Today i'm going to see how much power i need in my flash to overpower the sun!
when i first bought a flash i thought it was awesome i thought i'd be able to go out and just
get some epic flash photography images outdoors and not have to worry too much about the sun
but i couldn't be further from the truth and i did have a lot to learn
my flash at the time didn't have the high speed sync function and i didn't know that i needed to
control the ambient light and then control the flashlight when you're indoors it's quite easy
to get your flash working for you but when you step outside especially when it's sunny
you do need quite a lot of power so i have a few different flashes to test and i want to see in
real terms what i need to get a good photograph now first of all i'm not sponsored by godox and
i haven't been given any of these apart from the ad300 i bought all of the others with my own money
and i just want to see what i can get away with to be able to photograph in the middle of the day and
compete with that sunlight a company called per gear did send me the ad 300 for review and that is
coming soon after i've fully tested it also this isn't a scientific test just a real world test
with the light changing all of the time so you might see the settings change around a little bit
as they would in a real shoot i'll be testing the first two with and without modifiers to see
how they cope in the sunlight and then the second two in a 90 centimeter softbox i have the tt350
the v860 mark ii the ad200 and the ad300 pro also all of them have the high speed sync function
this enables me to go above my sync speed and i'm using the a7 3 which has a sync speed of
1 200 of a second so i'll try them with and without the high speed sync function
as this option does cut into the power quite a bit so i started off with my tt350 which is an
absolutely tiny flash i had to shoot with this one on camera as it doesn't have any wireless modes
just a built-in slave mode and my camera doesn't have a flash on the top of it so
i couldn't take advantage of that slave mode i was really surprised by this little flash it produced
a surprising amount of power and when used without a modifier i was able to compete with the sun
so with the tt350 having it on camera it actually can compete with the sun
but because it's on camera you've got really direct really horrible light on your subject
so that's the only problem with this flash it's great it's a tiny little flash
but when it is flashing on the subject it's not that brilliant
at 1 16 power in the flash and the settings of 1 200th of a second f4 and iso 100
i got an evenly lit image and the flash was keeping up with the sun and then with high
speed sync enabled at one half power i got a good exposure with a shutter speed of 1 1
250th of a second f 1.8 and iso 100 now when i tried to diffuse it with the rogue flashbender
this was when that lack of power really showed itself
so as soon as i put the flashbender on this is creating a much bigger light source so the light
source is nicer but in using 1 want power so using all the power in this flash it's not quite enough
with the flash at full power i had the settings at 1 320th of a second high-speed sync enabled
f 2.8 iso 100 and this just about gave me a usable photo but again that light was still quite flat
because the angle of the flash was still very similar to the angle that i was shooting at in
saying all of that if you did wait for the golden hour and if it was quite a hazy golden hour so
the intensity of the sun had dropped quite a bit i think you'd get some usable shots with this flash
and using some kind of diffuser like the rogue flashbender and especially if you've got a remote
trigger to fire it off camera giving you some angle on the flashlight that you were using
next i dried the v862 this has a fair bit more power than the tt350 and is about double the
price the v862 is a decent flash and again i was surprised at how much power it has
without any modifiers it was easily able to compete with the sun first of all on camera and
then off camera on camera with high speed sync enabled i got a good exposure with 1 16 flash
power with a shutter speed at 1 1 250th f 1.8 and iso 100 when i put the flash on a light stand i
used the same settings and got a better result so with the camera off the flash you can see i've got
it on the light stand i've got the flash at 1 16 power i've got it in the hss setting one 1 250th
of a second f 1.8 iso 100 and this is producing quite a nice light now with the flash off camera
the direction of light is better but without a soft box the light is still hard producing strong
shadows you can see with those settings a vast markup in the power from the tt350 to the v860
mark ii now i think the guide number for the tt350 is around about 35 or 36 and then the v860 mark
ii is 60. so there is a definite markup in the power between these two flashes also with that
lithium-ion battery the recycle times were much faster in the v860 mark ii now with this unit you
can use it with a trigger like the x1 the x2 or the x pro it's got the wireless system built in
you just have to set it right so it communicates with the trigger now this enabled me to get it off
camera and into my softbox and today i was using a 90 centimeter softbox when i put this flash in
the softbox i thought it might dissipate the power a lot more than it actually did but it did compete
with the sun and it did really keep up with it quite well so i've got the softbox on now i've had
to increase the power of the v860 mark ii to half power i've still got my settings at 1 1 250th of
a second f2 iso 100 so the v860 mark ii can really cope with that sunlight so i'm using the sunlight
as a hair light and the v860 has a key light and it seems to be working really well in the 90
centimeter softbox and i've got double diffusion in this as well i'm actually really surprised
with this and yeah it's proving to be a really good flash without the high-speed sync enabled
i had it on half power with the settings of 1 200 of a second f 5.6 and iso 100 this gave me a
good exposure with my subject at about four foot from the flash head so if you do own this flash
get a soft box a light stand and a trigger and you can get some great shots even in the midday sun
next i'm going to try the ad200 so i'm just going to switch it out with the v860
and then see how much better this does than the v860 the great thing with this is that it has two
different heads to give you two different light spreads with the fresnel head without high speed
sync enabled i could get a good exposure with 1 16 power i had the shutter speed at 1 200th of a
second my aperture at f 4.5 and an iso of 100 with high speed sync enabled i had to get the flash to
full power at 1 2 000 of a second f2 and iso 100 and this gave a good exposure i then swapped the
fresnel head out with the bulb head and got a good exposure with the flash set to half power
i had the shutter speed at 1 200th of a second i had it f 4.5 and iso 100 with high speed sync
enabled i had to increase it to full power on that flash and i got a good exposure with a
shutter speed of 1 1 250th of a second f2 and iso at 160. so this really does show you how
much more power you need with the high speed sync mode enabled in the ad200 also with the bulb in
the ad200 you have to increase that power again so if you're using the bulb and high speed sync mode
you pretty much have to shoot at full power when taking photographs in the middle of the day
lastly i tried the ad300 this is marketed as an outdoor flash and i did wonder how much better
it could be compared to the ad200 now this really does stand up to the name of an outdoor flash it
has plenty of power and the bulb really does give a nice soft look to it when in a decent softbox
at 1 8 power with a shutter speed of 1 200th of a second an aperture of f 7.1 and iso 100 i was able
to get a good exposure so you can see with this bigger flash with a lot more power you can really
drop that power in the flash and still compete with the sun because i was only using 1 8 power
this gave me really short recycle times and it was to the point where i didn't have
to worry about it too much and i could take multiple shots in a sequence also
with a smaller amount of power needed for every single flash the battery would last a lot longer
now with an aperture of f 7.1 to get a good exposure this doesn't blur the background too much
so if you do want a more blurry background you would have to use an nd filter or enable
high speed sync mode with a three-stop nd filter you would be able to open the aperture to around
about f 2.8 and get the same exposure with the high-speed sync enabled to get a good exposure
i had to increase the power to one quarter with the settings of one 1 250th of a second f 1.8
and an iso of 100. so even when high-speed sync has enabled i still didn't have to use full power
now this was a really fun test to do and one thing this has shown me is that it doesn't
take much to overpower the sun with a flash however when you want to diffuse the light
and get a nice soft light on your subject you do have to get a bigger unit with more power
because that softbox dissipates that light quite a lot if you have something like the tt350 this
is limited in its uses outside if this is all you have i'd get a rogue flashbender and an
off-camera trigger and then shoot around sunrise and sunset to be able to compete with the sun
in that midday sunlight it really did struggle and also with just two double a batteries in
it it really did struggle with power and the recycle times were getting longer and longer
the more shots that i took the v860 mark ii did a really good job and was able to keep up with the
sun quite easily however that light source was still quite harsh even through double diffusion
because of that fresnel head even when zoomed out to 24 millimeters after a while the recycle times
did start to get longer and every now and then i had some dark frames where the flash didn't fire
and it was still recharging the ad200 also did a good job with the fresnel head and i was able
to use a lower power setting than the v860 mark ii with the bulb head i did have to crank up the
power but the quality of the light was much better so with the ad200 using that bulb you will burn
through a lot more battery power finally with the ad300 this really did stand up to its name
it's an outdoor flash head and it does produce a really nice soft light that can easily compete
with the sun in a 90 centimeter softbox with double diffusion in the midday sun i was able to
get a good exposure with one eighth to one quarter power so the better quality of flash that you want
outdoors in your photos the bigger the flash head you will have to get but if you can't afford these
more expensive flashes you can get some good shots but you will have to wait for an overcast day
or you'll have to wait to shoot at sunset or sunrise before that sunlight gets too bright
now have you had any experiences in shooting outdoors with speed lights or flashes
if so let me know in the comments below it'll be great to hear about your experiences
and if you want to learn more about photography click on this video next or if you want to binge
watch a load of my photography tutorials click down here and if you haven't already
be sure to subscribe for weekly tutorials in photography and videography i'll see you next time