camera fill, and fun RGB accents. It's tiny, bright, quiet, and the white light is accurate. I'd be a bit more careful with really colour-critical daylight work (because of the R9/SSI dip), long jobs without a power source, or anything where you need precise secondary colours.
Full data, TM-30 reports and a downloadable PDF are here if you want to dig in: https://smotographers.com/en/blog/01-lab/zhiyun/zhiyun-m60ultra-lab/
Happy to answer questions if anyone's on the fence about it.
Disclosure: Zhiyun sent me the unit and let me keep it after testing. No payment, and they didn't see the review beforehand. All measurements were done in our own lab.