Outdoor portrait lighting

joel222

joel222

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Lee
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I require some advice on what lights to use for outdoor portraits. Can somebody recommend some that would be suitable for couple shots at a wedding and general outdoor portraits. Obviously the more mobile the better. Thanks
 
As above really.

If I was starting out now, that's what I'd get, and move all my speedlights over to godox too.
 
Phil V said:
As above really.

If I was starting out now, that's what I'd get, and move all my speedlights over to godox too.
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Me too. Godox has a strong position in this market with a great control system and a range of battery/location products including the AD600, AD360 and RS600. Other options include Phottix Indra and several other brands, not forgetting the ever popular Elinchrom Quarda and Profoto B1 or B2 for more money.

Short answer from me would be Godox AD600, or AD360 that has most of the key features and is more portable at lower cost, but there's a lot of choice in this sector now.
 
sk66 said:
Really depends on what you are trying to accomplish... I would stick w/ speedlights for most things.
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The problem with speedlites in this kind of situation (outdoors, daylight, weddings and portraits) is power and slow recycle times. It can be done, especially if the ambient light is low, but something like the Godox AD360 is affordable and offers much more versatility.

Speedlites are great, perfect for what they are designed to do and can be pressed into doing most other things too, but the further you move away from their (quite narrow) design brief, it just becomes a hassle fiddling with multiple guns and triggers and mounting brackets - a PITA you can do without when working under pressure. For more than the occasional shoot, I would tool-up accordingly.
 
HoppyUK said:
The problem with speedlites in this kind of situation (outdoors, daylight, weddings and portraits) is power and slow recycle times. It can be done, especially if the ambient light is low, but something like the Godox AD360 is affordable and offers much more versatility.

Speedlites are great, perfect for what they are designed to do and can be pressed into doing most other things too, but the further you move away from their (quite narrow) design brief, it just becomes a hassle fiddling with multiple guns and triggers and mounting brackets - a PITA you can do without when working under pressure. For more than the occasional shoot, I would tool-up accordingly.
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Sure, but "outdoors" is not where I would generally set up a large off-camera setup w/ large modifiers/stands/etc. IMO/E, "outdoors lighting" generally just means fill lighting, and if that's all we are talking about then speedlights are what I would use (especially for the mobility).

If we are talking about killing midday sun/larger modifiers/etc then yeah, an AD360 would be about minimum and the 600's would definitely be worth looking into. But I wouldn't consider that "a couple shots at a wedding and general outdoor portraits." That's higher level stuff that is best accomplished with assistants and all the rest.
 
sk66 said:
... But I wouldn't consider that "a couple shots at a wedding and general outdoor portraits." That's higher level stuff that is best accomplished with assistants and all the rest.
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It's what a certain sector of the market expects now though Steven, rather than a niche
 
You could buy a godox speedlight like the TT685 with X1 trigger, then add a AD360ii or AD600 if needed. I'd also look at a decent modifier to help create nice light.
 
Thanks for the replies.

I do have a few speedlights already, would you say that the results achieved can be similar with the speedlights and the Godox stuff and it's just the ease of use which makes speedlights inferior, or are the results better with a Godox set up?
 
joel222 said:
Thanks for the replies.

I do have a few speedlights already, would you say that the results achieved can be similar with the speedlights and the Godox stuff and it's just the ease of use which makes speedlights inferior, or are the results better with a Godox set up?
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Does your speed lights provide enough power and do they recycle fast enough for your needs? If they do... why look to blow money on something it doesn't sound like you need?
 
joel222 said:
Thanks for the replies.

I do have a few speedlights already, would you say that the results achieved can be similar with the speedlights and the Godox stuff and it's just the ease of use which makes speedlights inferior, or are the results better with a Godox set up?
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This...
UaeExile said:
Does your speed lights provide enough power and do they recycle fast enough for your needs? If they do... why look to blow money on something it doesn't sound like you need?
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I can show you shots I've taken with the same softbox powered by a speedlight, an AD360 and a Safari2.

At sunset the speedlight looks identical - but it couldn't do some of the shots I have taken with the more powerful equipment.
In short if you want to overpower the sun at anything other than golden hour you'll need to gang up speedlights or use something with more power - and if you want to use a softbox on a sunny day; you'll need 600Ws at least.
 
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joel222 said:
Thanks for the replies.

I do have a few speedlights already, would you say that the results achieved can be similar with the speedlights and the Godox stuff and it's just the ease of use which makes speedlights inferior, or are the results better with a Godox set up?
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Light is light, it doesn't much matter what source it comes from... There's only a few requirements, is there enough power, is it large enough, and is it fast enough (ignoring temp)?
Outdoors many use modifiers that are too small/from too far to be of much real benefit... the point being that, in that case even a bare speedlight is/can be "large enough" (especially for fill).
"Power" comes down to how big of a modifier you're trying to fill, how much ambient light you're trying to kill, and how far are you sending it. Fill light to compliment the ambient lighting doesn't require much of any of that.
"Fast enough" comes down to recycle time and if you're trying to freeze motion. If recycle time is an issue w/ a speedlight, maybe it can use an external battery pack. If trying to freeze motion then it introduces a lot of other factors...i.e. *also* killing the ambient w/o using a high power setting, etc.

On the "ease of use thing," again it depends... not much "easier" that a speedlight on camera in TTL, or off camera with a decent controller. The thing that makes the Godox system "easier" is that it's integrated/fairly well standardized. And it's always easier to use one light that's suited to the task as opposed to hacking together something to get the job done.
 
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joel222 said:
Thanks for all the comments. I really need to get out more with a speedlight and softbox to see if I can justify a godox set up.
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The problem with that is...

There's no substitute of the circumstances.

You can do some great stuff with the speedlight. The question is:

Do you want to be able to do the stuff that requires the Godox gear?

I think that requires some research into the effect they have in higher light levels, is this something you want to do? Is it worth the hassle? Is it worth the expense?

I have to say that since I bought the AD360 I've barely taken the Safari2 outside, because the opportunities I have the time to shoot outdoors with flash is at golden hour when the light levels are lower, so I don't need the power.

I prefer the AD360 to a speedlight at that point for the recycling times. The AD600 is more portable though, so I might use that instead if I had one.
 
Phil V said:
The AD600 is more portable though, so I might use that instead if I had one.
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I don't know if I would say "more portable." More "self contained" sure. But it's bigger/heavier and for use with larger modifiers, which also means more substantial stands/weights/assistants/etc.
(unless you go w/ the remote heads, which starts to get away from self contained benefit and increases costs).

The real advantage of Godox is as "a system"... I have one Godox AD360, trying to incorporate it into a setup with my other speedlights or studio strobes is just as big of a headache as anything else is (it can be dead simple, or almost pointless). Godox is also well placed in terms of features/price, but if you're only looking at one aspect (i.e. 600ws heads) it looses a bit of it's advantage.
 
sk66 said:
I don't know if I would say "more portable." More "self contained" sure. But it's bigger/heavier and for use with larger modifiers, which also means more substantial stands/weights/assistants/etc.
(unless you go w/ the remote heads, which starts to get away from self contained benefit and increases costs).

The real advantage of Godox is as "a system"... I have one Godox AD360, trying to incorporate it into a setup with my other speedlights or studio strobes is just as big of a headache as anything else is (it can be dead simple, or almost pointless). Godox is also well placed in terms of features/price, but if you're only looking at one aspect (i.e. 600ws heads) it looses a bit of it's advantage.
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The AD600 is definitely more portable than the Safari2.
 
sk66 said:
I don't know if I would say "more portable." More "self contained" sure. But it's bigger/heavier and for use with larger modifiers, which also means more substantial stands/weights/assistants/etc.
(unless you go w/ the remote heads, which starts to get away from self contained benefit and increases costs).

The real advantage of Godox is as "a system"... I have one Godox AD360, trying to incorporate it into a setup with my other speedlights or studio strobes is just as big of a headache as anything else is (it can be dead simple, or almost pointless). Godox is also well placed in terms of features/price, but if you're only looking at one aspect (i.e. 600ws heads) it looses a bit of it's advantage.
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That's my problem. Godox products are certainly good in their own right, but the big advantage for me is the fully compatible system. Which means I'd have to replace everything and get maybe three AD600 heads and four Godox speedlites, plus a couple of transmitters, spare batts, mains adapters etc and that's getting seriously spendy, like well over £2k. I can't justify it in business terms, but then I can't do that with half my gear :D

For all that kit, it's an amazing deal, but from where I am currently, a lot of money for (mostly) a bit more convenience.
 
I think these days lots of gear is more than 'good enough' to do the jobs we photographers need to do to achieve the results for our friends/customers/etc.
And lot can be done/compensated by knowing your stuff and using more simple equipment in more creative ways to achieve results that can possibly be easier done with equipment costing 100x the price of the more basic gear.

In recent times I've been asked a whole lot more to provide outdoor sportrait/portrait images for my clients (I cover sports) - and as my job takes me all over the continent.. lugging studio lights is not an option (not all clients have big budgets ;-) ).
So been learning to use the Speedlights I own to light the subjects - and really have found that having two/three Speedlights is a darn good way to light up subjects outdoors/on location.

If you are only lighting couple of subjects in the photos.. a decent Speedlight does great job... a good example was using a single Speedlight to 'over power' the sun today in southern France on a sunny day on the beach. The subject was happy, client was impressed... which in turn makes me happy.

As you already have a Speedlight - take it out and have a play around and see if it is powerful enough for your needs...
It's always easy to be effected by wanting to buy more gear (we photographers are well known for it ;-) ) - but in many cases... our existing gear is up to the job as well.
 
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