Zylight LED Camera Lights Review

Tiffany Young: Hi there and welcome to Neo-Fight.TV, the technology show for the not-so-geeky. I am Tiffany Young. Ben Freedman: And I am Ben Freedman and not a lot of people realize this but we are sitting in a studio and we have four incredibly big, hot softbox lights on us. Tiffany Young: Soft light boxes. Ben Freedman: Soft light boxes; softbox lights. They are lights with soft boxes on them that make the light soft so we don’t have huge shadows. Tiffany Young: Oh, kind of like that picture that you take when you’re looking in the scan. Ben Freedman: Scan? Tiffany Young: Sun. Ben Freedman: That is right. Tiffany Young: You know squinty. You’ve got wrinkles you never thought you had. Ben Freedman: Yeah. So these are powerful lights because they are soft. We’re not squinting and it does not create big shadows and everything. That is good but the problem with these lights is a; they are expensive, they are huge to try to port around. Tiffany Young: Sure. Ben Freedman: And they are hot. So they get really hot and sometime, we got to keep the AC crank up in here and even with the AC on, these lights get very, very warm. So there is a new revolution in lights now coming where they use LED’s. Now have you seen the new LED flashlights you can get? Tiffany Young: Yeah, absolutely. Ben Freedman: Where instead of the bulb, right? There is LED’s in some cars now I think use LED’s instead of lights even in their headlights. Tiffany Young: Great. Ben Freedman: So you can get these really powerful and great things about LED’s is they use less power and they stay cool. Tiffany Young: What is the difference between LED and halogen lights? Ben Freedman: Well halogen is still incandescent bulb that uses a wire. Tiffany Young: I see. Ben Freedman: But they have a gas inside of them, halogen gas that creates a brighter, whiter light. Tiffany Young: I see, okay. Ben Freedman: Inside there. Tiffany Young: Thank you for sharing. Ben Freedman: LED is a whole different technology. LED is these little completely sealed things. If you drop them, they don’t break because they are sealed, because there is no glass, they are made of plastic. Tiffany Young: Very cool. Ben Freedman: Much more durable. So I have a couple of lights here that were sent to me by the good folks of Zylight. Now these are professional lights. These are for people who do videography like wedding videography when I say professional I mean I don’t mean that they are out of the range of normal people because if you want to really add the quality of your videos at home, a good on camera light is very important. But they are not cheap. Let’s say like $600.00. This is about $800.00. Tiffany Young: Can you actually put this on top of a regular camcorder? Ben Freedman: That is right. So you will notice here and I’ve got it sitting on a stand but this just goes on top of your little camcorder shoe, you know. Tiffany Young: So your handy cam, your family, okay Ben Freedman: That is right down there and these will run off the battery power as well. This is the 50 and this is the 90 which is the bigger one of the two and I have this on a stand here. Tiffany Young: Wow. Ben Freedman: But these put out for the sides. But first of all look at how small they are. I will turn the monitor here. Tiffany Young: Yeah, back it up already. Ben Freedman: Do you see that? They are small. They are very, very light, small light. I mean you can see compared to these ones we’ve got on here, these are very small and light and they put out a ton of power. So I am going to turn this on here, okay. Tiffany Young: It’s like a blue—oh I see you can do blue light. You can do green light. Ben Freedman: Well this is the other thing is that most lights are here it is and— Tiffany Young: Wow, look how bright that looks there. Ben Freedman: Yeah it’s really bright. If I turn it on you here, you can see—look at the camera here, you can see there is a lot of bright but I can dim it because it’s dimmable on the back here. Tiffany Young: I can't see it well. Ben Freedman: No you don’t want to look straight at it, okay. But you can make it dimmer and brighter now. Tiffany Young: Where do I look better, in blue light or green light? Ben Freedman: Wow, you look better in white light. Now, it’s a good question. Tiffany Young: Excuse me, blue light please Ben Freedman: The lighting is very— Tiffany Young: This time blue light. Ben Freedman: The lighting is very important because if you are shooting indoors, you need to have what’s called tungsten or yellow light which what you are seeing here. But if you were shooting outdoors and wanted to fill your face in, you need something that matches sunlight. There are two different colors of light; there is indoor lighting and outdoor lighting. Tiffany Young: Sure. Ben Freedman: Now if we have these lights, we want to do an outdoor shoot, I have to put a gel in front of them to make them match the sun. Tiffany Young: I see. Ben Freedman: To make them match but the problem with gels is that it reduces the amount of light that comes out. So you need a bigger light and then a gel in front of it to get that. But with these because they are LED’s, they actually can change colors. Tiffany Young: Cool. Ben Freedman: So this is the indoor light setting but if I hit outdoor you see how that change that Disney yellow light? Tiffany Young: Oh yeah, sure, right. Ben Freedman: Which is what we need and I’ll shun this on you just a little bit but for outdoors—don’t look at me. Tiffany Young: Oh. Ben Freedman: If you look at this green, you’re going to blind yourself. Tiffany Young: I just did blind myself again. Ben Freedman: So here we are with blue light for outdoors but I hit a button and I am back to yellow light for indoors. Tiffany Young: Yeah. Ben Freedman: Blue light, yellow light. Tiffany Young: Oh yeah. Ben Freedman: Isn’t that cool? Tiffany Young: Very cool. Ben Freedman: So it’s really cool. Now you can actually make all different kinds of colors. If I take it into color mode— Tiffany Young: I have a question. Ben Freedman: Yeah. Tiffany Young: What do you put it on if it’s nighttime outside? Ben Freedman: Nighttime outside which one, just match your other lights. So if it’s your only light, it does not matter but if you are using other lights like street—oh no, streetlights, but housing lights, you won’t put in on the tungsten, yellow lights. Tiffany Young: I see. Cool. Ben Freedman: The only time you need blue light is when you are matching sun. Tiffany Young: I see. Ben Freedman: The sun is actually a blue light. Now our eyes are so fantastic that it does not notice that. But you will notice here by the way that I now have— Tiffany Young: The disco light. Ben Freedman: A pink light and I can actually make this—if I want to do some specific color, I’ll turn this down a little bit. Now I want to do some specific color, I can actually hold this over here and now I’ve got purple and blue. So I—if I want to use it for an effect, if I want to like shine it on something like if I want to add some blue to our back light here, see how I am adding in some blue back there. Tiffany Young: Oh I see. Ben Freedman: Yeah, if I want a different effect here, I can here turn it over here and now I am adding green. Okay. Tiffany Young: Or you can make some funny face if you hold that under your chin at night. Ben Freedman: Yes, okay. So very, very cool but then with a push of a button, boom and back to tungsten in daylight which is where you need to be. So I was using this a couple weeks ago on a shoot and it was so great because it instantly switch back and forth. Tiffany Young: Right. Ben Freedman: Now there’s one other really super cool feature as well as being cool. And by the way, this has been on for five minutes, go ahead and touch that. Tiffany Young: Oh it’s cool. Ben Freedman: It’s cool. It’s amazingly cool. The other cool thing between these two is they will talk to each other wirelessly. Tiffany Young: Wow. Communicate. Ben Freedman: All I am going to do is, you can tune this and here it is, turn it on. I am going to put this in a wireless mode here and there it is. Now, what is cool in wireless mode is if I switch this one to—first of all if I switch this one off, it turns them both off. Tiffany Young: Oh I see, neat, right. Ben Freedman: So I can have three of these on the tripods around the studio and when I turn one on, they all turn on. If I dim one, they both dim. Isn’t that amazing? If I go from daylight to tungsten, they both change. Tiffany Young: Now, is that—can you—you can’t do anything besides match the actions on this one like for example— Ben Freedman: That’s right, they match Tiffany Young: If you want this one a little dimmer but that one a little brighter, you have to manually do the adjustment. Ben Freedman: Then you would manually do the adjustments. Tiffany Young: And take it off, okay. Ben Freedman: But if you want them to match each other, so that you know, I can now, what I can do in is a typical playing in tungsten mode here. So in a normal situation, I have one light on you over here, like so. Tiffany Young: I look away again. Ben Freedman: Yeah look at the screen.—like this. Tiffany Young: I’m telling you this light are bright. Ben Freedman: They are very bright. One light on you like this then if I need to turn them both off, I can just do this. Tiffany Young: Okay. Ben Freedman: Then I’ve return and it’s too bright obviously, so we already had these lights on, I thought I want to turn both down and I can do this. So the ability to control one wireless again, it just saves you so much time. I can turn them on and off. And again, stays cool. So I can grab this and pick it up. This one I usually stick on a tripod, like so. Tiffany Young: Wow. Ben Freedman: So this is really cool. I think one of the tripod, this one goes on top of my camera and I could be mobile, I can be walking around and then if I need to dim them, you know, I can dim them. So it’s just a great way to be of the dim them and if I want to turn them off at the shoot, I turn this off, that one turns off too. Tiffany Young: Do you think that all the lighting is pretty much can go to this new technology? Ben Freedman: I think it is and I think Zylight here is leading the way. Tiffany Young: Right. Ben Freedman: So that—it’s not cheap; $800, $600 but if you are anyone who is doing videography on a serious either a prosumer or a professional level, it’s smaller, lighter, cooler to the touch and this wireless mode is very cool. Tiffany Young: It’s still—and even if you do want to get for a family, you want to just have this to your camcorder, I mean a little more expensive than most but imagine the quality that video last a lifetime. You know—I mean you can never retake the video again. It’s moment in time. So— Ben Freedman: So that is Zylight, go check them out at— I think it’s zylight.com and these are fantastic lights for people who need lighting—. Tiffany Young: I’m still seeing spots right now. Ben Freedman: I know they are bright. They are super bright for—that they are. They are shockingly bright. Tiffany Young: But they are nice, really nice; really nice. Ben Freedman: And we’ll be right back in just a second, so stay tuned. And we are back at Neo-Fight.TV and on the second spotlight today, we are looking at this which is a device by Swann security products. I think it is or Swann, it’s Swann. Tiffany Young: Okay. Ben Freedman: With two N’s. Tiffany Young: Swann. Ben Freedman: I think they are an Australian based company that does observation and security and this is a really cool little guy. It looks like one of those alarm infrared things, right? Tiffany Young: I think these are things you put into your bathroom, you know? What to have a light at night; a nightlight. Ben Freedman: A nightlight or— Tiffany Young: Yeah or one of those scent things, yeah. Ben Freedman: Okay it’s not. So what it is, do you have those security systems in your house that has—? Tiffany Young: So people won’t know what it is when I see it. Ben Freedman: That’s right, that’s right. So what this is, is a digital camera that takes pictures. I don’t know if you could see this little hole in the front here. It takes pictures through this little thing here. Tiffany Young: Oh yeah. Ben Freedman: And so you mount this on your wall. You turn it on and there is a card; an SD card right inside here, like so. Tiffany Young: Oh. Ben Freedman: And you turn it on and it will wait for motion and when it sees motion, it will start taking pictures. It takes a bunch of pictures while the motion is going on like every half a second, it will take photo. Tiffany Young: Cool. Ben Freedman: Yeah. So you have to plug in some sort of power either you plug it into the wall or you could plug it—it comes with this little 9V battery adapter but as you can see it’s kind of—it’s a little bit flaky. Tiffany Young: A little what? Ben Freedman: Flaky? Tiffany Young: Flaky. Ben Freedman: I mean it would be nice if the battery went inside. It only lasts about seven or eight hours on a battery. Tiffany Young: Okay. Ben Freedman: So you really, for in sort, permanent installation. Tiffany Young: It needs to be wired. Ben Freedman: It needs to be wired. I am going to turn on here and right now, what its doing is waiting for motion and then taking pictures. So wave you hands there and see that little light comes on there and that’s it taking pictures. Tiffany Young: Give me all your money. Ben Freedman: So the whole goal here is to take this and probably this foolish is staring right into our light over there. Let’s take a picture. I will turn it around this way and it will get to take a picture of the studio. Tiffany Young: So when the light goes on, it’s actually taking the photo? Ben Freedman: Yeah. Tiffany Young: Oh, it’s so quiet. Ben Freedman: It makes no noise at all. It’s absolutely silent. So here we are and it takes some pictures in the studio. Tiffany Young: Wow, people have no idea what it’s doing. Ben Freedman: That is right. Hopefully there is enough motion there that will go on. So it will just sit there and this is great like if you have a handy cam or if you have people baby sitting your home or anything like that, I mean you don’t even notice it. It looks just like an alarm. Tiffany Young: Or an air freshener. Ben Freedman: Or an air freshener. Yeah, I mean my alarm is my house; house that just like this and just sits there. Tiffany Young: It gives us a budget but you probably have your house so wired, nobody could get away with anything around. Ben Freedman: That is right. So I will put up a couple of the pictures in this right in here. Tiffany Young: Poor kids. Ben Freedman: So you can see— Tiffany Young: When Alley and Casey grow up, they’re going to be like, ‘dad, how did you know that? I don’t know.’ Ben Freedman: So this guy is about a $130.00 I think. Tiffany Young: Yeah. Ben Freedman: And so when you are done, you turn it off. Tiffany Young: Okay. Ben Freedman: Click, you pop this card out, stick it on your computer or you can hook it up by USB. Tiffany Young: Oh my gosh. Ben Freedman: Now here you go. Tiffany Young: Keep a lot of people will trouble with that thing. Ben Freedman: And there are the pictures. Where else— Tiffany Young: What you say you did at lunch today honey? I am just kidding. Ben Freedman: Well that is right. And the nice thing about it is unlike you know, it’s not a webcam so you don’t have to worry about logging up on the internet. Tiffany Young: Sure. Ben Freedman: It does not record all the time, only when there is motion. So you’re not going to be having to hunt through hours and hours of pictures to find when somebody finally moved. Tiffany Young: What kind of resolution are the photos? Ben Freedman: I think it’s 640x480. Tiffany Young: Okay. Ben Freedman: Not high. Tiffany Young: And— Ben Freedman: I will put them up on the screen so you can see them. Tiffany Young: Oh good, okay, very good. Cool, scary, better do not do anything naughty. Ben Freedman: That is the Swann Digital Private Eye. If you have a room that you need to monitor, a nanny cam, you know you got contract that is working in your house or something you have to go out for a bit and record them. Tiffany Young: Wow. Ben Freedman: You can set it you know. Tiffany Young: In every half a second, so it’s almost like full on video. Ben Freedman: It’s like that. I mean but it’s not quite video. Tiffany Young: And this is like 128. Ben Freedman: So this is a tiny, dinky, little card. Tiffany Young: Right. Ben Freedman: But if you get like a 1GB card, it will soar like 4000 photos. Tiffany Young: Oh my gosh. Ben Freedman: Because they are tiny, they are only 20 or 30K, so they are very small. Tiffany Young: Very neat, I like it. Ben Freedman: You just plug a big card in and you can get days with the photos on there. Tiffany Young: No service agreement required. Ben Freedman: That is right. Completely stand alone. Tiffany Young: Yeah. Ben Freedman: The only problem is that it does run out of batteries, so you will need to hook it up to power. Tiffany Young: Yeah, that’s about it. Ben Freedman: And that is all the time we have for this week but if you would, go to our website and tell us where you would put a Digital Private Eye from Swann. Tiffany Young: Well, if you happen to install it, you would like to share a story. We’d love to hear it. Ben Freedman: Yeah or if you have some photos that you took of somebody doing something compromising the walls under the watchful eye. Tiffany Young: So we’ll be more than happy to embarrass them on our show. Ben Freedman: Exactly. So send us those pictures and send us some comments and visit us. Sid I mention our website? www.neo-fight.tv. That is where you can leave those comments. Tiffany Young: Absolutely. Ben Freedman: Send us suggestions or just generally hurl insults. Tiffany Young: Thanks so much for watching. Ben Freedman: We’ll see you next week and if you happen to have an extra 30 seconds, take a look at this. [Commercial]