Photos of a Godox AD1200Pro head & pack strobe have leaked
Dec 18, 2019
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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Godox is apparently planning to release an AD1200Pro head and pack strobe. Images have leaked on social media of what appears to be an AD1200Pro strobe, with a fairly substantial-looking pack and a small flash head. There’s been no official announcement from Godox yet, but it looks quite promising for those demanding more power on location.
The desire to obliterate the sun seems to be gaining traction of late. The feeds of certain Facebook groups seem to be entirely flooded with people attempting to turn day to night while keeping their subject well exposed. Giant softboxes also seem to be showing up more and more on location these days, too. Both of these things will suck out your flash power, demanding more light output.
So, a 1200Ws strobe makes a lot of sense. There isn’t really much information about the strobe beyond a couple of photos that appear to have been taken at some show or other, although I can’t think what’s going on right now where they might be on display. But this photo shows the pack in a little detail and offers some clues as to its capability.
Judging by the size of the pack compared to the light stand, it appears to be somewhat similar to my Bowens Duo 2400Ws pack. Except, as it’s Godox and part of their “Pro” line, it’s likely going to be battery-powered, similar to the Bowens Explorer 1500, whereas my Bowens pack is mains powered.
One noticeable thing about this pack is that only appears to support a single light output. So, if you want two heads, you’ll need two packs, even if you don’t plan to run them at anywhere near maximum power. This might bother a few people who were hoping for an asynchronous pack that could support a pair of lower wattage heads.
Others will be upset that this isn’t a monolight style strobe, like the AD600Pro, but with this much power, once you add a battery, that’s going to be far too much weight to stick at the top of a stand, especially once you add a big modifier. Looking at the size of the pack, there’s no way they’d have been able to easily fit that inside a single head unit and still retain full capability.
There are no specs, but the rumour at the moment is that it’s a 1200Ws TTL-capable strobe with high-speed sync and the same colour stable mode as the AD200Pro, AD400Pro and AD600Pro strobes. The battery will offer 500 full power charges with 0.01-2 second recycle times.
Although a separate head and pack aren’t as easy to deal with than a single self-contained head, to get 1200Ws of Godox power before, you’d need to double up a pair of AD600s with the AD-H1200B head. That essentially turns the AD600s into a pair of battery packs, which is even more cumbersome.
This system also opens up more possibilities for the future, as it will allow other head options without having to replace the pack (as long as you don’t need to use mutliple heads simultaneously).
I think a 1200Ws ring flash to replace the old AR400 could be nice. The only reason I have the Bowens Duo 2400 is for my Bowens Ringflash, and it would be nice to get a powerful ringflash away from the plug sockets.
Now that word of the AD1200Pro’s future existence is starting to get out, an Adorama pre-order listing will no doubt go up soon and we’ll be able to hopefully get a few more details about specs and possibly a price.
Update: I was kinda kidding with the Adorama listing thing, but nope, they have a listing up for a Flashpoint XPLOR 1200 Pro already. No details yet, though.
Update 2: Adorama has now added images to their listing for the XPLOR 1200 Pro.
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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22 responses to “Photos of a Godox AD1200Pro head & pack strobe have leaked”
$7,000.00 maybe more idk
Absurd. Ad600 kit (mk1 non ttl) with 1200 head and tube is barely over a grand, and just under it with everything on sale.
No way
Bill Fritz
oh god that would make our backpack obsolete. And im cool with that! Corey Roberts!!
Bill Fritz I mean it’s not like the battery holds itself. I’ll just have to make a special version……. I wonder if they will make a double remote head for this one too.
Corey Roberts I just mean it’s way less bulky
Bill Fritz … maybe. Battery looks way bigger but it’s only one thing that would need to be mounted so you’re right there. Can’t wait to see what it cost might be a new game changer.
Hey, look again at the Adorama Flashpoint XPLOR Power 1200 Pro Outdoor Flash… now contains some images of the device
If they were there, it looks like they removed them. They’re not showing up for me now.
It seems they added them back. :)
what????
great! With Godox there is always great stuff coming, and its just right around the corner
This is really interesting. I dumped my Profoto Acute and D4 packs and heads for t D2 monolights which I find just OK. My only other viable option for the studio was Broncolor and the cost of switching was too high. If these packs have a short enough flash duration to freeze liquids and bright modeling lamps they could be killer. If they lack those features — mehhh.
I like godox, so I don’t want to sound like a godox hater here (feel free to check my comments about the ad200 pro https://photochirp.com/reviews/godox-ad200-pro-flash-review/) but I have a few concerns. Some of my concerns might be stupid (not enough information is available yet to fully judge).
The price of the unit… Godox are getting more and more expensive with their pro lineup but not really offering local service centres. I think at some point they should try improve their customer service. Especially if they are going to step into the more expensive (assuming this unit is going to be expensive… it might not be) market. In the UK, we’re entitled to a 6 year manufacturers guarantee depending on the circumstance. Please don’t mention flashpoint and american shops; america isn’t the world.
The profoto b2 had some colour issues (brokephotographers proved this). I think I saw some other issues with the a1 heads (not the a1x); the b10 plus, I believe had/has some flash tube issues when using HSS a lot, the early b1’s had some flash tube issues as well; and the recessed heads are a no-go in a parabolic. So for me, especially given that godox likely sells far more units than profoto, I’m not seeing this magical reliability people speak of with profoto. So don’t think I’m criticising godox’s reliablity. I just think that after a couple of years, if the units break, I would probably trust profoto to communicate with their customer more. That said, they’ll probably replace the capacitors for the same price as what a whole new godox unit costs lol, so I don’t know if you actually save anything long-term with profoto customer service.
Godox have, in their latest models, proven they’re the colour consistency champion at the moment, excluding broncolor. So I’m expecting no issues there.
The plastic screens and the plastic they use to house the units could feel a bit more premium. I hope as they charge more (again, I’m just assuming this will be more expensive), they think a bit more about materials.
Personally I’d have preferred a 500w pack and head. Still it’s nice they’re getting into this market. Hopefully it will make broncolor think about pricing, but probably not.
“Please don’t mention flashpoint and american shops; america isn’t the world”
What about Pixapro? They’re in Birmingham. The one in England, not Alabama. :)
I keep seeing the connection cable between the flash head and the short flash unit. I have the flash head for godox AD 600 pro, I would have preferred that the connection cable was a couple of meters longer so that I could easily use it on the tripod in extension, keeping the flash unit down
Looking at the pictures on Adorama’s website the AD1200 doesn’t appear to have a USB connection for the older 433MHz R1 radio receivers. This is too bad because the newer 2.4GHz R2 system is subject to more interference. When I’m doing anything critical I use the R1 system to save the embarrassment of misfires with the R2 system.
All of my other Godox/Flashpoint units have this ability (except the new V1 speedlite), and I’m disappointed to see it missing in the AD1200. Hopefully it will be there in the production model.
“This is too bad because the newer 2.4GHz R2 system is subject to more interference.”
That depends where you live. I’ve had constant issues with 433Mhz systems (including the “super reliable” Pocket Wizards). I switched to 2.4Ghz systems a decade ago and never experience interference issues.
All the more reason they should continue giving us the option of both systems.
I don’t see the logic in taking it away, especially on a higher end unit.
I agree, I love that it’s an option on my other Godox lights (except, as you mention, the V1). Even if I never need to use it, it’s nice to have it there in the event that I do.
With the new channel scanning feature, though, I think even in those problem areas, it’s becoming less of a problem in those 2.4Ghz problem areas. Even inside big shows like The Photography Show in the UK and NAB in the USA, I had no problem getting Godox 2.4Ghz lights to fire – although we were having issues with the 2.4Ghz Rode wireless mic in the same environments.
I still like that 2.4Ghz is built into them, though. Part of the reason I switched to Godox in the first place was to eliminate external triggers from my setup. So, I feel like having to use them every time would be a step backwards for me.
2.4GHz is a very congested frequency, WiFi, Bluetooth, microwave ovens, and all kinds of things can interfere with it. I work in lots of different environments and while I try to make the 2.4GHz work first (because of convenience), if I’m having trouble I just switch over to the 433MHz and my troubles are gone.
When the V1 came out with the channel scanning feature I started using that to help and while it made a slight improvement I still have problems with the 2.4GHz system. I have several triggers (including the new Adorama triggers with the scanning feature), I always use fresh alkaline batteries in my triggers rather than rechargeable 1.2v batteries. I’ve tried every setting I could think of in the trigger to try and improve reliability and still have more misfires than I would like.
It is a step backward to have to plug in the old R1 433MHz receivers but sometimes that’s the only thing that works and if it prevents me from looking unprofessional in front of a client I’ll gladly take that extra step.