Best lighting value of the week and then most fun light of the week. Kirk's pick.

I had two projects this week and I enjoyed them both very much. On each project I used the same two lights. One is very sensible and very economical and, if it had been on the flash market ten or fifteen years ago it would have demanded a thousand dollar price tag and been a piece of "kit" coveted by legions of working professional photographers.

The other light is by no means a lavish or silly tool to have a around but since it's battery powered it fits into a different set of production niches. Both lights come from the same company. It's called, Godox.

I've probably mentioned the first light before but I'm bringing it up again because it worked well and made the photo shoot easier for me. It's a Godox SK400 II. This is a traditional monolight, plug-in-the-wall, Bowen's mount, electronic flash. It's got a nice metal body, a 150 watt modeling light, a built-in cooling fan (not too noisy), it puts out a good amount of power and is rated at 400 watt seconds. The ad copy says it uses robust, European standard capacitors, is controllable by several different Godox 2.4 gHz wireless controllers and recycles, at max output, at around 1 second. All-in-all, unless you are a total gadget freak, it's pretty much everything one would want in a studio electronic flash; if 400 watt seconds is enough power for your needs.

I bought it a month of so ago when I was prepping to do a shoot on a dark stage and needed my two main flashes to have modeling lights so I could actually see what we would be photographing. On Tuesday I needed to put a main light in a small (2x3 foot) soft box, then drape the soft box all the way around the business end with black cloth, to form a ersatz snoot; and then I needed to hang the whole assemblage up on a boom and tall C-stand, with the face/flashtube pointing straight down. So, pretty much, I had the electronic flash totally encapsulated and I had the heat generating parts of the flash at the bottom so the heat could rise through the rest of the unit. Not the smartest way to ensure long life with flash circuits but sometimes it's what the photo demands.

With the flash up about twelve feet in the air and the control panel of the flash inches from the ceiling it's unreasonable to think that I could operate this assemblage via that rear control panel. Instead, I used a X1-F wireless flash controller to adjust the SK400 II power output from camera position. I put the big flash on group A and the secondary flashes on groups B and C.

We shot about 250 shots over the course of one hour in this configuration, with the modeling light set to full output, and every frame was perfectly consistent. Both for color and for exposure. I've owned many Profoto (Swedish premium lighting company) and Elinchrom (Swiss premium lighting company) flashes and this Godox unit was as consistent as anything I've come across. And, after all, consistency and reliability are the top two attributes one wants in electronic flash gear. So, the cost of this unit, not on Amazon but at my local bricks and mortar camera shop, was a whopping $140. New. In the box. With a reflector, power cord, flash tube cover and various owner's manuals. Compare that to the last Profoto 300 watt second monolight I bought nearly ten years ago at over $1200 and you'll understand why I'm so impressed with this unit. You could outfit a working studio with three good, strong lights for less than $500. Amazing.

The fun light is, of course, the Godox AD200 and all the bits and pieces that you can buy for yours. I used it one day this week as part of the overall light design, in conjunction with my swaddled SK 400 II. The AD200 is battery powered, small and light. I put a grid spot on the front and put it just out of frame for our shot and used its tight beam to add just the barest amount of fill to the bottom of our frame. I've covered the AD 200 before so I won't go into all the features, benefits and specs but I will say that it's a great light to use out on location. I can carry two, with accessories, in one small Pelican case and, with the right trigger, also get them to work well in HSS mode. Add a small soft box or octobox and a couple of light stands and you can make outdoor location portraits all day long with very good results.

Having good, cheap, agile lights to play with makes the jobs go quicker and keeps the fun quotient a bit higher.

I used the same two lights the next day to do a portrait of a radiologist in the studio.  I used the SK400 II with a 48 inch octa-box and I used the AD200 as a background light. The AD200 accepts a dome modifier over its circular flash head and it provided very even exposure on

Godox AD200.

the background. A quick set up and a very consistent group of portrait images! The color between the two units is a close match as well.

The cameras did what they were supposed to do and they were connected to an Atomos monitor for quick and easy evaluation by clients. But having lights that work well and with a big degreee of flexibility is a very nice thing. Now I just need to make sure I've always got a handful of double A batteries sitting around for the wireless trigger.

We've got quite a few flashes now. I'll have to stop buying new ones or I'll run out of cabinet space and we'll have them all over the floor..... but it's always better to have a dozen too many that one too few.....