Follow up:
I've been auditioning a
Zabolight Z1 Digital biclolor flood unit. I talked to Mr. Sabo who designed and builds the units on the phone for a long time. He said this one is brighter than their regular 1x1, and more color accurate.
I've been using it for a couple of weeks and it is rather bright. I think I've used it at full brightness only once so far. That was on a shoot I do quarterly with pretty much the same set up every time. This time it replaced a 650 Arri Fresnel in a Small Chimera that normally lights two people.
I took it to the same studio to compare with the
Dracst daylight spot light. Even though the Z is a bicolor flood, it was just as bright as the Dracast daylight spot in daylight mode. The Z's white balance registered at 5100. The Dracast at 5400. We may have been using a different camera, and we were shooting through a teleprompter, so it wasn't ideal conditions.
I did like the quality of the light from the Dracast a bit better, but the light from spot was harsh even with the diffusion panel, which wasn't surprising. One could put a big sheet of opal on the barn doors and soften it up I guess, but you'd be cutting down the power of the light.
The color spectrum seems to be all there. It looks fine, even in preset.
The things I don't like about the Zabolight is that it uses the same frame and barn doors as the Socanland lights. The problem with the barn doors is that they are so big, you can't tilt the light down much. I've thought of removing the bottom door, and just keeping some black wrap in the case in case I need to flag that part off. Another option would be to send them back, and buy the Dracast barn doors which are smaller. They also slide in to the slot rather than screwing in to the side which is nice.
I also received
focusing grid, like an egg crate for a Chimera, or the grille for a Diva. It works pretty well. They offer 15, 25, and 45 degree grids. I think I may have received the 25 rather than the 45 that I asked for. They also make a
"barn door in a bag" which is a cloth and metal egg crate looking thing that looks like it might work well.
The price is a bit high for the Zabolight. $1500 for the light, more for accessories.
Like I said I liked the light from the Dracast a little better. It looked a little more natural to my eye. However, I've used the Zabolight on preset in both tungsten and daylight modes, and it looked good on camera. People didn't look weird. I don't feel 100% sold just yet, but reading this, I guess maybe I am.