Moving to Mirrorless …

Just noticed how out of date this review is so I’m just adding an update …
See below my beloved Nikon D800 ??
That’s gone now and I then bought a Nikon D850, a lovely camera and in my mind the best DSLR Nikon has ever made.
But even that has been retired now – but still in the drawer and comes out when needed.
I’ve gone mirrorless now.
Smaller, lighter, with advanced electronics that make them so much quicker.
First was the Nikon Z7ll – a brilliant box of tricks, and I coupled it with the 24-70mm f4 S lens.
Great combo. and has been serving me well for 4 years.
But even that mini-miracle has been superseded.
The Nikon Z8 with the 24-120mm f4 S
Didn’t think they could make the Z7 much better, but they have.
It is so quick and so damned clever.
The focusing is amazing and can pick out a sparrows eye at 20 yards.
So that’s where I’m at now.

The only other update I have is in my operating procedure.

I have been using a lot of continuous light for the last couple of years and I now have quite a stable of LED lights, as my client likes to be able to shoot iPhone video footage over my shoulder (and some times in the bloody way) ;-).
But as we are shooting a lot of kids I sometime have big problems stopping the erratic action of the 4 year olds.
I have considered nailing them to the floor but the parents get very twitchy when I suggest this, so I have re-introduced a bit of Flash for that amazing ability to freeze action.
Okay it’s t a complex solution, mixing continuous light with flash, but it does produce some great results.
Just adding that crisp edge to a bouncing child makes it zing. (the picture not the child)
Really happy with the results.
It was especially useful for simulating sunshine coming through a window and backlighting the children.
For sheer power of light it’s still hard to beat the trusty old flash units … and if you spool down the page you can see the lightweight but powerful units that I use; the Godox 600s.
My lovely client represents a Toy company Threadbear Design that produces gorgeous wooden toys – Check’em out!
You will even get to see some of my work – quel joie !!

 

New MBD 12 for the Nikon D800

Noticed during a recent video shoot that my D800 was going through the battery power quite quickly – not really surprising when you consider it was set on “Live View” most of the day, so I thought about getting an MBD 12 battery grip to allow use of a back up battery and also provide a more comfortable grip, especially when shooting vertically.
Well the Nikon MBD 12 costs a whopping £300 so I thought a browse of Amazon would be worth a try to see what our Chinese colleagues had been up to.

I know, some of the Chinese stuff really isn’t very well made and it is a rip off of the Nikon designs, which is a little bit reprehensible but the cost savings can be considerable.
Sure enough there were several MBD12s available and all at much lower prices.
Initially I thought I’d buy the most expensive of the cheapos,  thinking (perhaps foolishly) that would guarantee me some sort of quality. However I went through all the customer reviews and found that there didn’t seem to be much to choose between them.
Eventually picked a DSTE version which came at the princely sum of £31. Yes, a saving of £200 !
Well you can’t go too far wrong there and this particular model also has an infra red remote built in.
Plus it has two interchangeable battery compartments – one for the standard EN-EL 15 battery (as supplied with the camera) and another one which allows use of 8 AA batteries, so wherever you are you need never to run out of power.
I awaited it’s arrival with a little trepidation !
Considering the all up cost saving and the extra benefits, how could this cheapo deliver the goods.

It arrived an hour ago.
Well packaged and complete with clear instructions (often a failing with Chinese kit).
Attached to the camera it fits snugly and immediately looks the part.
Well built and with all the controls where they should be and all functioning correctly.
Even the little remote control works well – although it does have to be pointed directly at the tiny receiver on the battery pack to function (unlike my radio controlled remote which works around corners and through walls).
So far so very good.

OK this is not an exhaustive test but I will see how it stands up to some abuse over the next few jobs and append this post if something crops up.

All in all a great purchase, so far, and one that compliments the Nikon D800 hugely.

Godox 600 XEnergiser Portable (battery powered) Flash

I  recently ordered two of these new flash units from China and over the last few days I have been seeing how they stand up to life with a photographer.
They are advertised on Ebay and you can look at the quoted specifications there: EBAY
Several colleagues have expressed an interest in these units so over the next few Blog Posts (and when I have time) I shall attempt to do a full review of the kit.

So this is what you get in the box:

One Flash Head and Handle
A Bowens fit reflector (seen Mounted on the Flash Head)
A protective travel cap for the flash for when the reflector is not fitted and a simple diffuser to fit over the front of the standard reflector. (Neither seen in the above picture.)
Battery Pack (12.8V 8AH) + Flash Generator (seen clipped together above)
Black Nylon shoulder Bag for the Power Pack
Charger Unit (mine was supplied with a 13 amp UK plug).A Godox Remote Control comprising a transmitter and a receiver ( more about this later)
All packs into a solid black aluminium travel case with room to spare for some small accessories. Nice !
I have wanted a truly portable flash system for years now.
Independent, go-anywhere, lights, even where there is no mains power.
More power and flexibility than a Nikon on camera strobe.
There are several options out there as I have mentioned before.
They are good, they are heavy and they are very expensive.

I have bought in total 3 battery powered, high power, independent flash units, (this review concerns the 2 Godox lights I will tell you about the Jinbei system at a later time)
Plus an Octabox, a beauty dish, some honeycomb reflectors,
and a handful of other gadgets for under £1200 GBP.

The unit in the box above cost $425 !!  – £265 at today’s rate of exchange.
First impressions tell me it is not perfect, but close enough to put a big smile on my face.
So far I am more than happy despite some minor shortcomings.
I’ll go through the operation, the good bits and the bad, and how well it performs in later posts.

Godox is a Chinese company specialising in electronic equipment for the photographic trade and they have built some innovative bits of high quality kit.
And their good reputation has grown over the years
Studio Flash, Portable Flash, Continuous Lighting, the Witstro flash unit, and many other associated items: See their web page here: GODOX
Whilst they have quite a slick web site written in good English I haven’t yet managed to get them to respond to the email enquiries I made when I was researching the flash units. Pity really as a bit of contact would have been very useful.

Well before going too far with my review I should mention a BAD THING that I discovered whilst photographing the new Godox Lights.
Taking the battery pack off the generator I noticed that things were not quite right and there was a slight rattling inside.
Quickly found two screws were falling out of their holes and the other two were very loose:

So how does that come about ?
I can’t believe that the journey from Hong Kong to UK was so bumpy that it shook the screws loose.
My feelings lead me to think that this is a quality control issue – yes, that is worrying but everything else looks just fine … so far.
Let’s put this down to one tired worker’s oversight.

There are so many signs of considerable thought going into the design that I refuse to be dismayed by this lack of attention.

But while I’m having a moan here is something else that caught my eye.
The kit is supplied with a handy and robust black, nylon shoulder bag which will be very useful when the unit is being used on location.
But lets have a look at this in operation …

The covering flap will not close properly when the flash head is connected to the power pack.
That can’t be right ! :  given the sort of weather we have in the UK , this is a potential problem.
I must state though, at no time does Godox say the unit is waterproof and in fact they explicitly warn against getting things wet. However this is not a good bit of design.

Unless I can find a good reason to the contrary I shall cut an opening in the flap to accommodate the power lead.

The units arrived fully charged so I was able to start playing with them immediately: a full charge from empty would take 4 hours as specified in the handbook, and subsequent use has shown this to be accurate.

To start with I decided to see how well the modelling lights worked and although they are only 12V 20W halogens they do produce a quite usable amount of light – not as much as my studio Elinchroms, but that is to be expected. Continual use of the modelling lights will drain the battery quite quickly.
One does wonder if the manufacturers, in future, will install a more energy efficient and cooler running  LED modelling light, that would produce more lumens and consume less power.

The publicity for the flash unit says it will produce approx 450 full power flashes from a charged battery.
So this was one of my first tests. Battery Capacity
Setting up my Nikon D700  to do “interval shooting” I programmed a sequence of 800 pictures taken at an interval of 10 seconds between each.
I am please to report that the flash provided 620 full power flashes before giving up.
However it did miss a few shots towards the end of the sequence – I can’t be sure but I feel this may have been more due to a thermal protection cut-out as the power pack was really quite warm.
So plenty of capacity in the battery and it is rare (for me at least) to be using them at full power, so at a lower power setting you can expect many more flashes.

But what is “full power”?
The units are called XEnergiser 600 and the implication is 600ws.
Well my test indicates a somewhat lower output.
They seem to be exactly the same power as my Elinchrom 500 moonoblocs.
My test for this was using the standard reflectors and measuring the flash power at 1metre.
This gave me a guide number of 51 at 100 asa. (exactly the same as the Elinchroms).
Using the power adjustment I then reduced the output (It runs from Full Power 1/1 to  1/32 in 1/3 stop increments – so there is a 5 stop range).
Power does go down approximately by the amounts indicated (although not 100 % accurate it is close enough to make little difference.

Colour Temperature
Lacking a colour temperature meter I measured the values in Adobe Lightroom.
Shooting a grey scale card and RAW files I got the following results:
From shot to shot at the same power output I couldn’t detect any difference in colour temperature as long as the lamp was allowed to fully re-cycle.
Then I moved on to checking the colour temperature at different power outputs.
1/1 power 5100 deg K
1/2 power 4950 deg K
1/4 power 4950 deg K
1/8 power 4850 deg K
1/16 power 4800 deg K
1/32 power 4750 deg K
Whilst this is not a scientifically rigorous measurement it does indicate a shift in the colour temperature as the power is changed.
Strangely the light seems to be visually warmer at 1/32 power compared to the output at full power.
Perhaps someone can explain that ? – My expectation would have been for the light to become bluer as the flash power was lowered.

So far all OK (for my criteria at least). Happy with the way everything is functioning.

The heads are equipped with a Bowens style accessory mount, which for me is not good as all my lighting is Elinchrom mounts.
The units are really tiny and light and although fashioned out of a heavy duty plastic material do seem to be quite robust.
Here you can see them without reflectors:

Not so solid is the little umbrella mount on the side of the head which has a mini tightening screw. I can’t see that this will survive for long.

Here the lamps are fitted with their standard reflectors (Also supplied in the kit is a nifty little nylon diffuser which slips over the front of the reflector) :

The head comes with a handle in moulded plastic, which feels quite comfy and has a hole in the bottom to accommodate a lighting stand. There is a rather undersized tightening nut to fix it on the stand’s spigot.
The handle is detachable revealing a hot shoe type plate with a 1/4 inch screw thread – the idea, no doubt. being that one could either attach the lamp head directly to the top of a camera or onto a tripod. There is no facility for triggering the flash through this shoe, so I suppose it is a cold rather than hot shoe.
One of the soft boxes I have bought for these Godox lights is a Bowens mount 120cm Octabox.
This is quite a chunky piece of kit and so far I have not dared to try it out on these heads as I am concerned that the mechanical strain of hanging such a large softbox on such a tiny light may be a step too far.
Ideally I would think the softbox should be mounted directly onto the light stand and the little flash head be hung off the back of it.
I’ll look at this potential problem later.

Sync Speed

Having done a shoot the other day using my new lights and I was very pleased with their handling on location.

I thought I’d mention a little thing that cropped up during the shoot.
I have been used to the the top sync speed on my Nikon D700 was 1/250th however I rarely use it that high in the studio and am usually content with 1/125 or 1/200th.

This latest shoot however had quite a lot of ambient light which I wanted to minimise so I selected 1/250th.

However after a couple of shots I noticed a very faint dark zone at the bottom of the frame.
I immediately adjusted the sync speed to 1/200th and the problem went away but I thought I’d check it out more scientifically when I had a moment to myself.

So that’s what I’ve done.
First off let me mention that this is not essentially a problem with the lights themselves – it is more about the triggering system.
Under controlled conditions I shot using the flash a grey back ground at 3 different shutter speeds (1/200 1/250 1/320)
At each of these shutter speeds I used 3 different triggering systems: wired sync lead, Pocket Wizard radio trigger and the Godox Remote trigger.
Using the wired sync lead at 1/200 and 1/250th there was no apparent darkening at the bottom of the frame.
Both the radio triggers showed slight darkening at 1/250th but were OK at 1/200th.
Moving the shutter speed up to 1/320th showed a more dramatic darkening and can be seen clearly here:

You can see from the images that the wired sync lead is usable up to 1/320th but the radio triggers are showing considerable dark zones at the bottom of frames.
On close inspection the Godox trigger is slightly worse than the Pocket Wizard.
Not a big deal for me but something I shall have to remember in the future – use a 1/200th and no faster !

(Please note these are not full frame images – they are vertical slices out of horizontal shots)