2K Zip Light - Worth the buy?

D

DDirector

Veteran
I found some used 2K zip lights with crates, with a dual switch, and I think they are cheap?
Not sure if mole or not.

1) How much do these sell for used?
2) Is it worth the buy for a soft light? I havent seen these used often really.
 
Zips are old and very inefficient (i.e., not a lot of light for the amount of power they draw). They can put out a pretty light, and they're more space-efficient than a softbox on the front of a Fresnel, but ... yeah, pretty much they were killed off when fluorescents came out. 2,000 watts is a lot of electricity draw, you'd basically have to dedicate an entire circuit to one... it'd have to be really quite cheap to be worth it.
 
NO. The 750's aren't bad since they're so small and lightweight, but I'll take a Kino over a 2k zip almost any day of the week.
 
These can also be lamped down to dual 750w or dual 500w, and produce a beautiful quality of light, but they put out heat just like any Tungsten light.
 
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David W. Jones said:
These can also be lamped down to dual 750w or dual 500w, and produce a beautiful quality of light, but they put out heat just like any Tungsten light.
Click to expand...


I like a zip light. I used a Colortran 2K zip light for our primary light on night exteriors for a reality show take off horror film I shot a good while back and I loved the quality and quantity of light it gave. I inherited the light when the guy who owned it moved to LA and didn't want to move it. I was heart broken when it got stolen out of the garage where I had it stored a few years latter. I wouldn't mind having one now, but I think that I would probably get a 1K zip light or two, rather than a 2K one for the reason Barry said, having to power it off a dedicated 20 amp circuit. Those can be scarce to come by on low budget shoots. The 1K lights would also be much easier to store and transport for me right now. I don't know what they are going for but I wouldn't pay more than $150ish for a zip light, in good shape.

Here is a video tutorial on how to use flags that uses a 1K zip light as the base light. It is pretty good.

 
David W. Jones said:
These can also be lamped down to dual 750w or dual 500w, and produce a beautiful quality of light, but they put out heat just like any Tungsten light.
Click to expand...

You can also put in energy efficient FCM/FDF HIR lamps. These put out just as much light as regular FCM and FDF's, but they only draw 650 and 350w respectively. I would highly recommend using those in this type of light, particularly the FCM HIR as a substitute for an FCM. The decreased heat will not only be an advantage in and of itself, but it also will help to preserve the paint, and the decreased wattage will allow a 2k one to safely run on a standard household outlet, with 500w of headroom to spare.
 
Basically it's a traditional tungsten light bouncing off of the inside of the curved white surface of the light. Thus ending up a quasi soft light. I say "quasi" because the softness of the light depend on many factors including how large the bounce surface is and because here that surface is relatively small (on 2k light around 1x1.5feet) the softness is relatively sharp. In other words you will get much nicer light bouncing typical 2k off a white wall. Or shooting 1k through 4x4 (look at all that electricity you save!).
 
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