High School Basketball - An Xplor 600 "review"

[Destin]

I shot my first high school basketball game of the season yesterday, and used it as an opportunity to put my two new flashpoint xplor 600 monolights to the test. In the past I've used 4 Yongnuo YN-685 speedlights for this task, but have always found them quite underpowered for this type of work.

I know that @Derrel and @crimbfighter expressed interest in seeing this thread.

The lights were positioned 10-12 feet in the air on stands aimed up at the wall behind either side of the backboard. This allowed bounce flash to illuminate the front of the players as they came towards me. I shot 243 photos during the course of the game with roughly 80% of them at 1/4 power and the rest at 1/2 power. At the end of the game I still had completely full battery indicators - pretty incredible in my opinion.

I found that the flash duration at 1/2 power was just too slow to freeze the action, so I had to stay around 1/4 to keep the action crisp.

I experienced 4 instances where one or both lights failed to fire, but this may well have been due to me outpacing the recycle time when I had them on 1/2 power. I'll have to see if it happens in the future to know the exact cause.

For comparison sake, this was my ambient reading at my final camera settings: F/5, 1/250th, iso 500. I didn't test high speed sync at this game, but will at the next one. This shows just how much work the lights were doing:

This was my light placement. I tried to bounce equally off of the wall and the ceiling to get soft, even light. This was at the light's minimum power setting as not to blow out the photo:

And Finally, some of the final product shots. Sorry about the watermarks, these are from my sale gallery. Click here to view the complete gallery on my website:

1.) Roughly Mid-Court

2.) Layup

3.)

4.)

5.) Even lighting on the stands as well

6.)

 

[crimbfighter]

Thanks for posting this! From the looks of it they did really well, especially considering the price point for the pair. I really have no frame of reference to know how 600ws lights compare to more powerful ones, but it seems like it's plenty for this.

 

[Destin]

Thanks for posting this! From the looks of it they did really well, especially considering the price point for the pair. I really have no frame of reference to know how 600ws lights compare to more powerful ones, but it seems like it's plenty for this.

This is my first set of monolights as well, so I can’t compare them to much other than speedlights. And obviously they’re more powerful than that.

There isn’t a lot on the market more powerful than 600ws, at least not at a reasonable price. And especially not battery powered.

 

[ac12]

I like it.
It is nice when you don't have to fight using a HIGH ISO to get good images.

 

[Derrel]

Hey Destin, thanks for posting the pictures! Looks like you got plenty of POP! from these lights. This video link shows the Godox 600 AKA the XPLOR 600 flash model's t0.1 flash duration at every power level, from 1/256 power to Full power; 1/2 power's t0.1 duration is shown on the unit's display LCD screen as 1/740 second, but adding 0.7 EV more flash slows it down to 1/535 second at 1/2 Power + .0.3EV; at 1/2 Power +0.7EV the duration is 1/352; at Full Power the t0.1 duration is a rather slow 1/220 second.

1/4 Power output shows the Godox 600 with a t0.1 flash duration of 1/1470 second. I am assuming that the Xplor 600 is an identical unit,and that it is simply a re-branded Godox 600 unit, just with different decals on the housing.

Video Link shopwing the XPLOR 600's listed flash durations in t0.1 at

The t0.1 times are when the flash is at 10% or above peak intensity, and are slooooooower than the t.5 times often quoted by manufacturers.

The slower, t0.1 figure really is more of what needs to be considered/evaluated/adjusted at the shooting location and for the f/stop and the ISO level and subject matter actually in use, since even weaker, lower-level light can add to the exposure and cause blurring. Here's a good Strobist page explaining the way flash burst speeds work, and how the times are spec'd.

Strobist: Rise (and Fall) of The Machines: Understanding t.5/t.1 Times

 

[ac12]

Now that I have my 35mm f/1.8, life isn't as tough, as it was with the zoom.
I now shoot at ISO=3200, 1/1000 sec, f/2.
Much better than ISO=12800 with the slower 18-140 zoom.

Still not as good as yours with the extra light, but good enough.
I get eye shadow with the kids with deep eye sockets.