In-depth (well, not really) review of the Strobepro X600II Battery Powered Studio LIght

[tirediron]

I recently started finding a need for a more powerful, portable light with HSS than my Godox AD360II but as it isn't something that I use very often I couldn't really justify the cost of Profoto or Elinchrom (No matter how much I wanted to). Having been reasonably impressed with my AD360, I had a look at the latest offerings from Godox and settled on the X600II. It was well reviewed and met my requirements of a reasonable amount of light, small form-factor and HSS. The X600II is also offered in another model which has TTL as well as HSS, but since I couldn't ever imagine using TTL on a light like this, I opted not to spend the extra $100.

The unit, as it arrives was reasonably impressive. It feels solid, and with the battery weighs in at a heft 6 pounds. Annoyingly, it does not come with a standard reflector; granted it's only $20, but it seems rather petty not to include it. The fit and finish over all is decent, and it feels like it will do the job.

The battery is an 8700 MAh unit which is advertised at 500 full-power pops per charge. I haven't tested that, but in several long sessions at much lower power, it put out many hundreds of flashes and used less than 1/2 a charge; overall I would rate that as at least, "decent". The display is a rather basic dot-matrix type, but it's clear, even in bright light, and provides all necessary information without going overboard. The controls have a nice, tactile feel.

One of the things that really appealed to me was the ability to use a head extension; this is a $125 optional extra, but IMO, worth it. This avoids having to put the full weight of the unit at the top of a lightstand. The extension head weighs less than a pound and works very well. Unfortunately the cord is only 6' long, meaning if you're using it on a stand at full extension, you have to support the battery partway up the stand. Not a huge issue, but another 5-10' of cable would have made it a much better unit. Both the extension cable and flash tube have nice, chunky, easy to insert and remove pins, with no feeling of having to be extra careful.

Both the main unit and extenions head have a nice, reasonably bright LED modelling light which seems like, even on the highest setting will run virtually forever on that battery. The extension also includes a nice carry bag for the main body with covers and access for the controls. It has a shoulder strap and belt loop (can't imagine putting this on my belt!).

In use: It's advertised as a 600w/s unit with a GN of 87/285 @ ISO 100... unsurprisingly it falls just a little short. Full power pops at 10' using the standard 55 deg, 7" reflector were f 16 7/10 rather than the f22 5/10 that they should have been, so approximately one stop under. On the plus side, power output is consistent (within <1/10 stop) across all levels. This also provides 9 power levels going down to 1/256. It uses the standard Godox remote trigger which means I can control both this light and my AD360 at the same time.

The HSS works flawlessly on my Nikon bodies:

Probably not going to win the NG wildlife prize, but for a 1/8000 second exposure, I was pretty happy.

There are a few issues of course, in addition to it's being under-powered. The main ones relate to the mounting hardware. This is the only part that feels suspect. The mounting point for the spigot and the thumbscrew to tighten it are both brittle feeling, and I think it would be fairly easy to break them, unlike say my Speedotron heads which are solid cast aluminum... The worst thing, or perhaps biggest design fault is the angle adjustment handle... it rubs on the reflector!

Overall, I'm pleased with the unit. It's not perfect, but at 1/4 of the price of a comparable Profoto or Elinchrom unit, it will meet my needs.