Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
When I first saw the Godox Lux Senior flash, I knew I had to have one. Even before checking the specs. Even before reading the reviews. It was just such s cool looking piece of gear that I could not resist.
Now, I have had it for about a month. Was it worth the hype? Read on to learn more.
Last month, Godox took a walk on the 80s side with the release of the new retro-themed Lux Junior on-camera manual flash. Well, now they’ve gone even more retro, dialling things back another decade or two, with the announcement of a new 60s-themed Godox Lux Senior.
The Godox Lux Senior is styled around one of those satellite dish-looking flashes that fan out with a bulb in the centre. Fortunately, the new Godox Lux Senior doesn’t come with the problems such flashes had in the past – like one-time-use bulbs. Unlike the Lux Junior, which is a far more inconspicuous unit, I think this one’s going to take a special kind of photographer to be seen out in public with it, though!
I share a lot of lighting setups on here and every time I do, not only am I trying to share something unique, but I’m also trying to share something that’s practical and easy to implement for as many people as possible.
For the most part, I think I achieve that and although not everybody has access to all the kit I do, I still believe that certain elements of every setup I share are accessible by all. This is me trying to soften the blow of this week’s setup, as although not everybody will own all of this kit, cheap alternatives are viable and failing that, at least the DIY background and basic lighting principles involved are very much achievable by all. As always, if you have any questions about any of it, don’t hesitate to drop them down below.
With the trend for retro-looking cameras and lenses over the last few years, I’m surprised it’s taken a company this long to come out with a matching retro-styled speedlight to go with them. I mean, how awkward is it when you’re out with your hipster friends with your Leica M or Nikon Z fc and a fancy modern flash on top?
Well, now, Godox has the answer in the form of the Godox Lux Junior, a 1980s-styled speedlight that actually looks quite useful, if I’m completely honest. To complete that retro feel that’s oh, so last century, it doesn’t support TTL, High Speed Sync or even Godox’s own 2.4Ghz X wireless flash trigger system!
Profoto has announced a new compact strobe. Designed for off-camera use, the Profoto A2 Monolight is a 100Ws strobe with a recycle time of 0.1-1.6 seconds. It’s a pretty tiny light, measuring in at 7.9cm in diameter and only 12.6cm long, meaning you can easily fit one or several of these into the lens slots of most camera bags.
The flash itself has a colour temperature of 5800K +/-100K with a t.1 flash duration of between 1/26,000 to 1/350 of a second. It also features a 2.1W modelling light at a more tungsten 3500K colour temp. As a portable strobe, it’s powered by a lithium-ion battery that promises 400 flashes on a full charge.
Profoto has announced its latest generation of flash trigger, the Connect Pro supporting TTL in Nikon, Canon, Sony, Leica and Fuji versions, as well as a non-TTL version for everybody else. Like most flash triggers, it sits in your camera’s hotshoe for easy remote control of one or multiple flashes.
Up to six groups of lights (three with TTL) can be controlled by the Connect Pro through a large and intuitive user interface display, with 100 channels available to help ensure interference-free control and no conflicts with other nearby Profoto shooters.
For a lot of photographers, when we started dabbling with flash, we used speedlights. And even if we didn’t, we might have bought a small strobe like the Godox AD200 and one of those 60cm square softbox kits with the S1 or S2 bracket. But as we upgrade to larger Bowens mount strobes or LED lights, those softboxes kind of just sit there on the shelf doing nothing.
Well, Farrukh Pitafi has solved that issue by designing a 3D printable adapter that mounts into your light’s Bowens mount socket and provides the ring around the outside to let you use those speedlight softboxes. And he’s made the files available to download so you can make your own.
The Godox XPro has been a favourite amongst Godox shooters since it was first released way back in 2017. When they added Pentax support the following year, the XPro was considered a “game-changer” by a lot of Pentax photographers that wanted to utilise features like TTL and High Speed Sync. Well, now, Godox has added Leica support to their lineup and they’ve also announced a new XProII trigger.
The XProII seems to be largely identical to the original XPro, but with the addition of Bluetooth support for using with the Godox app that was originally released with the godox A1. Interestingly, the XProII has only been announced for Leica. There’s been no mention of Nikon, Canon, Sony, Pentax, Fuji and Olympus/Panasonic versions so far, but I expect they’ll be coming at some point.
Shooting outdoors in the bright midday sun scares the pants off a lot of portrait photographers. And for good reason. The harsh midday light when the sun’s high in the sky isn’t particularly flattering. Unless you go into open shade (and even that’s not always a guarantee), there’s really no way you can position yourself and your subject that the sun is presenting flattering light on your subject.
But it doesn’t need to be so bad and you don’t need to actively avoid it, as Jiggle Alejandrino points out in this video. He loves shooting outdoor portraits in the midday sun (and, so do I!) and explains why he loves it and how he overcomes the challenges of shooting at this time of day using flash.
White seamless background photography has been a staple of both portraits and products, amongst other things, for decades. It’s one of those things that almost all photographers (at least the ones who end up doing it for money) will probably learn to do at some point, just so that if they’re asked for it, they know how to do it. But it’s a style that I’ve seen so many photographers struggle with.
The concepts involved in photographing a well-lit subject in front of a pure white background are fairly straightforward, but there are lots of different things that come into play when you try it and things to think about that can easily catch you out while you’re learning. In this video, Ed Verosky walks us through not only the process of shooting on white seamless but the potential problems that can come up, too.
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