As a company, Glazer’s has a wide selection of lighting brands from Profoto to Interfit to Aputure and beyond. Recently there has been a lot of interest in the options from Godox, as a result Glazer’s now carries a variety of options from Godox, including the AD200, AD400, AD600, as well a multitude of modifiers and accessories for each.
This past week I had the opportunity to work with the AD200 a bit. Having worked with a lot of speedlight/flash systems over the years, I find the Godox system pretty easy to get started with. If you’ve worked with any off camera flashes, you will recognise icons and functions, immediately.
The Details
The Godox AD200 is an interesting portable flash system, it comes with your standard flash head, rechargeable battery, and an interchangeable bare flash head. It can work with just about any kind of lighting modifier on the market from things like Westcott Apollo’s to Bowen’s mount softboxes, beauty dishes and beyond.
Here are some of the tech specs for those of you love the numbers:
- High Speed Sync up to 1/8000 Seconds
- 200w/s power
- Flash Exposure Compensation – 8 steps of power (1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64, 1/128 – & 1/3rd stops
- Modelling light
- Up 500 Flashes at Full Power
- Recycle time of up to 2 seconds (depending on power output)
- TTL, Manual, and Stroboscopic Modes
- Firmware upgradeable via USB
- Built-in 2.4G Wireless X System Receiver
- Optional X1 Wireless TTL Transmitter
- Supports Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, Sony TTL (with optional wireless transmitter)
All of this in a fairly small package (6.6” x 3” x 2”), and around 2lbs with a battery. With this system there are a ton of accessory options, including an interchangeable LED cover, barndoor/gel kit, and more.
Want more power?
The AD200 is just one of the Godox lights Glazer’s has available; you will also find the AD400 and AD600. These lights have more power (400 w/s and 600 w/s), and of course are a bit larger. Within the larger light systems you’ll see adapters for Bowen’s mount or their own speedings for their deep softboxes.
Wireless remotes!
And don’t forget at least one wireless remote. The Godox Ad200, AD400 and AD600 all have built in wireless receivers in a few options from a basic remote to a controller, all available for Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic and Sony!!
All the Modifiers!
The Godox system has quite a few modifiers available, but one of the great things about this system is that it is compatible with a multitude of the modifiers on the market today including those from brands like Interfit, Phottix, Profoto and Westcott, just to name a few. This also means if you have existing modifiers the AD200, AD400 or AD600 may well already work for you!
Sample Images
For this article I partnered up with Devin, one of Glazer’s talented experts in a broad spectrum of topics in the realm of photography & film: from cameras to video to audio and lighting. We had a great conversation about the versatility of these lights and he also stepped in front of the lens for some sample images.
All of these samples were captured on a Fujifilm X-T2 with the 35mm f/1.4 Lens. You will find lighting notes including with each image.
Godox AD200 TTL w/Westcott Apollo Orb + Grid at 1/16th power
This was the first snap with the AD200. For flashes I tend to start at around 1/16 or 1/32 power, even with a traditional speedlight full power can be pretty bright, so starting smaller and building is my process, especially since I enjoy more dramatic lighting.
Godox AD200 TTL w/Westcott Apollo Orb + Grid – Between 1/32 & 1/16 Power
Godox AD200 TTL w/Westcott Apollo Orb + Grid – Between 1/32 & 1/16 Power
With this image we started with TTL, which I found a little too bright, so I flipped the remote to manual and set the power at 1/32, to see what it would look like. Then set it to between 1/32 & 1/16 power. This got us a little more light, but not as much as the first image above, but a light that I felt worked well.
Most of the time we work hard to avoid reflections in glasses, but Devin liked it, so of the series I feel these two are “keepers” as we say.
After trying several frames with the grid on the modifier we took the grid off and did just a few more with the softer light. Without changing anything, immediately the image is bright and of course there is more light falling on the background, which is why you might select a softer light source, instead of a grid.
Godox AD200 1/16th Power w/Westcott Apollo Orb
This is the first image without the grid on the modifier. I made no changes to any settings, just snapped a photo to see the differences. From here I switched over to TTL and took a couple more, then finally subtracted 1/3rd of a stop from the TTL for this final image.
Final image: Godox AD200 TTL – 1/3rd stop + Power w/Westcott Apollo Orb | Edited in Lightroom
TTL can work wonderfully, but just light a camera’s light meter, it will provide the light it thinks you need. Sometimes creatively we want something different from that, so having the ability to quickly adjust from either TTL with exposure compensation or to make manual adjustments is very handy.
This image is probably my fave of the few we captured during this demo. For this one I did a few tweaks in Lightroom.
Come in and check them out!
Come in for a visit and check out these awesome lights. There are demos of the AD200 on the first and second floor of the store, as well demos of the AD400 and Ad600 available in our lighting department. We are also working on a lighting demo, featuring Godox in the near future, so be on the look out!
