I recently posted my First Impressions review of the Zylight Z50 and Z90 lights over at Pro Video Coalition. Zylight’s unique line of LED lights are dimmable, have integrated color and gel modes, and can be wirelessly linked (yes, really) for centralized control. The review focuses on how the LED lights integrate in an event shooting environment, here’s a short excerpt:

“The Z50 was mounted directly on a monopod, which the lighting assistant would hold above and slightly-off to the side camera while shooting. This enabled us to keep a nice, controlled level of light directly in the vicinity of the camera(s) on the dancefloor, with an additional light on a stand providing overall fill and a nice kick to play off at times. The lighting assistant was able to dim and color gel the Z50 on the fly, which in turn reflected those changes wirelessly on the stand-mounted Z90 light. We were particularly impressed with the color gel features of the lights. It is trivial to make very minor adjustments to the color temperature and matching the ambient lighting is a dream. It made our lights appear to be less jarring to the people dancing, and mixed perfectly on camera. Lighting color changes can be saved on the fly as one of the two user presets and recalled later.

Prior to the reception event, we did some testing and determined that both lights would probably benefit from a little additional diffusion. We gaff-taped two small squares of Rosco diffusion film over the Z90, and a single layer over the Z50. This was pretty close to optimal, and helped to soften the output even more. The result is a light that wraps quite nicely around the subject, and doesn’t hurt the eyes when aimed directly at them (when properly dimmed). The output of the Z90 was cut a bit by this double layer of diffusion, but it still enabled us to nicely fill light a 12’ square area.”

Go check out the full article for all the juicy details on these sweet little lights. You can purchase Zylight gear at Amazon and also direct from the manufacturer at www.zylight.com