Speedlights or Strobes?

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Profoto B10 - smallest and most portable strobe

Hello everyone! This time I want to try to answer a regular if not frequent question which is when a photographer is better suited with strobes over a hotshoe mount speedlight.

Speedlights

We know our speedlights. Simple to use, typically integrate very well with our camera systems, can be used off camera with some form of transmitter/receiver, have a reasonable selection of light shapers and most importantly to most people, lightweight, small and highly portable with lots of pops from a fully charged set of batteries. Great stuff.

Strobes

A strobe is the same flash technology in generating light as a speedlight. It used to be that a strobe always had more output capability than a speedlight, but strobe makers have been building lower output versions for increased portability and speedlight makers have been increasing efficiency and output.

Strobes come in two major construction types. Older strobes or super high power strobes use a separate pack called a generator that plugs into AC, or contains a big battery.. The heads are very small and connect to the pack with a heavy duty cable. Triggering is still wireless but you are running a cable from the pack to the heads. My Profoto B2 system is like this. The other construction type, which is the general direction for most strobes is called a monolight. This means that everything is together, the flash, the modelling light and the power supply. These units don’t have a cable requirement and are triggered wirelessly. The Profoto B10 pictured in the header is an example of a small monolight.

So if they are so similar, what reasons would one have to choose strobes? Let’s look at some solid reasons for and against strobes.

Strobe Pros

  • Strobes tend to be built tougher, because they are used on stands and often in tight and crowded environments and the expectation is that things can go wrong so the devices need to be more tough

  • Strobes will have a much shorter recycle time than a speedlight. This all comes down to the size of the power supply

  • Strobes will deliver more pops to a charge. If you are doing studio type work, time is money and if you are working in a complex setup, going up and down ladders to change batteries is a pain and inefficient

  • Strobe settings can be made remotely from a trigger on the camera. Today’s strobes are still radio controlled but have more options than just output level. They have large easy to read displays and you can control output, and operating mode centrally.

  • Until recently strobe kits offered more light group options and more channel options than remote speedlights. While they still offer more, speedlights have expanded to close this gap for the most part

  • Strobes have a much wider selection of light shaping tools both for focused harder light and for softer large source options. You won’t drive a 4’x6’ softbox from a speedlight very well, but this readily done from a strobe. You have reflectors, parabolics, giant umbrellas, softboxes, snoots, grids, hard reflectors, beauty dishes and projectors. Speedlights cannot come close to the scope and breadth of options.

  • Strobes have modelling lights, a continuous light that shows you as the creative exactly where the highlights and shadows are going to fall before you make the shot. If you are photographing anything that has reflective surfaces, a modelling light is, in my opinion, a requirement, not an option

  • Strobes are consistently rated across brands in terms of output, so it is easy to compare units. Units are also available from makers in different output levels. The B10 pictured at the beginning of the article is a monolight that runs on its own battery and delivers a maximum of 250 watt seconds in a pop. My D2 Monolights run on AC power and deliver a maximum of 1000 watt seconds per pop with near instantaneous recycle time

Strobe Cons

  • Strobes are larger and heavier. You will never mount one on a camera directly, not that you would want to. They are larger and heavier predominantly because of the battery

  • Strobes are going to need a solid light stand to mount on, and you will need sandbags or something like it to help prevent the stand from falling over, or being knocked over

  • Strobes may not support your camera’s TTL flash, although most all current strobes can do this

  • An individual strobe will often cost more than an individual speedlight, although given the pricing of Nikon and Canon brand speedlights, this may be less true. However, in most cases building a kit of multiple strobes will cost you more than building a kit of multiple speedlights

  • Light shapers tend to be larger, more flexible and thus more expensive than the much more limited range of speedlight light shapers. Be aware that there are frames that can convert a strobe mount light shaper to use a speedlight. My personal experience is that these are ok for small shapers but are built too poorly to handle a large light shaper. The speedlight adapters tend to be made from plastic or white metal and will break at the worst time

  • Strobes with their stands and light shapers take more physical space. They are also heavier and more work to transport. This is the price you pay for versatility

Getting Started with Strobes

Strobes used to be more unattainable because of the cost of entry. The strobe system that I use is from a company called Profoto. I could justify the cost because I bought them for my photography business and they are globally popular, so no matter where I went, I could always rent Profoto kit and accessories to use with my own stuff. If you are doing this for your pleasure or your own small photo business, the cost of Profoto may be higher than your budget allows for. I have never had an issue with any Profoto product. They make my work easier, faster and more consistent compared to speedlights.

While I always take a speedlight with me when I go into the field, if there is a use for flash and I can set one up, I prefer a strobe. The great thing to me is the massive variety in power output, recycle times and sizes of the units.

About six years ago, I was asked to stress test strobes from Godox. I did it for multiple Godox strobes and decided on the AD600 Pro heads. I found the Godox pro level radio transmitter was about 1/5 the cost of a Profoto transmitter. The AD600 Pro heads were rated at 600ws compared to the 500ws of my own Profoto B1 units, so very comparable in application. If I were starting out today, and did not have a decent enough revenue stream to fund lights, I would definitely go with a three pack of Godox strobes and one of their transmitters for the camera system that I am using. While Godox does not have a lot of options in hard reflectors, they do offer excellent quality softboxes and parabolics at extremely attractive pricing. I really did work them very hard and through multiple shoots, setups, teardowns, transport they held up perfectly. The colour consistency was superb, and the modelling lights were bright enough to make a difference and to speed setups.

There are other strobe brands of course, and the Godox units also show up under other brands, such as Flashpoint. Godox documentation is not great and when I last checked the firmware updater app only ran on Windows but I see that their G3 firmware launcher is now available for macOS. While I own Profoto, I have also shot Elinchrom and Broncolor units in production with complete success. There are also a lot of clones made in Asia, but I cannot comment on any of them having not used anything from Asia other than Godox.

Closing Thoughts

Not every photographer needs strobes. It’s a bit wonky because you will know when you need a set and not before. If you do a higher number of fixed setup shoots, like schools, industry, house of worship, community organizations, a set of strobes will streamline your work. If most of your work is more run and gun lighting, then strobes may not be best for you. You can also mix strobes and speedlights, but so far that I have tested only the Godox family uses the same transmitter for their speedlights and their strobes.

There is nothing fundamentally different in terms of skills when shooting with strobes versus speedlights, so don’t freak out about that. If you are not getting to where you need to be with your speedlights, maybe strobes are the logical step.

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