I was looking for a low weight and a powerful flash combination to take with me for non commercial shoots.

It is very important to expand your portfolio with new work.

I own and use several Godox flashes.

• 1 x AD100 Pro

• 6 x AD200

• 1 x AD200 pro

• 2 AD600 Pro

• 2 AD1200 Pro

All together a total of 52000 Ws and that is a lot of flash power!

For commercial work I use my AD600 pro’s and AD1200 pro’s. The AD200 are mainly used as a vignet light. When you have to take a lot of photos you better have extra power so your flashes do not overheat. It is not very professional when you need to tell your client to have a 10 minute break so your flashes can cool down again.

I do love the AD200’s because they are portable and very powerful and battery life is excellent. You can attach a fresnel head, a round head or a bare bulb head.

I very rarely use the standard (fresnel) head and recently found out the output of the Godox mini wistro AD-M reflector is excellent.

It is not only excellent but the light it produces is between soft and hard.

I came up with a very mobile solution that is both low weight and extremely powerful!

Here it is:

Trust me. This is a very powerful combination. I use the Godox AD200 extension heads and the AD200’s are in fomito pouches I bought at least 5 years ago. Godox now also offer pouches for the 200’s so I recommend to buy these ones.

It all fits in a bag (+ an AD100 pro).

I mainly shoot models with the sun on their back, expose for the general ambient light and use flash to get a balanced photo like the photo below.

The photo in the middle is without flash and the photo on the right is using an AD1200 Pro and a small open 50 cm octabox. (with small inner diffuse)

In general I place the flash a few meters away from the model. When you shoot towards the sun you need flashpower. For the photo above I used an ND4 filter, 1/200, ISO50, F/4. Flash Power was in general between 1/4 and 1/8.

I don’t use HSS very often because you loose at least a stop of light. It drains your battery faster and your flash can overheat faster.

HSS is fantastic but if you need to shoot a lot of pictures in a very short time using an ND filter is the way to go.

I did some test shots outside and I was impressed with the power and quality of light this setup produces.

I also added an extra AD200 holder so I can attach a white umbrella when I want the light to be softer. I don’t use umbrellas very often because thet are not the best light formers. There is always some light that bounces back and therefor the light efficiency is not as good but they are very lightweight and portable.

This setup is all I need when I want much power with a minium of gear. Check my ‘what is in my bag’ blog to get an idea what my total setup is for TFP shoots.

In the bag is also an AD100 Pro that I can attach on the light stand to brighten the lower parts of the model and as a general fill. This AD100 pro is in general at the same power as the AD200’s. That is 2 stops of light less compared to the 2 AD200’s.

It only takes a few minutes to assemble the complete setup and very easy to carry when you move from one place to another.

This setup (without the AD100) is 2/10 of a stop more powerful than an AD1200 Pro with standard reflector. That is 400Ws compared to 1200Ws and the 400Ws is even more powerful. This proves reflectors can make a huge difference.

When AD200’s are placed in a dual bracket (AD-B2) a Bowens mount lightformer the advantage of having extra power is lost.

But there you have it. The ultimate powerful mobile light setup using only 2 AD200’s.