New Godox V860Xc Speed Light
Sam
Registered Users Posts: 7,419 Major grins
I thought I would post about my new speed lights. I shoot with Canon and my 580 EX flashes are getting a little long in the tooth but the Canon 600EX RT are way to much $$ for me.
What to do? The 600Ex RT have radio triggers and you can control all your OCF right from your on camera master flash. The new 600EX RT II have more flashes per 4 AA batteries, 100-700 and faster recycle time 0.01 to 5.5 seconds. Price is only $579.00. But if you need 3 or 4 it turns into real money pretty fast.
Please understand I am not knocking Canon I use their products extensively and love their support!
Along comes the new Godox V860XC. Seem to have all the features of The Canon 600EX RT series and uses a more powerful rechargeable Li-ion Battery rated at 650 full power flashes with a recycle time of 1.5 seconds for full power flash. The real exciting news is they cost $168.00 from Amazon or $179.00 from Cheetah Stands. You can buy 3 of these and two spare batteries for the same price as one Canon!
They are well constructed and the build quality looks similar to My Canon 580 EX. The faster recycle time will be great for events were in many instances you are trying to capture fast moving moments. It's very easy for me to shoot faster than the flash can recycle even when using lower power as fill.
After some firmware update drama I can control all flashes from my on camera master flash and set each flash or group individually, mix and match, up to 5 groups, as ETTL or manual as well adjust power output. Have an event shoot this evening with fellow Dgrinner, so the rubber hits the road tonight!
Sam
What to do? The 600Ex RT have radio triggers and you can control all your OCF right from your on camera master flash. The new 600EX RT II have more flashes per 4 AA batteries, 100-700 and faster recycle time 0.01 to 5.5 seconds. Price is only $579.00. But if you need 3 or 4 it turns into real money pretty fast.
Please understand I am not knocking Canon I use their products extensively and love their support!Along comes the new Godox V860XC. Seem to have all the features of The Canon 600EX RT series and uses a more powerful rechargeable Li-ion Battery rated at 650 full power flashes with a recycle time of 1.5 seconds for full power flash. The real exciting news is they cost $168.00 from Amazon or $179.00 from Cheetah Stands. You can buy 3 of these and two spare batteries for the same price as one Canon!
They are well constructed and the build quality looks similar to My Canon 580 EX. The faster recycle time will be great for events were in many instances you are trying to capture fast moving moments. It's very easy for me to shoot faster than the flash can recycle even when using lower power as fill.
After some firmware update drama I can control all flashes from my on camera master flash and set each flash or group individually, mix and match, up to 5 groups, as ETTL or manual as well adjust power output. Have an event shoot this evening with fellow Dgrinner, so the rubber hits the road tonight!
Sam
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"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky
Will post in the field results and finding tomorrow.
Sam
Link to my Smugmug site
Summary: Lights good, photographer not so much.
Details: I really did struggle, forget, screwed up settings etc. But learned a lot for next time.
I had one flash on camera and two flashes mounted on on light stands in the corners of the hall.
The lights performed flawlessly. All are controlled via built in radio controllers. No misfires, nobody went to sleep and didn't want to wake up, etc
I was able to control the flash modes (on / off / manual / ETTL) and power output of all flashes independently from the master camera on my camera. Life is good, no more Pocket wizards / AA batteries to worry about. Much simpler and more effective setup.
Although I did spend a fair amount of tile learning the menu's it's not second nature yet.
Although the guide numbers are almost the same I think the Gordox has more power. (Seat of the paints statement) The Godox has a zoom from 20mm to 200mm and uses an Li-ion battery that is rated for 650 full power flashes and a recycle time of 1.5 seconds for full power recharge, faster than the new 600RT II Canon flashes at $580.00 each. I was never even close to running out of power after approx 600 images.
More testing / use is course needed but so far I think I am will give them an A+.
Sam
Yesterday a friend came over and we tested my V860Xc against his Canon 600EX RT for recycle time.
I gota tell ya the V860XC blew the Canon 600EX Rt away! We didn't need a stop watch to determine the winner on full power recharges. The V860XC was 2 to 3 times faster.
The only other test we did was put the flash on 1/16 manual power and set my Canon 5D III on high speed burst. The Canon got 5 nicely exposed images before the images became underexposed. The V860Xc cranked out 19 before I stopped counting.
The reason I think this is important is for event photography where I will typically use ETTL for fill and the flash will be at a lower power setting. Even with low power output I have no problem shooting faster than the flash can recycle causing me to underexpose some quick moments. Those dang people won't give you seconds between hugs or expressions!
Super bang for the buck!!!
Sam