Definitely a lot brighter than the SK68. I just tried it against my single-mode Tomtop SK68 and the SC52 is visibly much brighter, though like Firelight2 says, the SK68 throws much farther when zoomed, and of course the SK68 has a much different looking beam with no hotspot to spill transition. It appears very close to my Xeno E03. I’ve tried some ceiling-bounce tests using my Sekonic incident light meter and got:
table(table#posts).
|Light|f/stop|EV|
|SC68|f/3.6|3.7|
|Xeno E03|f/5.6|5|
|ZL SC52|f/5.6|5|
(f/stop for 1 s shutter speed; all with 14500 battery)
It seems to vary quite a bit based on which exact SK-68 clone you get. I have several which seem to get somewhere around 140 to 160 lumens at the wide setting. Maybe as high as 180 with the bezel and lens removed. They definitely put out less light when zoomed though. I’d estimate the zoomed lux at around 10k to 15k cd, which very easily out-throws the SC52 at its 280lm setting (~2k lux).
So, the SC52 should get about 90m to 120m of throw (on Eneloop and 14500, respectively) with its ~2k to ~3.8k lux (based on selfbuilt’s measurements). The SK-68 can probably get 200m to 245m throw, at about 10k to 15k lux (estimated by me). I compared my SK-68 clones against a Skyray King (measured elsewhere) at around 22.5k lux (300m), and the SK-68 competes pretty well even though it doesn’t quite reach as far.
In other words, the SC52 could let you see that someone is standing at the other end of a football field. The SK-68 could spotlight the guy and reveal some detail. The SRK would light up the entire field (including the guy at the other end), providing a pretty useful amount of light everywhere. However, the SC52 is easily the most useful up close.
Got this torch today, and I’m VERY impressed. Build quality like I’ve never seen before brightness like you wouldn’t believe for something as big as your index finger.
I got my ZL SC52 a couple days ago on Saturday. It’s a really nice light, but it seems a little redundant since I already have a H51w. However, I decided I wanted a Zebralight in a standard torch style, I wanted to try their cool white tints, and I want to have a tiny Li-Ion torch with ~500lm bursts. So far, here are my impressions:
The good:
Very small and light for its output. I don’t have any 14500 batteries yet, but when those show up I may be able to use this instead of my usual 1x18650 torch.
The 0.06 lumen setting is more useful than I expected. I had thought 0.34 would be low enough for anything, but that’s actually too bright sometimes and 0.06 can still light my entire living room well enough to navigate at night. It’s good as a night light too. The 0.01lm setting is a bit too dim though; only really useful as a locator or to see things 2 feet away in total darkness. It might be good in a photo dark room.
The tint is great. I think it must be a 3B or 3C (~5300K to ~4700K) tint, since it’s significantly warmer than the 2B (~5900K) on another one of my lights. My ZL H51w is way way too yellow though; it’s probably a 5B or 5C (~4000K). So, as far as I can tell, Zebralight’s “cool white” lights are actually neutral white, their “neutral white” lights are downright yellow, and I don’t even want to know what their “warm” lights look like.
Output and runtime are great as usual for Zebralight. I don’t feel bad about using the 0.06lm setting as a night light when it has a life of 2 months at that level. Also, 4 days of runtime on my favorite mode (2.7lm) and 27 hours on my next most-used mode (12lm).
The hotspot is surprisingly small for an XM-L emitter in such a small body. The SC52’s reflector is the most aggressive I’ve ever seen, overlapping the LED’s circuit board and almost touching the LED dome. Every unit will be centered, simply because they can’t be anything but centered.
The clip is screwed on. No more clip falling off due to insufficient spring tension! (can be an issue on the SC600)
The basic ZL UI is great as always.
The battery indicator doo-dad is a nice touch, so I can get an idea how much runtime is left.
The bad:
As a standard torch, it’s still far less convenient for most tasks than my usual setup — a ZL H51w worn as a necklace. It’s inconvenient having to use a hand for lighting, and having the light come from my hand instead of closer to my eyes when I’m holding something in both hands. Still, the SC52 fills a gap in my lighting needs, for times when the H51w isn’t as convenient.
Programmable sub-levels are kind of annoying, especially on the lowest levels. It does 2.7, 0.34, 0.06, and 0.01 lumen modes all in one group. I can access 2.7 and one of the others easily, but the others take like 20 clicks to access. Why can’t they just rotate between all levels in a group with a double-click, instead of only two? I’d greatly prefer to have L1 doubleclick> L2 doubleclick> L3 doubleclick> L4 doubleclick> L1… because I often want to switch between 0.34 lumens and 0.06 lumens, and sometimes even 0.01. This isn’t much of an issue on M and H though, since those sublevels are all close enough together that it doesn’t matter much.
The clip is extremely stiff out of the box. I had to slide an old credit card under it and pry the clip away from the body pretty far to loosen it up before I could even think about clipping it to anything. The clip also moves side-to-side a bit, as if its screw holes are too big (it did this directly out of the box).
My unit seems to have a small flaw in its beam, a small dark spot near the center of the hotspot. This might be caused by the small scratch on its reflector, or by the fleck of dust on its emitter dome, or something else… not sure.
I’m having a lot of trouble keeping the lens clean. It almost looks like there’s a thin oily film on the underside of the lens, and there’s definitely some dust under there.
It’d be really nice if the ribbed texture was flattened underneath the clip, and if the back edge of the head had rounder edges. Also perhaps a clip which sticks out more, since I can’t fit the clip around the clip ring on my purse.
It seems like the SC52 could use a short “lobster claw” for attaching it to a keychain. It’s shorter than my car key, so why not?
The ugly:
That same old military drab color. Yuck! At least they gave me a relatively dark sample (by request).
I had been debating whether to get the SC52 or wait for the SC600mk2, but eventually decided on the SC52 because it’s smaller and I don’t often use the brighter modes. The SC600 might be a bit excessive when I only want 2-3 lumens most of the time. Anyway, the SC52 has been a good companion so far, filling in when my H51w isn’t quite the tool I need. It is not remotely a replacement for the H51 though, and the H51w will probably remain my primary torch until they release the H52.
Good points above, like you I also expected a cleaner beam pattern.
One VERY annoying thing with this torch is the difficulty to start in a low mode. From off, if you press the button it goes straight into high 500lm mode, but if you hold the button slightly longer, it cycles from low -> med -> high. So if I want low mode to start with I have to hold the button for somewhere between 0.6 seconds and let it go fast enough before it cycles to medium.
I do like the battery indicator with the flashes though, very handy.
Oh, the beam on mine is pretty clean aside from one little flaw. I think it’s probably caused by a little scratch I can see on the reflector. The rest is pretty smooth. The only odd thing is that the corona isn’t quite round… it’s slightly squarish, mirroring the large square emitter.
I find the Zebralight UI to be pretty easy and intuitive. I almost never get the wrong mode, and i don’t really have to think about it. However, I’ve been using my H51w a lot ever since I got it a few months ago, so the SC52 interface was exactly what I expected. My only real gripe there is that double-clicking should rotate through all modes per level instead of only two (it takes 12 clicks to get it to behave how I think it should by default).
Mine arrived yesterday, and I’m very impressed with the build and light output. Unfortunately though, my thumb is wearing out trying the different programming options…
I’m undecided about whether I like the ZL SC52 or JB RRT01 better. They’re my top two choices for best traditional (non-angled) light in a small but larger-than-keyfob format.
They’re approximately the same size, same approximate price now, have roughly the same output range, have a good clip, and each has wide selection of output levels. However, the SC52 has massively longer battery life while the RRT01 has a much easier and fuller selection of output levels so I can always get the exact right amount of light. The RRT01 also seems to have a nicer beam pattern.
I think, if the SC52 had a couple UI changes, it would be the clear winner… but it’s really hard to switch between sub-lumen levels and it’s missing at least one important output level (0.9 or 1.0 lumens). They should remove the 12 clicks to enter programming mode, eliminate the distinction between primary (H1, M1, L1) and sub levels (H2, H3, H4, M2, M3, L2, L3, L4) so a double click would always rotate to the next level in that category (L4 -> L3 -> L2 -> L1 -> L4). It would also be nice to add another UI concept where the user could quickly cycle through all levels (in order from lowest to highest) by doing a double-click and holding the second click until the desired level is reached. (cycle from 0.01 to 0.06 then 0.34 and so on until it gets up to 500, with a delay between levels about half as long as the existing hold-cycle UI)
As for the SC52w, I have no interest. A tint that warm looks sickeningly yellow to me. I’ve been really tempted to get a cool white H51 because my H51w is way too warm.
4400k doesn’t mean it’ll be for sure yellow, the XML2 is a different emitter and only time will tell if it ends up yellow. 4400k is still nuetral in my eyes
As for the rrt01 and sc52, which UI do you like best? Get that one
RRT01 is hands-down winner on level selection (you just can’t beat instant access to infinite levels). SC52 is hands-down winner on runtime. SC52 is also designed for li-ion and has at least some sort of thermal protection (wouldn’t be concerned about letting others use it).
I’d say the RRT01 has the perfect UI for EDC where runtime isn’t all that important. SC52 is great for EDC and also for any situations where runtime is important.
Going to work: RRT01
Going on a hike: SC52
Even better: take both
I didn’t like the Rrt0 or rrt01, there good lights but I didn’t like the UI. I prefer the Sunwayman V11r for magnetic control ring lights, there simpler
I have both the RRT-01 and Sunwayman V11r. The UI on the RRT-01 is simpler. Left is off, right is max. Turn the dial in between to gradually ramp up.
In contrast, the V11r has both a button and a ring and after turning it on with the button you have to flip the light around in your hand to operate the ring.
