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NAB '08:
A Lighting Perspective

by Jessica Creech

Greetings from the 2008 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada! 

Each year, thousands of media professionals come together to view the latest and greatest in content creation products. Throughout the course of the week, MicroFilmmaker Magazine staff viewed hundreds of products to give you the low-down on some of the best equipment on the market today. In this article, I’ll present a sampling of innovative lighting solutions available to you and profiled at the Show.

In recent MFM articles, we’ve discussed gels and diffusion. One of the exciting products available at NAB that combines these accessories into a single piece of hardware is the Zylight. Zylights can instantly change from fully calibrated daylight to tungsten bright and soft white light. They can also emit a range of calibrated, colored light (including pastels) that traditionally could only be achieved through attaching color gels to the hardware unit. Presets allow users to store and quickly access colors as well.

At the Show, I viewed two models of Zylights, the Z50 and Z90. The LED makeup of the Z50 model combines over 230 elements into a square inch using only 30 watts of power. It then produces over 160 degrees of soft light with no hotspots. The Z90 model produces over 130 degrees of output. (The life of each Zylight is 50,000 hrs. of usage before factory re-calibration is needed.) Further, multiple Zylights can be networked by remote to “build” a bigger unit. The remote function allows gaffers significant flexibility by facilitating a streamlined lighting set up, saving time and negating the need for additional lighting personnel. Adjusting the settings on any of the linked lights results in a change to all of them. Available accessories can further adapt Zylights to accommodate a softbox or barndoors. To find out more, visit their website.

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