Setup for the day:
As a long time user of the Yongnuo 560 flash, I was skeptical that a Godox 360 can make a lot of difference to a photo in broad daylight. Afterall, the yongnuo flash is both cheap and good, and has served me well. The Godox on the otherhand, was about $600 more than the yongnuo!
Lessons Learnt:
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That difference of a few stops of guide number makes a HUGE difference. Godox 180: GN60 @ 28mm, Godox 360: GN80 @ 28mm, YN-560 : GN58 @ 105mm. One Godox can fight the sun whereas the YN-560 alone couldn’t. You might probably need about 9-13 yongnuos to do so.
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The Godox leaves a much nicer ‘catchlight’ in the eyes and spectacles. When the Godox was tested against someone wearing spectacles, it left a circular and smaller flare on the spectacles, wheres the YN-560 left a squarish and large flare on the spectacles.
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The Godox is a pretty terrible optical slave. The YN-560 on the otherhand, was a good optical slave, and thus used as the secondary flash for purposes such as rim lighting/side lighting/etc.
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The Godox is probably better value for money than a portable strobe given its guide number and much smaller size and weight.
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The Godox, when used with its counterpart Godox trigger, allows you to do hyper-sync. First time I’ve heard of this term and how different it is compared to high-speed sync. Totally blew me off my feet.
Overall, it was great being able to help my friend,Archie, with his shoot. As someone who has always looked up to his works, it’s nice being able to watch him in action.
Hope I’ll get an opportunity to see more local cosplay photogs in action in the near future. It’s really fun helping them, learning from them and watching them shoot. :)
PS. we all got “poisoned” by the Godox after the shoot. It’s just… awesome.