Anyone used the zylight is3 panel?

andrew ward · November 1, 2013

I love the z90 but its kinda useless in real life and wondering if the panel is any good.

It looks like it would have big problems with multiple shadows and colours as the leds are so far apart.

Mike Sita · November 2, 2013

Love the Z90 as a sun gun and occasional hair light on a talking head. It's come in very useful numerous times. I've played with the is3 in B&H and its got some decent punch but I couldn't really tell in the store how the shadows were, I'd suspect you're right about the multiple shadow issue though. However, I do own and use constantly kino flos celeb 200 and I love it. It's petty similar to the is3 but doesn't have all the colors. What it does have though is no color shift when dimming and no shadow issues.

andrew ward · November 2, 2013

Thanks.

Yeah id love a Celeb or two. So expensive.

Im trying to be different and have an led panel that no one else has. Its supposed to have more punch than a Celeb, but its probably crap.

Phil Rhodes · November 2, 2013

You could probably do worse than these if you're really looking to save a few units of currency.

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andrew ward · November 3, 2013

Ive already got cheap led panels. I just want some good ones and thought a zylight might be cool. But the z90 is amazing but seems like its a prototype. When they iron out the flaws itll be all i use...

Phil Rhodes · November 3, 2013

I have to ask why.

A Z90 is something like $2400. An Arri 575 HMI, which produces at least four, probably five times the light, is only twice the money and probably has better colour rendering.

The LED is smaller and lighter, and probably more physically robust. It's also dimmable. Otherwise there are few advantages.

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andrew ward · November 4, 2013

Is3 is rgb, battery power, low draw on ac and very portable. If its like a z90, its bright as buggery too.

I already have 575s.

Need good battery led but Celebs and Creamsource are out of pricerange and it would be good to have an led different to what everyone else has.

But theres probably good reason noone has Zylights.

timHealy · November 10, 2013

Hi,

I have a Zylight IS3 and I think it is a great light but there are pros and cons.

First I love that you can do a wider range of 2500 to 10000 degrees kelvin if you need that range.

I love that it is dimmable. I love that you can do plus and minus green correction.

I love that it is DMX-able. Either with a cable or the Zylight wireless controller.

I think all these feature make it a better light than a Litepanel and the Celeb 200 is somewhere in between feature wise.

But those lights don't have an added feature. I love that the IS3 have a secondary feature for just color. It can do every color in the rainbow! The dimmer feature works, and the green correction knob controls color saturation.

So this light basically can be used for key lighting actors to lighting small green screens, or blue or red or whatever color you need

I would say don't use it without some sort of Chimera or diffusion media in front. The LEDs are high powered and bright, but there are not as many LED's as in a Litepanel, so you get lots of weird shadows without a Chimera bag. Chimera makes a bag, but the bag they make makes the thing a little big. Their first prototype bag for the IS3 was a bit smaller.

Now the bad news. The light is a bit heavy. Or it's heavier than a Lite panel I should say. Maybe a bit heavy for handheld work. And a bit clumsy for handheld work if the bag is on it which it really needs to be.

The option to use a battery is great, but unfortunately the IS3 needs 48 volts. Ugh! I called them about this and I guess they have had a few complaints. I was told they built the IS3 with high powered LED's and they needs 48 volts. Not 12, 24 or 30 like everything else but 48.

To avoid trying to build a special 48 volt battery, they recommended using one of these power cells:

http://www.amazon.com/Duracell-DPP-600HD-Powerpack-Starter-Emergency/dp/B000TKHMWK

and just plugging into it with the 120 volt power supply. The one I bought seems to give me an hour and 15 minutes of time.

That's all I know about it.

Tim

andrew ward · November 11, 2013

Awesome!

Thats everything i wanted to know, i never would have known if weight (not an issue for me) or battery (big issue for me).

Thanks heaps for taking the time to post!

Eric Jaspers · November 12, 2013

I love the z90 but its kinda useless in real life and wondering if the panel is any good.

It looks like it would have big problems with multiple shadows and colours as the leds are so far apart.

I went to a youth orchestra recital last night. The musicians were lit with RGB LED lights like the Zylights. The combined light of the different color emitters was white until the violinists raised their instruments and then there was a blueish/purple highlight to the polished wood of their instruments. It reminded me why I would never use an RGB LEDs for lighting for video.

Eric Jaspers

Phil Rhodes · November 12, 2013

Zylight tell us that the maximum amount of power drawn by the IS3 is 220W, which at 12V would require over 18 amps. This is well into the regime where special high-current cable and connectors would be needed, and almost any camera-style battery would suffer reduced capacity due to internal losses at such a high current. Anton-Bauer's large Dionic HC batteries are rated at about 180 watt-hours, implying a shade over 45 minutes of run time, but we can safely assume you'd get a lot less than that in practice, even if you could run an 18 amp load off a Dionic HC - which you can't, because it's fused at 10 amps. Deep-cycle lead-acid batteries of the type often used for caravans (er, trailers, Americans) or mobile homes (er, RVs) might stand it for a while, but they're obviously a bit less than ideal from other points of view.

So, the higher voltage input is a sensible engineering decision ; it reduces the current required for a given power. I suspect they simply decided on a voltage that's low enough not to be considered an electrical hazard while high enough not to require enormous current flying around, and then thought, well, if people want to put a couple of 24V batteries in series, fine. If you need something you can sanely run from 12V, it's going to be less than 100W (about 8A) and even then your batteries will flee in terror.

And no, I don't think RGB arrays - with their output spectrum consisting of three narrow spikes - are ever going to be serious contenders for the hypothetical prettiest-light award that I just made up.

P