Well, it looks like the portable flash game just got a little more interesting. After a year’s worth of apparent Godox AD200 dominance, Cactus has now announced a seemingly viable competitor. The Cactus RQ250 is a 250Ws portable bare bulb strobe offering TTL, high speed sync and it fits in the palm of your hand. It also has a built-in receiver compatible with the Cactus V6II and V6IIs trigger systems.
The beginner’s guide to using grids with softboxes
Every day I see people posting in Facebook groups asking about softboxes and whether or not they should buy one with a grid. Personally, I always advise going for one that comes with a grid. Even if you don’t know why you might need it yet, if you get one without and then find out that you need one, it can often be impossible to source just the right size and shape.
But what exactly do grids do? And do you really need one? That’s what photographer David Bergman looks at in this two-minute video. He goes over what grids are for and when you might choose to use one. I have grids for all of my softboxes and octaboxes. I don’t always use them, but when I do need them, they’re absolutely invaluable.
Use lighting gels to get a pastel light wrap around your subject
Good news! This is actually a relatively easy JHP lighting setup to play with and it produces some pretty great looking results too. It’s easy to set up as you only need a couple of softboxes and this can be put together and shot in a very small space indeed; no studio required. Plus it produces some great looking results because it uses coloured light. Now I know I may sound biased on that but hear me out as we go through the setup and it should start to make more sense as to why this looks extra cool with coloured gels compared to without.
See every Godox X system studio strobe in this side-by-side comparison
People make a big deal about the AD600 (now AD600 Pro) and AD200 strobes when it comes to Godox. They offer a lot of power in a nice easily portable package. But they offer so many more strobes than just these two. While those mentioned above, along with the AD360II are fantastic for shooters looking to get light on location, there are quite a few photographers who never take their lights out of the studio.
And that’s where this handy video from Rob Hall comes in. It covers and compares the entire range of mains-powered Godox studio strobes compatible with the X1T, XT32 and XPro triggers. It’s a pretty extensive list of lights covering a range of requirements, and those on 220-240v power even see some flash duration perks that 110-120v countries do not.
7 common studio portrait lighting mistakes and how you can avoid them
We all make mistakes in photography. All of us. But these are things which help us learn and grow as photographers. We make mistakes, we figure out what went wrong, we correct it and then don’t make that mistake again. Thanks to the modern Internet, though, we can learn from the mistakes of others, too.
In this video, photography Antti Karppinen talks us through 7 of the most common lighting mistakes photographers make shooting portraits in the studio. But he’s also going to show us how we can avoid them, too.
Use strobes to freeze subject movement and action
A few days ago we showed you a way to freeze subjects in ice in Photoshop. Now it’s time to freeze their motion in front of the camera, with the assistance of a little flash. And, of course, a little help from Jay P Morgan of The Slanted Lens. In this video, he shows us how we can freeze the motion of a dancer with strobes.
Tips on lighting with single coloured gels when shooting with a Lensbaby
Often a scene can be visually confusing, especially if there are multiple colours and objects in focus that are fighting for our viewer’s attention. This simple technique that I’m sharing here uses a single dominant coloured gel to simplify the scene visually, then we can draw the attention of our viewer with our Lensbaby Sweet 50 lens.
The Godox XPro trigger is coming to Fuji in January (sorry Sony shooters!)
Well, this might upset some Sony shooters, but it looks like Fuji are going to be getting the Godox XPro trigger next. It’s quite surprising as we were all led to believe that the Sony would be the first to arrive in the new year. Like the Nikon and Canon versions, the XPro will work with all 2.4Ghz Godox lights.
What background should you use with coloured gels? Grey or white?
This is another one of those questions I get asked a lot: ‘Should I be using a white or grey background with coloured gels?’ As with so many things in photography, the answer isn’t always as simple as you might think.
In this article I show you a recent lighting test where I fired a collection of coloured gels onto a white background and then repeated the same test on a grey background to see the difference. The images below speak for themselves but I’ll also explain some of my personal reasons for using one over another and I’ll also discuss the pros and cons for each.
How this portrait was made from concept to completion
It’s not often that a behind the scenes or tutorial video goes over the entire process of an image’s creation. Usually, they cover only a specific aspect of it. Often that’s just the gear used, just the lighting set, or just the post work. Great if you want help with a particular element of a shoot, but they don’t really provide the entire picture (no pun intended).
In this video, portrait photographer Francisco Hernandez goes over his entire process for creating this shot. He covers everything from how he found the model to picking the location through to actually shooting & post-processing the final shot.
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