Look at any magazine or other print ad. The photography is flawless. Whether the subject is a kitchen appliance, a truck tire, or a pretty girl putting on lip gloss, those images are virtually perfect.
Sure, some of that comes from masterful use of editing programs. But, even the best photoshop editor needs a good exposure in the first place to work off of. Lighting is one of the basic cornerstones of having a good, usable exposure.
How a strobe light can benefit your photography
As we have discussed before, photography really is all about the light.
Having control of that light is what separates someone merely taking snapshots from a photographic artist. A photographer doesn’t have to be a professional to be able to take advantage of the methods involved in controlling light. Believe me, I have seen some amazing images from photographers of all types.
One type of lighting equipment is continuous lighting, which I have covered before. Strobes are different in that they provide a brief burst of light of consistent power and duration. An advantage of a good strobe light for photography over continuous lights, is that strobes generally emit less heat for an equivalent level of light.
Another benefit of strobes is consistency. Once you have the lights positioned properly and your exposure settings correctly adjusted, the best strobe lights for photography will deliver the same output again and again. This is beneficial for many categories of studio photographers.
How I found the best strobe lights for photography
When judging what is the best strobe for photography to recommend or to purchase myself, I have some criteria to consider. I do this with many products, even kitchen appliances, truck tires so we’re all probably getting used to my bullet point presentations:
- Power. How much light does it put it out? For many small studios, this won’t be a major concern, since most strobes are pretty powerful compared to on camera flash units. Having more power available is always nice, though. Higher power gives us the ability to use smaller lens apertures for depth of field, an important consideration in product photography or on location environmental portraiture.
- Accessory compatibility and type of mount. Some strobes are made to only accept their own brand of light modifiers, while many have a basic standard for these. If you have a brand that is non standard, you might be disappointed when accidentally purchasing the wrong accessory that doesn’t fit. Mounts and cords fall into this bullet point, too.
- Color temperature and flash duration. The color temperature for most strobes and flash units is daylight. Somewhere between 4800K and 5600K, 5200K being most common in my experience. Many digital cameras allow us to fine tune the expected color temp, making it easier to get consistent results and cutting down on post processing.
- Trigger. How is the flash set off? Synchronization with the camera shutter is vital for all flash or strobe photography. On camera, the flash is either the built in flash or a flash directly connected to the camera on the hot shoe. Off camera, choices are a wire or cord between the camera and strobe, a radio wireless trigger, or an optical slave that triggers when it detects another flash or strobe firing.
- Power supply. AC or battery are our two basic choices. Some strobes go both ways. With AC power, a strobe may either be plugged in directly to the AC power socket, or plugged into a power regulator running off of AC or batteries. Those power packs often use proprietary cables to connect to the flash heads.
A Review Of The Top 5 Best Strobe Lights For Photography
1. Neewer Vision5 400W TTL Strobe Light
Neewer Vision5 400W TTL Strobe Light Review
Another great product from Neewer, this strobe tops my list of best strobe lights for photography of any kind. Portable, battery powered, with TTL flash metering for Canon and Nikon DSLRs, it even comes in at a great price.
Having TTL metering dedication capability is the first thing that caught my eye with this strobe. Canon and Nikon DSLR cameras have a sophisticated TTL (through the lens) flash metering system that balances ambient light, focus distance and a matrix of metering algorithms for near perfect flash exposures.
Manual exposure is adjusted by a menu system either on the transmitter or on the strobe itself. It’s vital to get familiar with the user manual, there are a lot of settings on this strobe. Power can be manually set from full to 1/128th power in 1/3rd stop increments.
Besides balancing exposure, 1/128th power renders about a 1/10000th of a second flash duration for action stopping. This comes in several different strengths, from 300W/S to 600W/S (W/S is watts/seconds, a standard way to measure strobe lighting power. Higher W/S equals more power. GN or guide number is another way to measure flash power.)
On outdoor location shoots, I kept the modelling light off. Couldn’t really see it when outside anyways. In studio, the modeling light was slightly more useful. Recycle time was 3 seconds with a full power burst, to near instantaneous in lower power modes or on automatic at close range.
If the modeling light is switched on, it turns off until the strobe recycles. That is a good visual indicator that the strobe is ready to fire again, a neat trick I figured out by accident.
All things considered, the price wasn’t too bad for this strobe, though it was definitely more expensive than most of the on camera flashes I have used. Nonetheless Neewer keeps costs down as much as possible, but this is a full featured, extremely versatile strobe, and is well worth the money spent.
2. Godox AD200 200Ws 2.4G TTL Flash Strobe Cordless Monolight
Godox AD200 200Ws 2.4G TTL Flash Strobe Cordless Monolight Review
Next up on my list is the mighty Godox AD200. This is a small strobe unit with lots going for it, making it one of the best strobe lights for photography, especially where size and weight are a primary consideration.
At 200W/S, power is low, but portability is the reason I looked at this strobe. If you looked at one of the more full featured on camera flashes from Canon or Nikon with the head tilted all the way up, that’s pretty close to the size of this strobe without anything else added to it.
The Godox AD200 uses a smaller rechargeable battery, but since it is a lower power unit, we get about the same number of full power flashes. Recycle times were around 3 seconds, faster in TTL at close range or when using incremental manual settings. High speed flash is 1/8000th of a second.
The modelling light on the standard head is just about invisible in the outdoor settings I tested in. There is also an adapter that lets it use Bowens standard accessories. It also has two different tripod screw mount holes for mounting to a variety of heads or to the included light stand adapter.
Controls on the unit are set via a menu system that looks a lot like older Canon EOS cameras. Again, reading the instructions is a vital step to use this strobe to its full potential.
Overall this strobe light was a great multipurpose unit as would suit a photography who wants some flash power while keeping their camera bag light. Highly recommended!
3. Neewer 250W 5600K Photo Studio Strobe Flash Light Monolight
Neewer 250W 5600K Photo Studio Strobe Flash Light Monolight Review
Moving onto the next model is the Neewer 250W which is an AC power only strobe with a power rating of 250W/S as the name suggests. 250W/S is good enough power for many smaller studios, but don’t let the modest power turn you away from this strobe.
The supplied cord is more than long enough to allow me to position it anywhere in my own small studio or for a lot of leeway in on location positioning. On AC power, recycle times are virtually instantaneous. The LED display on the back of the strobe shows the power settings from 1.0 to 6.0 in 0.1 step increments.
I’m not sure what that corresponds to in fractions, but that’s a lot of adjustability any way you look at it. The briefest pop of light is about 1/2200th of a second.
That’s not cheating, it’s digital photography!
As for third party accessories, the tilting mount fits onto standard light stands and has a hole for umbrellas/reflectors if need be. The strobe itself takes either Neewer branded front mounted accessories, or any Bowens mount piece using the available adapter ring.
4. RoveLight 600 Ws Monolight with On Board Power
RoveLight 600 Ws Monolight with On Board Power Review
Coming in at my fourth spot is the very powerful RoveLight 600W/S battery powered strobe. This unit is a heavy and somewhat expensive piece of photographic machinery, but it belongs in my list of best strobe lights for photography because of its high power and battery enabled portability.
For a battery operated powerhouse, it recycles from full blast very quickly. I was impressed by that. What I wished though, was that it had the option to use AC power. But beggars cant be choosers. The batteries recharge outside the strobe pretty quickly, but that could limit how long we get to use it on an all day on location shoot.
Flash triggering is enabled through radio remote, optical slave, or synch cord. The supplied radio remote was a little frustrating as it didn’t have any display to tell me what I was doing. However the strobe is compatible with a wide variety of remotes, so if you already have one from another brand, it will likely work fine.
This RoveLight truly has a spectacular burst of light anywhere you might be is why you would want this strobe. As you can tell by the above video, this strobe light can handle pretty much any situation or environment.
5. Neewer Battery Powered Vision 4 Outdoor Studio Flash Strobe
Neewer Battery Powered Vision 4 Outdoor Studio Flash Strobe Review
I could say this is the less expensive Neewer version of the previous strobe, but that wouldn’t be totally fair or true. While it does share similar specs and controls, the Neewer appears to be slightly less robust in build, but it has slightly more power (700W/S), and a simple, reliable wireless radio transmitter included in the deal.
Bowens mount front accessories, fast recycle times with long battery life, and another nearly invisible (meaning unusable) modeling light round out the specs. High speed burst is 1/10000th of a second.
I found the higher power strobes, including this one, a little unwieldy to hand hold because of their weight. I found I also needed to use a fairly substantial light stand with them, as well. You really don’t want your fancy strobe with a softbox on it to come crashing down because it wasn’t supported well enough.
Plenty of good quality stands are out there, though, for a reasonable price. Neewer makes several. I promise I don’t work for Neewer, they simply really impress me with the way they bring out good quality products at lower prices than many other brands.
I love these strobe lights!
They all qualify for consideration as the best strobe lights for your own photography.
It mostly comes down to how much power they have and whether they are portable or not. While I can transport any monolite style strobe with relative ease, being battery powered opens up a whole new world for photographers.
Note, however, that if modeling lights are a big deal for you, none of the battery powered strobes had a bright enough modeling light to be useful. On a personal note, the strobes with TTL dedication for modern DSLRs really were a joy to use.
Good for on location shoots too, allowing a photographer to enhance or replace the natural lighting. For example, a person selling their products online can set up the strobes and dial in whatever exposures are necessary, and then simply change the products out, repeating the same proper exposure over and over.
Same with portraits. At many portrait studios, the strobes are left in the same place, the camera often tripod mounted at an optimal position, and the end results vary mostly based on posing the subject and directing them to act natural.
Wrapping it up
Other interesting things to do with studio strobes is action stopping and special effects. Action stopping comes from just how amazingly brief that burst of light is. Just like using a fast shutter speed to stop action, we can get even higher effective speeds from strobes.
A camera may offer a top speed of 1/4000th or 1/8000th of a second, a strobe can be 1/20000th to 1/40000th of a second! Some specialty strobes for scientific use can be even faster, but we’re getting into some serious funding issues there. Using colored gel filters on strobes is another fun thing to do. Continuous lights can get so hot that they warp or melt some color filters. Don’t want a fire hazard, now!