Godox AD600

[MissionMan]

Well, good news for me. Good just released a Profoto B1 style strobe with TTL. One of the things I like about this is that you can use the strobe head as a battery pack with a lightweight head by removing the globe, adding a cable and attaching the globe to a new handle so if you have windy situations where you need a little more ballast, you can keep the weight of the battery pack on the light stand. Looks like an interesting piece of tech. Due for release in March 2016.

http://flashhavoc.com/godox-ad600-witstro-ttl-strobe-announced/

[I @ M]

Does look quite good, of course pricing will determine market take up.

One large negative that I can see for some will be the long flash duration ( I assume at full power ) which will not be fast enough to freeze movement.

[MissionMan]

It seems to support HSS to 1/8000th.

There pricing has been pretty good historically. Their ranger equivalent with battery pack goes for about $600 so I am guessing this should be sub $1000. The cheapest TTL alternative would be about $1800 (Phottix TTL 500) with battery pack so you could probably pick up two for the price of that.

The TTL side is of interest for me because of the outdoors work with kids where lighting is difficult to track.

[I @ M]

Yep, the specs say that and it is a very good thing --- however HSS on its own is not always the answer for freezing motion + allowing large amounts of light in.

I can synch a cheap 250 ws monobloc at 1/8000 time and time again with no hint of shutter curtain visible via pocket wizards. I rarely use speeds that high as around 1/2000 deals with fast movement. I describe fast as in sudden, violent movement of a subject.
Now assuming the Godox flash follows the lines of many it will have the shortest flash duration at the lowest power setting and the longest flash duration at max power.
Here is where the problem lies, if you want max power output from the flash at around 1/2000 then your flash duration determines how much light falls on the subject. In the case of the Godox they say 1/220 duration. So if your shutter is only open for 1/2000 but the light is being projected for 1/220 and the light output rises to a peak and then falls off over that 1/220 only a part of the light is captured during the 1/2000 shutter opening. Compare that to something like the profoto b1 where at max power it is still running at 1/1000 duration, or about 4x faster.

That is where the $$$ come into play with gear like this, the shorter flash durations require tubes and "tail shaping" tech in the flashes to maximise the amount of light available in as short a time as possible.

A good monobloc or even a speedlight with a short flash duration will freeze action extremely well especially when the strobe is the only or significant majority of the light in the scene because by having that short duration and lack of ambient light the only image that is captured is that which the strobe illuminates for that 1/10000 or in some cases 1/20000 flash duration. When you have ambient light in the mix as well is when you need faster shutter speeds but if your flash duration is significantly longer than the shutter speed then you start chasing your tail for light output and that also applies when your strobe is the main source of light.

Unfortunately there is no such thing as a free lunch. :(

[sufran]

Also of similar interest is Interfit's new release projected for March 2016. http://interfitphotographic.com/news/