F&V Z400D UltraColor CRI 95 LED Light Review

[marvinhello]

F&V Z400 UltraColor series were demoed at NAB and the biggest feature is the high CRI value of 95 which is rare among inexpensive professional LED lights. I managed to get a few from a dealer and decide to write a short review of this light since there's none around as far as I know!



Z400 series has two versions, normal CRI version and high CRI version (aka UltraColor), this will be labelled on the packaging.



The build quality is very nice, the light comes with the main unit, a milk diffuser, V-mount to wall adapter and a safety hook for studio use.



It can be powered by either DC, V-mount batteries or mains power.



Judging from my eyes, the light quality is surely a step up than most other LED lights, it's completely neutral without any colour cast, and it doesn't make skin look pale and sick.

To prove this light truly has a CRI of 95, I requested a lab to conduct some scientific measurements on this unit, and it turns out it has a CRI value of 95.6



To see how it performs in real world, I did a comparison between Z400D UltraColor and a generic 312 LED light. I used Canon 1D C in 4K 25p mode, white balance is set to 5600k, Canon Log on. the following snapshots are taken directly from the 4K video and are untouched.

A scene lit with a generic 312 LED, CRI~80


Same scene, same exposure settings, lit with Z400D UltraColor, CRI>95


Watch closely, when lit with a CRI 80 LED light, the flowers and the vase looked dull, a magenta cast was clearly visible.

The shadow is harder on the first one because 312 LED is smaller in size.

I also did some other random tests on skintone, Z400D nailed it everytime.

So my conclusion is that Z400 series are definately the best LED light at an affordable price. Very accurate colour rendition and you don't have to worry about matching up footage shot on different cameras with low CRI LED lights.

You can PM me for more info if you are interested

 

[David W. Jones]

OK, my big gripe, aside from the $1120 price tag which is a huge jump in price from their K4000 light, is they kept the very poorly designed milk diffuser.

Nobody wants, repeat, nobody wants to have to deal with attaching posts and little nuts which can be dropped on location, to attach a diffuser.

 

[legrevedotcom]

Yeah I gotta admit... How the hell could they not see that plate as a design fail?

But nice to see better cri living up to its purpose. Honestly dont if Im going to throw money after it. Had they redesigned the diffuser I would have without thinking about it.

 

[OldCorpse]

Thank you for this test. Obviously, it's your test, and all we can do is be thankful you conducted it. But this is the internet, and don't you know that there doesn't exist a test that someone is not going to gripe about ? OK, with that intro, here's my gripe (apologies ahead of time!): I have the FV K4000; since this is a test of the new Z400D, I kind of wish that you did a comparison of the K4000 rather than a "generic 312 LED". Because this leads to my next point: the price differential between the K4000 and the Z400D. When asking myself if it is worth spending the extra on the Z400D from the same company, I'm asking that in context of "over their K4000", not "over a generic 312 LED" - and obviously to determine that, I'd like to see a comparison between the two F&V lights.

Anyhow, thank you, for this test, it certainly is illuminating (pun intended!).

 

[traviswears]

Thank you for this test. Obviously, it's your test, and all we can do is be thankful you conducted it. But this is the internet, and don't you know that there doesn't exist a test that someone is not going to gripe about ? OK, with that intro, here's my gripe (apologies ahead of time!): I have the FV K4000; since this is a test of the new Z400D, I kind of wish that you did a comparison of the K4000 rather than a "generic 312 LED". Because this leads to my next point: the price differential between the K4000 and the Z400D. When asking myself if it is worth spending the extra on the Z400D from the same company, I'm asking that in context of "over their K4000", not "over a generic 312 LED" - and obviously to determine that, I'd like to see a comparison between the two F&V lights.

Anyhow, thank you, for this test, it certainly is illuminating (pun intended!).

This test is really ONLY relevant IF you're testing against the Z400D. Appreciate your efforts but there are a lot of poor quality 312LED lights out there that I would NEVER use on a set. So this testing out well against one of those doesn't sway me much at all.

I was sure that they would realize the design flaw on the milk diffuser. The little pegs are awkward and likely to be lost or broken. I was pretty sure I wanted this light until I saw they didn't change the diffusion at all. If this would've been another $200-$300 increase in price, MAYBE but at $1120 it's not nearly as impressive an offering as their original design for the price.

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

OK, my big gripe, aside from the $1120 price tag which is a huge jump in price from their K4000 light, is they kept the very poorly designed milk diffuser.

Nobody wants, repeat, nobody wants to have to deal with attaching posts and little nuts which can be dropped on location, to attach a diffuser.

Yup, that is a no go.

 

[traviswears]

You can get 3 of their original Z400D for less than one of these new ultracolors. Looks like they are using the EXACT same design. What exactly about this is causing the massive increase in price? What was the CRI of the original model?

 

[legrevedotcom]

Can't remember to be honest, but the first kit was a close match to LitePanels 1x1.

I wrote on F&Vs facebook page to see how they'd respond, they returned with this:

"...despite the unfortunate situation I can say that this is on our radar and we hope to solve the issue once and for all."


But in my mind... why the heck didn't you solve it before sending out a new version!? Fix ALL apparent errors before doing an update, end of story


On another note... has anyone tried diffusing the K4000 with frost filter to see if it could work properly?