Godox K180A 180w

acparsons · Mar 30, 2018

Hello All,

I'm looking for a cheap strobe, to do some portraits. Couldn't find any reviews. Has any one used the Godox K180A 180w?

tirediron · Mar 30, 2018

Godox definitely seems to be the best of the MiC stuff; for the most part, it's reasonably well built (given the price point) and suitable for home use. Looking at that unit. Two things concern me: (1) The lightstand mount and umbrella mount seem VERY flimsy. I would not want to try and mount a large brolly box on that unit; and (2) while it looks to have an optical slave sensor, there's no isolation switch, meaning that if you, or someone else is using another strobe/speedlight in the vicinity, this strobe will be going off. Of course a piece of gaff tape will take care of that, but...

sergezap · Mar 30, 2018

This one is an OEM cheap crap. Unstable and unpredictable.
I had one under the Falcon Eyes brand.

Braineack · Mar 30, 2018

I'd rather start with this:

Flashpoint Studio R2

a little more expensive at $100USD, but it has a better mount that's easy to find modifiers for, and has the R2 wireless system, and it's 300 w/s. You can get the same in GODOX branding.

sergezap · Mar 30, 2018

If your studio is small or you're not plan to shoot at f8 or higher, 300W can become a problem.
Cheap flasheads don't offer a wide range of power management and tricky Amazon guys know that's true:

150W modeling lamp adjusts in 5% to 100% power levels

This unit has only 4 stops of impulse power adjustment.

Braineack · Mar 30, 2018

conversely, I was using 160ws strobes for a long while, and the way I was shooting my main light was almost always set to power level 5.5 out of 6.

consider the output of their 400w/s and 600w/s at f/8 here:

acparsons · Mar 30, 2018

Thanks for the feedback.

Derrel · Mar 30, 2018

That 180 Watt-second model sells for $58, with a 2-year protection plan for $5, via Walmart's on-line stores. I believe this Godox-branded unit has a NON-replaceable flashtube; the NON-replaceable flashtube units are more or less "disposable" flash units. A user-replaceable flashtube means the unit is designed to last a while. it does as the one user mentions, have only 4 stops' worth of power adjustment: Full or 1/1 power; 1/2 power; 1/4 power;and finally 1/8 power, which means 4 stops' worth of variation in output power.

This specific model does look very cheaply-made. It does however have a pre-flash ignore feature, which would be handy if it were being used with a camera-flash to trigger.

I dunno...I think you might like something better-made. Still...this could likely do the job, and would likely be quite adequate with a smaller umbrella-box type modifier, like a 40-43 inch model. THis type of disposable strobe typically LACKS the ability to accept 7-inch and 11.5-inch and 16- to 22-inch beauty dishes, and is almost totally designed to be used with umbrella-shaft-type accessories, like umbrellas, or umbrella boxes.