F&V Z400 UltraColor LED

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diegocervo

Well-known member
Hello,

before purchasing a set of 3 F&V Z400 UltraColor LED, I wanted to ask if any of you have tried these 1x1 panels and what's your experience with them.
The manufacturer states that CRI is >=95. How do you find skintones?

Thanks as usual for any feedback
 
Victor Nhat Nguyen said:
I know many people that are happy with the 1x1 panel. I'm thinking of getting some myself.
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The original or the ultra? The original has bad light quality on skintones, the build quality is subpar and the diffusion panel design sucks. They announced the ultra color in fall '13 and it's just now coming out, yet the design of the light looks identical to the original.

For the price, I'd look elsewhere.
 
traviswears said:
The original or the ultra? The original has bad light quality on skintones, the build quality is subpar and the diffusion panel design sucks. They announced the ultra color in fall '13 and it's just now coming out, yet the design of the light looks identical to the original.

For the price, I'd look elsewhere.
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I'm sorry I'm mistaken. I was thinking of K4000. Would you say the same about k4000 also?
 
Victor Nhat Nguyen said:
I'm sorry I'm mistaken. I was thinking of K4000. Would you say the same about k4000 also?
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I think the F&Vs suck personally. They're weak and they don't look good on skin.

I am still looking for the perfect LED solution myself but I don't like those one bit. The only good thing about them is they are cheap.
 
traviswears said:
I think the F&Vs suck personally. They're weak and they don't look good on skin.

I am still looking for the perfect LED solution myself but I don't like those one bit. The only good thing about them is they are cheap.
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Maybe going off topic but... I have heard great things about Fiilex. Even Shane Hurlbut recommended it.
 
traviswears said:
I think the F&Vs suck personally. They're weak and they don't look good on skin.
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I've been using the F&V K4000 lights for about 18 months now, and find them to be a pretty good bargain for the price. Colorwise I found that my original lights to be about 5500 Kelvin, but I bought some newer ones about 3 months ago and these were about 6000 Kelvin. I ended up taping 1/4 CTO gels to the newer ones to get them to match.

As far as skintones go these lights are a little green, so you have to either tape on a 1/8 minus-green or correct the slight green cast in post. Once corrected I find the skintones to be pretty good, not great, but definitely not terrible. I plan on eventually replacing these with CRI 95 1x1 lights, which might be the new LitePanels Astra lights once they start shipping a 5500 Kelvin version. ( I want the extra stop of light from the daylight only version )

The F&V diffuser is a bit wonky and it eats up too much light, so I've been taping on diffusion sheets directly to the light.

I find the F&V lights to be brighter than most of the Chinese LED lights in their price range, but you're not going to get the same power as a higher end $1500+ LED light.
 
DVXuser member Erik Naso did a write up on these panels from a company that's been around for awhile and generally has good products:

Aputure HR672S

I've had my eye on Aputure lights for awhile (cheesycam mentioned and tested different models for years), and these latest high CRI ones are definitely edging close to "buy" status for me... I only wish they had a bit more power - if they were brighter by another 30% I'd go for them. I have the F&V K4000 (old ones) and pretty much agree with TheDingo's take (though I bought mine shortly after they came out and have no experience with recent editions). Also one thing that's always been a bummer with the K4000 is the expensive battery situation.
 
OldCorpse said:
one thing that's always been a bummer with the K4000 is the expensive battery situation.
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V-Lock batteries are about the only thing that will power these for 2+ hours, though there is a fairly cheap (about $60) V-lock to dual F970 battery adapters you can buy on eBay. ( this won't give you 2 hours of use, but maybe 30-40 minutes )
 
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