T-One`s QT-600 Studio Strobe TesT & Review
Contents
1. The results show that the QT 600 can easily balance the environmental light of a sunny day at noon even with an in efficient light modifier such as a softbox having the subject 2 meters away from the modifier In summary my feeling is that the actual guide number is less than the declared 76 meters but doubt that the differ ence is as large as 0 6 stops I d say that the real guide number is somewhere between 65 and 72 but can t tell for sure be cause reached the precision limits of my home lab Which ever the truth this strobe has undoubtedly plenty of power even for outdoor use and is dimmable enough to be used in a small studio with large apertures such as f 4 and even f 2 8 Color consistency IGBT flashes are know to be very fast but in most cases they compromise flash duration with color temperature stabili ty As the output power is reduced flash duration becomes faster but color temperature rises towards a more bluish hue This color drift may be easily in the 300 500 K range In Action Mode the Einstein works exactly in this way However the Einstein also features a Constant Color Mode that keeps color temperature within 50K over the entire power range This is obtained by reducing the voltage applied to the T1 s QT 600 REVIEW flash tube The downside of this technique is a slower flash duration which drops from 1 13 500 to 1 8000 at lowest power With the QT 600 you can t choose between t2. For the same strobes reading 1 2 and 3 the output level is consistent within 0 1 stops which for all practical pur poses means that the output is absolutely identical This is 64 4 10 45 9 10 45 4 10 45 0 10 32 4 10 32 0 10 22 4 10 22 0 10 16 4 10 11 4 10 8 4 10 5 6 4 10 45 8 10 45 3 10 32 8 10 32 5 10 32 0 10 22 5 10 22 0 10 16 5 10 16 0 10 11 6 10 8 7 10 5 6 0 10 45 8 10 45 3 10 32 9 10 32 4 10 32 0 10 22 4 10 22 0 10 16 5 10 16 0 10 11 6 10 8 8 10 4 8 10 T1 s QT 600 reEviEW 45 8 10 45 4 10 45 0 10 32 5 10 32 1 10 22 5 10 22 0 10 16 5 10 16 0 10 11 6 10 8 7 10 5 6 0 10 45 6 10 45 2 10 32 7 10 32 3 10 22 9 10 22 4 10 16 9 10 16 3 10 11 8 10 11 4 10 8 6 10 4 9 10 Table 1 Measured power output at 1 meter with standard reflector and at different power settings also the precision of the measuring instrument so a 0 1 stop output difference is within the experimental error box As regards the second strobe reading 4 the difference in output is more noticeable yet limited to an almost negli gible 0 2 to 0 3 stops You may also notice that this series of measurements is consistently fainter than readings 1 2 3 As i switched strobes for this test it may be that accidental ly changed the setup especially the distance between the strobe and the light meter
3. a normal working mode to feed standard appliances e g notebooks printers etc and a flash mode which is appropriate for strobes In normal mode the maximum continuous power output is 450 W while in flash mode you need to think in terms of watt seconds From a practical point of view the LP 450X supports multiple strobes up to a total of 1800 Ws which is perfectly adequate to connect my three QT 600 The normal mode is a distinguishing feature of the LP 450X For instance the Paul C Buff s Vagabond Mini Lithi um one of the most popular battery packs is not intended to power continuous loads such as the modeling lamps Instead the LP 450 can happily feed any standard electric device including lamps up to a total continuous power of 450W To this end the LP 450X uses active cooling by means of a cooling fan on the side of the unit Other battery packs Figure 31 Battery and inverter set apart including the Vagabond only offer passive cooling as they are not intended for continuous usage Recharge time is nothing less than phenomenal for this price range With a single strobe attached the LX 450 is as fast as a mains outlet Even with three QT 600 s recycle time is just 3 seconds at full power see also Table 5 Just to put things in perspective a similarly priced battery pack from Bowens the Travelpak recycles two 500 Ws strobes in 10 seconds a huge difference The Vagabond Mini Lithium recycle
4. light sensor triggers the unit it glows red when the pre flash slave mode is active the optical sensors ignores the first flash and triggers the strobe on the second one this mode may be useful when working in conjunction with TTL speedlights Buttons captions are orange on a dark gray background While looking great this is hardly the best choice in terms of readability particularly in low light conditions Personally speaking this is not a problem in most circumstances How often would you change the setting of the buzzer or the op tical slave during a shoot What you re likely to use the most is the test button followed by the modeling lamp switch These two functions are found on the rightmost and leftmost buttons so they are easy to locate even in complete darkness The modeling lamp is adjusted manually through the left knob in continuous mode there are no fixed steps Unfor tunately there is no proportional mode regulation i e the modeling lamp can not be adjusted automatically in propor tion to the flash power Visual confirmation is available instead This function turns off the modeling lamp when the flash fires and turns it on again when the recycle is complete and the flash is ready to fire again This offers a visual clue that the strobe has been triggered Many photographers prefer to use this function in stead of the buzzer which can be annoying particular when there are many strobes active at the same time
5. thus introducing a systematic er ror In any case to me a 0 2 stop difference among different strobes is still a great result One last comment about maximum power From my mea surements it appears to be approximately 74 stops below the nominal value However if you look at the various readings at different power levels you find a value at all power levels Here can feel the smell of a systematic error it is possible that part of the difference is due to my light meter which has not been calibrated before the test Perhaps there s also something wrong with my experimental setup For sure a more efficient reflector or one with a more focused spread angle would have produced a higher measurement A test performed with a standard reflector at full pow er and 1 meter distance may be unrealistic from a practical point of view Therefore also carried out a somewhat more Beauty dish white 050 cm Octagonal softbox 150 cm without baffles Octagonal softbox 150 cm with baffles Table 2 Measured power at 2 meters with light modifiers real world test using 1 5 meter 5 feet octagonal softbox or octabox again at full power by this time measured the out put at a more typical in relation to the size of the modifier distance of 2 meters also repeated the test with a 50 cm 20 inch beauty dish and obtained the same results of the octabox Table 2 lists the readings for 3 different test con ditions
6. You can t balance flash and available light otherwise part of the mov ing subject would appear smeared due to the relatively long exposure of the available light HyperSync technology not to be confused with High Speed Sync was introduced by PocketWizard see here to overcome the x speed limits other trigger manufacturers are T1 s QT 600 REVIEW NIN 1234 Figure 10 Flash 5 0 1 128 power Figure 12 Flash 5 3 1 64 power Figure 13 Continuous light 1 3200 Figure 14 Flash 5 6 1 32 power Figure 15 Continuous light 1 2500 Figure 16 Flash 6 0 1 16 power T1 s QT 600 Review Figure 17 Continuous light 1 2000 Figure 18 Flash 7 0 1 8 power ZA XYZ Figure 19 Continuous light 1 1600 Figure 20 Flash 8 0 4 power THN p oro Figure 21 Continuous light 1 1250 Figure 22 Flash 9 0 2 power Figure 23 Continuous light 1 1000 Figure 24 Flash 10 0 Full power now proposing similar functions It allows you to trigger a flash at any shutter speed but results are a mixed bag and strongly depend on which DSLR and which flash you use For better results you need to use a strobe with a long flash duration With super fast flash duration like 1 5000 T 1 this technology simply does not work Does this means that you can t HyperSync with the QT 600 Maybe For sure at most power settings the flash
7. cap which had cooling holes on the side In the units received the modeling lamp is noticeably larger and the glass cap has a single front hole to accommodate the lamp see attached pictures and to al low for air exchange It is possible that European 220 V ver sions need a different lamp but can t tell for sure The same applies to the metallic protection cap which does not cover entirely the modeling lamp Speaking about power supply there are two versions a 200 240 Vac version and a 100 110 Vac version Take note these strobes are not multi voltage such as the Einsteins or most Elinchrom products How much this is important de pends on you and on your willingness to carry the strobes all around the world As far as I m concerned this is not a prob lem at all was much more worried about the power plugs given that in Europe we have more power plug standards than Countries To this hand kudos to T One for shipping power cords with Schuko plug CEE 7 4 which is actually a German design but is very popular here in Italy too and it is becoming the de facto standard throughout Europe T1 s QT 600 review MOSL AoEz Figure 1 The unboxing Figure 2 Top view Figure 3 Elevation view Figure 5 Detail of flash tube and modeling lamp Figure 6 The included reflector and the hole for umbrella Regardin
8. deviation in the measures For these reasons please take the following data with a grain of salt For each power level starting from highest energy 10 0 took four readings the first two are consecutive at most five seconds from each other i e fire read the result fire read the result Then dropped the power to the next level took two more readings and so on down to the lowest energy 5 0 Next raised again the energy up to the max and I took the third sequence of single readings from 10 0 to 5 0 Finally i switched to another strobe and took the fourth sequence of readings In such a way tested a short time power consisten cy two consecutive flashes a mid term power consistency comparing two flashes at the same power but at an interval of approx five minutes and a unit to unit power consistency comparing two different strobes The results are listed in Table 1 For each power level you can find a theoretical guide number based on manufactur er data for full power the theoretical light meter reading same as guide number but expressed in f stop notation and the actual reading from the light meter in the four mea surements Regarding the notation used the normalized f stop scale 4 5 6 8 11 16 22 plus decimal f stops For instance 8 0 3 means f 8 plus 1 3 stop i e f 9 Some considerations about the above results First of all in my opinion power consistency is nothing short than excel lent
9. need to know is how much I have to dial down the power to get what want Also I m publishing the test results so you can judge by yourself You can see the still target with continuous light in Figure 8 and a comparison between continuous light and flash exposure in Figure 9 to Figure 24 all flash exposures are at 1 250 ISO 100 aperture from f 11 to f 32 continu ous exposures are at f 11 and ISO 6400 10 0 600 Ws 1 1250 9 0 300 Ws 1 2000 8 0 150 Ws 1 2500 7 0 75 Ws 1 3200 6 0 37 5 Ws 1 4000 5 7 19 Ws 1 4000 5 4 9 5 Ws 5 0 5 Ws 1 5000 1 6400 1 5000 1 6400 Table 4 Flash duration at different power levels What i found is reported in Table 4 While not as good as Lencarta figures which a priori seemed to be more commer cial hype than actual facts my results substantially confirm Phil Harbord s measurements and consequently manufac turer data with a major deviation at full power see also the paragraph about Hypersync at page 10 Regarding flash duration the QT 600 is comparable to the Einstein in Constant Color Mode at the same power output while the Einstein has the edge when used in Action Mode In most situations including all those involving human subjects the flash duration of the QT 600 is fast enough to obtain tack sharp results This alone is enough to put the QT 600 on a higher ground where only a handful of monolights can stand includi
10. of the flash pulse also at full power as suggest ed by the quick flash duration 1 1000 found in the above mentioned tests On the other hand you may notice that the frame is rel atively dark even on the bottom and using a relatively large aperture f 5 6 suggesting that the sensor was exposed only to the tail of the flash pulse i e the flash was triggered too late Whatever the truth my tests are inconclusive Of course the failure of hypersyncing the QT 600 using my HSS Slave trick does not prove that the QT 600 can not be hypersynced at all Other IGBT strobes including the Einstein and many speedlights are know to work with hypersync when trig gered by PowerWizards or other triggers that support an ad T1 s QT 600 REVIEW Desses Figure 25 Triggered by Pixel Soldier 1 320 Figure 26 Triggered by Pixel Soldier 1 500 Figure 27 Triggered by 430 EX Il in HSS 1 500 f 5 6 150100 Figure 28 Triggered by 430 EX II in HSS 1 2000 f 5 6 IS0100 T1 s QT 600 REVIEW justable delay such as the new Phottix Odin or the Ojecoco H550 A final judgment on this matter definitely requires an empirical evidence which unfortunately is not available yet LP 450X Lithium Battery Inverter As a mains powered unit the QT 600 needs to be connected to a 220 Vac or a 110 Vac power outlet When your are on location a battery powered inverter also known as battery pack all
11. 10 0 full power 2x QT 600 10 0 full power 1 2 seconds 2 0 seconds 3 0 seconds 3x QT 600 10 0 full power 3x 1 600 7 0 78 power 3x 1 600 9 0 72 power 0 4 seconds 1 4 seconds Table 5 Recycle time of QT 600 powered by an LP 450X T1 s QT 600 REVIEW UBANI BA Figure 32 A detail of the multi standard plug LP 450x OUTPUT OUTPUT OUTPUT 4 1 DC 5V DC 5V DC 5V I 2000mA 800mA 800mA T ONE CO o Figure 33 The switch status LED s and the 3 USB ports About T One T One is the company that re brands and sells the QT Series strobes as well as many other interesting products includ ing a highly portable flash unit similar to the Elinchrom Quadra and the world s first speedlight powered by a lithi um battery You may find them on the web at t one co They sell and ship worldwide through two on line stores one for Australia and the Pacific Area the other one for Eu rope and the rest of the world T One has offices and service facilities in Australia and UK Customer service is simply fantastic I ve been in contact with Julie and Colin Smith for several months before plac ing my order just in the period when they switched from distributing PCB equipment to selling their own brand They answered my questions provided advice and supported me in everything until had my strobes delivered to my door It was a transition period for T One and they were initi
12. In that case it is also difficult to understand which flash is ready and which not Visual confirmation is always active so there is no way to turn it off Not a big concern as most photographers would keep it on at all times Flash power more precisely flash energy is adjusted through the right knob which is not stepless There are a to tal of 51 levels or steps ranging from 10 0 maximum power down to 5 0 minimum power in 0 1 decrements plus an additional step that disables the flash tube displayed as OF for off Please see the paragraph below for details about power adjustment There are two connectors on the back one is a standard 6 35 mm jack for synchronization with a PC cord or with any standard wireless trigger such as a PocketWizard test ed the unit with a Pixel Soldier wireless radio trigger and it worked flawlessly never missing a shot The second connec tor is an USB port that is specifically predisposed for the con T1 s QT 600 REVIEW nection of the Godox FT 16 wireless receiver The correspond ing Godox FT 16 wireless transmitter basically replicates all functions available on the QT 600 thus allowing to set power to switch the modeling lamp and the buzzer remotely right from the top of your camera The FT 16 kit is inexpensive and allows to control up to 16 groups of strobes much more than what is needed in typical situations Anyway didn t pur chase this remote trigger set ye
13. T Ones QT 600 Studio Strobe Test amp REVIEW by Alessio Beltrame www alessiobeltrame com The QT 600 is the midrange product of the QT series of studio strobes distributed by T One The QT 600 strobe is actually a re branded Godox QT 600 which is also distributed by Lencarta as the 600 SF or Superfast In this review will also spend some words about the LP 450X portable power invert er which is also distributed by T One and made by Godox A very good review on the Lencarta 600 SF a k a Godox T One QT 600 has been published by Phil Harbord and I ll frequently refer to Phil s work tested these strobes using a different approach and a different experimental setup so it may be very interesting to compare the two reviews You can read Phil s review here will start with an introduction that explains why a fast flash duration a short recycling time and the availability of a burst or stroboscopic mode are critical to me In this intro duction also explain why products such as the QT 600 in all its incarnations and the Paul C Buff s Einstein are outstand ing exceptions in the market of studio strobes All readers that are eager to read my impressions and my measurements may jump to the following sections Please note that in this review I use quite interchangeably the terms strobe monoblock and flash Unless otherwise noted mean an integrated mains powered studio strobe including a generator and a head in
14. a product of a science fic tion novel But do you really need something this fancy in a real life photoshoot Hardly in my opinion When shoot prefer to keep my focus on composition on exposure and on the engagement with the subject if it s human just don t care about the current color temperature and flash dura tion as long as I m confident that they are within a specific range who cares if the flash duration is 1 12250 instead of T T 113077 By contrast in my opinion a knob is a much more conve nient way to adjust power than a couple of buttons On the QT 600 you can drop power by 4 stops with a quick gesture of your fingers while on the Einstein and all other button controlled strobes you need to press the minus button 40 times or keep it pressed for a while The modeling lamp has its own knob so you don t need to press a function button before using the buttons to adjust light The four buttons are used to control modeling lamp on off buzzer off on optical slave function on off pre flash mode and to trigger the flash test function All buttons are T1 s QT 600 review associated with a LED that lights up when the corresponding function is active the test LED is lit when the flash is ready to fire The lamp and buzzer LED s are blue the test LED s is red The optical slave LED is bi color it glows blue when the standard slave mode is active the first flash detected by the
15. ally out of stock but I was in a hurry and they did they best to expe dite the order arranging with the manufacturer Godox an urgent delivery I m buying on line since 20 years ago but never found a customer service that good T1 s QT 600 review Conclusions After a month of usage I m really impressed by the QT 600 It s not the sexiest of strobes but as soon as you scratch the surface its distinguishing features start emerging It s really hard to criticize this product especially when you consider its price approx 450 VAT included It s manufactured in China but it is not a cheap design at all Construction is very good performance is excellent Sure the Einstein has a fan cier display a wider power range 9 stops instead of 8 and faster flash duration in action mode But if you don t need extreme action freezing capability you may be more inter ested in simplicity color and power accuracy availability of light modifiers and in those fields the QT 600 delivers In the 500 ballpark there is really one alternative only the PCB s Einstein but only if you live in the USA If you re willing to pay twice as much you may consider the Elinchrom s new kid on the block the ELC PRO HD series Personally would consider that path only if had a huge investment in Elinchrom equipment Skyport transmitters Rotalux softboxes etc There is also the new Profoto B1 with TTL support but for the pric
16. ance into studio strobes The Einsteins provide two working modes an action mode for fastest flash duration at the expense of col or accuracy and a color mode that keeps color temperature constant by sacrificing the flash duration In action mode the flash duration can be as low as 1 13 000 T 1 while in color mode it still reaches a more than respectable 1 8 000 The power adjustment functions are also superb with an 8 stop range from 1 1 to 1 256 at steps of 1 10 stop The good news is that the price of the Einsteins is cheap approximately 500 USS only much less than competing products from Elinchrom Bowens and other mainstream flash manufacturers The bad really bad news is that all PCB equipment is no longer available outside the USA Until De cember 2013 PCB equipment was distributed in Europe and Australia by PCB Europe and PCB Australia respectively ac tually 1st Line Digital Pty Ltd two front ends for a company run by Colin and Julie Smith who took care of supporting PCB customers before and after sales Starting with 2014 Paul C Buff decided to revoke the partnership with PCB Europe Australia and to sell their equipment through direct mar ket only For all practical purposes PCB is no longer going to sell equipment outside the USA adventurous customers may still purchase on line arrange delivery by themselves through a forwarding service take care of custom duties and clearance sand back and forth to t
17. approach used by Lencarta with available light only no flash and with different shut ter speeds ranging from 1 250 to 1 8000 At slower shutter speeds the marks on the disk appear blurred due to the fast disk rotation but at higher shutter speed they look more and more identical to a picture of the disk when it is standing still Then took another series of pictures of the spinning YG U mess mnNo Figure 7 Testtarget T1 s QT 600 REVIEW LU vzo Figure 8 Still target with continuous light disk with flash light only at different power levels Finally I compared each flash light picture with the available light pictures to find the equivalent level of action freezing To put it in another words if a flash light image presents the same amount of motion blur of an available light image shot at 1 4000 then we can conclude that the flash duration in the first image was approximately 1 4000 know the objections this is a qualitative test not quanti tative the evaluation of motion blur is subjective and it is dif ficult to compare samples when in each of them the amount of blur is small My counter objection is that really don t care about the cold numbers I m only interested in the end result If at 1 4 power can get a picture which is equivalent to shooting at 1 4000 then I don t care if T 1 is 1 4000 or 1 3800 or even 1 5000 want to freeze moving subjects and all
18. di bly fast flash durations but their price is scary Another issue of most studio strobes is that the flash dura tion is shorter at maximum power to decrease progressively as the output power is decreased As a consequence in order to maximize the freezing capability of these units the pho tographer is forced to work at maximum power and small ap ertures Most studio strobes are also limited in power adjust ment typically within 4 or 5 stops While this may seem to be an insignificant detail it actually may be a critical issue for most amateurs and professionals that shoot both outdoors and in studio On location you need power 400 500 Ws is the very minimum to fight the sun 1000 1200 Ws would be defi nitely better However a 500 Ws strobe with a 4 stop range has a minimum power of 31 25 Ws at that power level you can forget about using wide open apertures such as f 2 8 or even f 5 6 even at ISO 100 and with an inefficient light modi fier such as a soft box with a dual baffle If you re shooting in a small studio you don t even have the option to recede your lights from the subject due to the space constraints and possibly to the required size of the modifiers to maintain the same apparent dimension in relationship with the subject if you want to preserve the same quality of light Recycle time is also critical to me When shooting a soc cer game you rely on burst mode and the higher the frame rate the better But the
19. du ration is too short to work with HyperSync However at full power the QT 600 works exactly like a conventional strobe so this leave a door open To test this possibility triggered the QT 600 using either a PC sync cable or a couple or radio triggers and got the usual banding on the bottom of the frame starting from 1 320 with the radio triggers Figure 25 and 1 400 with the sync cord Figure 26 This happens because the flash is fired only when the first curtain is fully open but the sec ond curtain is already moving To determine if the QT 600 can hypersync used the trick to sync the strobe through a speedlight in HSS mode mounted my Canon 430 EX II on top of my Canon EOS 7D and set it in High Speed Sync mode to force the 7D to accept shutter speeds faster than 1 250 which is the x sync speed of the 7D set the 430 EX at min imum power 1 64 so it had no role in the exposure of the scene The QT 600 was set in Optical Slave mode at maximum power 10 0 corresponding to 1 1 In this case the flash is fired soon after the fist curtain starts moving i e before it is fully open This time obtained a top banding more precisely a very steep gradient Figure 27 and Figure 28 at the middle of the frame going from white at the bottom to black at the top Considering the quick falloff you may assume that the flash duration of the QT 600 is too short even at full power Perhaps the QT 600 cuts the tail
20. e of a single B1 you can purchase three QT 600 plus the LP 450X battery pack The Elinchrom Quadra with A head is also very fast and very comfortable to carry around but again it s an expensive piece of equipment At the Profoto B1 or Elinchrom Quadra price level the com parison is simply unfair not to mention generators like the Broncolor Scoro If you re searching for a fast and powerful strobe and you live in the USA then the Einstein is a good alternative to the QT 600 buy either of them and you won t make a mis take The Elinchrom ELC PRO HD may be a better choice if you already invested a lot in Elinchrom equipment the Pro foto B1 may provide something you could only dream of till now TTL capability if you need light and compact flashes because you re a frequent traveler go with the Quadra if you re seeking top quality and performance and you don t care about price then have your Platinum credit card ready and buy a Broncolor Scoro plus a handful of heads For anything else the QT 600 is a great choice and I don t hesitate to recommend it Summary 2 Very good and sturdy build quality Easy to use and minimalistic no distractions user in terface Excellent power output consistency Excellent color stability Super fast flash duration better than average even at full power Excellent recycle time Very high frame rate possible 4 fps at 4 power and at least 8 fps at power or less 7 stop powe
21. g light modifiers the QT 600 is compatible with Bowens S type speedrings probably the most diffused standard on the market This opens a world of possibilities allowing you to use all Bowens modifiers as well as all no brand inexpensive imitations Of course cheap soft boxes or beauty dishes may not provide the light quality of high end modifiers such as the famous Elinchrom Deep Octa but at least you can choose products that meet your budget By comparison the Einstein adopts the Balcar standard so you basically need to use PCB modifiers or purchase speedring adapters The standard reflector and the body of the strobe provide an 8 mm hole for an umbrella shaft Some users reported that the shaft is locked by a spring loaded mechanism which is rather stiff don t use umbrellas so didn t test this As regards the modeling lamp consider its power to be adequate but nothing more Use it in studio with common modifiers at a typical distance from the subject and it will deliver all the output you need to focus on the subject and to get a preview of what you pictures will look like But don t expect to use the modeling lamp of the QT 600 like a source of constant light and to shoot people at low ISO User interface The user interface of the QT 600 is quite minimalistic two knobs four buttons a 2 digit 7 segment LED display and a power switch that s all Compared to this the 2 4 LCD screen of the Einstein seems to be
22. he USA their equipment at their expenses for warranty service just to list a few incon veniences In the meantime PCB Europe Australia went through a face lift and became T One www t one co with a new mis sion selling products that could replace the Einsteins from a performance and price point of view These products are manufactured by Godox and re branded by T One that also provides a 2 year warranty a 60 day money back guaranty and takes care of after sales assistance purchased from T One the QT 600 studio strobe 3 units and the LP 450X power pack which are the subject of this review The unboxing The box containing the QT 600 includes everything you need to start and more Besides the strobe with its flash tube pre installed the box contains a5 meter power cord T One will take care to in clude a suitable plug depending on your Country a5meterPCsync cord a flash tube protection cap for transport and stor age a150W modeling lamp a pyrex glass protection transparent that is mount ed in front of the flash tube a7 standard reflector a couple of spare fuses the user manual in English and Chinese Nothing to complain here By comparison the Einsteins and many other strobes do not include any reflector like most high end products General features and construction The QT 600 is the 600 Ws model of the T One Q Series family that includes other four models with t
23. he equiva lent of the Action Mode and the Constant Color Mode The manufacturer claims a color accuracy of 100 K more precise ly 5600 100 K which would be a very good performance at any price level and just marginally worse than Einstein s spectacular accuracy have no instrumentation for a direct measurement of the color temperature of a flash so tested the color accu racy in an indirect way Basically took a number of shots of a white balanced gray card at different power levels setting my camera Canon EOS 7D with EF 70 200 L IS USM Il lens to Auto white balance and shooting tethered into Adobe Light room For each picture noted the Temperature Kelvin and the Tint Green Magenta balance slider values Working in Auto White Balance mode my Canon 7D an alyzed the scene and applied a color correction to make the gray card appear neutral It made a great work in all pictures the red green and blue channel are accurate to within 0 1 0 2 To our purposes this means that the color temperature and green magenta balance reported by Lightroom are in deed a good representation of the color of the flash light used the same basic procedure described in the Power Measurement section made four series of shots at the vari ous power levels the first two are consecutive the third one approx five minutes later and the fourth one comes from a different strobe Table 3 reports the results K stands for color temperature
24. he same features of the QT 600 but with power ranging from 300 Ws up to 1200 Ws The QT 600 is the midrange product and with its very useful output range of 5 600 Ws it is likely to be the most popular choice in its family At first sight the QT 600 appears to be a regular studio strobe both in shape and dimensions The body of the unit is essentially a cylinder with the flash tube on one side and the user interface on the other one The lateral surface is sub stantially free except for the colorful stickers with T One logo the EU flag I assume that this is only for European custom ers and a 2 year warranty indication which can hardly go unnoticed On the bottom the unit there are a standard mounting bracket with a fixing knob The tilt angle can be adjusted through the usual lever located on the right side of the brack et The bottom also houses ventilation holes to ensure prop er cooling The availability of a fan is a very welcome feature allowing for long shooting sessions with no issues related to overheating The fan is quite and barely noticeable in a typ ical environment unless you work in a perfectly silent room you know it was there only when you switch off the unit kind of a refrigerator effect When tilting or transporting the unit the handle on top T1 s QT 600 review provides a good grip The handle is hardly slippery but a rubber insert would have been beneficial even though this can no
25. hutter speed like 4 seconds and firing a burst of flashes at a moving subject How the lack of this function may affect your photography is highly subjective but keep in mind that T1 s QT 600 review you may obtain similar results in most cases by manually triggering the strobe Flash duration Last but not least measured the flash duration To me this is the key feature for a strobe and any flash duration slower than 1 1000 T 1 is a game stopper need a super fast flash because freezing action is the main concern in my photog raphy The QT 600 is rated at flash durations of 1 5000 at lowest power while Lencarta for their identical 600 SF go well be yond and claim an incredible 1 20 000 Which one is correct if any In his review Phil Hardbord checked the light output with an oscilloscope and substantially confirmed the 1 5000 fig ure measuring an even better 1 5400 T 1 at minimum power According to Phil T 1 is less than 1 1000 actually 1 1400 even at power while at full power where IGBT technology has no role to play the T 1 is an unexciting regular 1 500 but this leaves an open door for HyperSync see below Unfortunately have no means to replicate Phil s mea surements because I miss the necessary instruments Instead used an indirect measurement technique which consists in taking a number of shots of a spinning disk see Figure 7 this is basically the same
26. il s ones and confirm that the QT 600 implements something very similar to the Einstein s Constant Color Mode For the sake of completeness also measured color con sistency in a rapid fire sequence first ran a series of 10 shots at 1 4 power 8 0 and approx 4 fps frames per second Next repeated the test at power 7 0 and 8 fps The results are almost incredible all 10 shots at a given Table 3 Color temperature and green magenta balance at different power levels power had the same identical color temperature At 4 power 8 0 the temperature was a little bit cooler than at power 7 0 but we are still within the 100 K range Recycle time and fast fire If there is one field where the QT 600 beats the Einstein with out question it is recycle time The manufacturer claims a re cycle time of 1 2 seconds at full power and I can confirm that In detail measured a recycle time of 1 0 at full power but performed this measurement by hand with a stopwatch so it is safe to assume a 0 2 precision This means that in the worst case the specification is confirmed At lower power the recycle time gets more and more quicker reaching 0 05 at minimum power couldn t mea sure that as it would require some sort of automatic appara tus What I tested was shooting in burst mode I set my Canon 7D in fast burst mode 8 frames per second and I kept de pressed the shutter button see also the
27. in K Kelvin degree and G M stands for Green Magenta balance 100 with 0 being the neutral value the number refers to the measurement so for instance K2 refers to the second measurement of color temperature I m really impressed by the results Within a range of 7 f stops the color temperature is 5300 100 K a little bit warmer than the specifications yet accurate to within 100 K as promised Only four measurements out of 44 fall outside of the specification namely the second and third one at low est power the fourth one different strobe unit at 8 5 and 7 5 power levels We may safely consider them as statistical errors The second unit under test fourth measurement is slightly cooler the first one still the color temperature differ ence is only 100 150 K While not as good as the Einsteins the QT 600 is definitely much better than brand name expensive strobes If we take Paul C Buff literature at face value it may be found here a renowned strobe like the Profoto D1 500 has a color drift of no less than 300 K over its power range to Ya Another top selling pro strobe the Elinchrom RX 600 has a smaller color drift 200 K but its power range is also smaller to 32 or one stop less According to Phil Harbord s test see the review here the Lencarta 600 SF a k a TOne Godox QT 600 is voltage com pensated to maintain color temperature constant My mea surements are perfectly aligned with Ph
28. ng the Einstein the Elinchrom ELC PRO HD and the Profoto B1 Speedlights may be even faster but they are definitely less powerful Generators may also be faster but a completely different price level Considering that I m shooting mainly people and splash ing liquids at moderate magnification don t need the extra speed of the Einstein in Action Mode and I m probably in good company with the 99 of photographers The special ists in high speed photography e g bullets shattering fine wine bottles are desperately in need of the shortest flash du ration regardless of color stability price and other consider ations Those photographers may well consider the Einstein a better option even though extreme action freezing may require something even faster HyperSync capabilities Most DSLR does not allow for flash synchronization at shutter speeds faster than 1 160 to 1 320 depending on camera This is known as the X Sync speed Medium format cameras equipped with leaf shutter may have a higher x sync speed 1 800 to 1 1600 but only digital cameras with electronic shutter typically point and shoot cameras have no limits in x sync speed For daylight sports photography a slow x sync speed may be a problem I won t go into technical details here but to freeze a moving subject with no visible halos due to avail able light coupled with a slow shutter speed you need to underexpose the environment by at least 3 stops
29. on and you find yourself fighting with the sun with no chance to win When shooting portraits on a soccer field was forced to shoot at sunset to be able to overpower the sun with my speedlights and in many cases had to use 2 or 3 of them at once especially when wanted to add a light modifier such as a softbox Shooting only at sunset is a major limitation mainly be cause ambient light drops down quickly You need to balance continuously flash light and available light and in less than half an hour the scene may change completely from day to darkness You need to shoot fast and to think fast so it is easy to make big mistakes For these reasons I decided to purchase a set of studio T1 s QT 600 REVIEW strobes together with a portable power pack for location work This was the easy part while the hardest one was to find budget valued strobes with a flash duration that is fast enough to freeze athletes moves and for my still life shoots splashing water Surprisingly or not such products are exceedingly rare on the market The vast majority of studio strobes have a T 1 flash duration as slow as 1 300 but even the fastest one among the mainstream products the Gemini Pro 500 tops out at 1 900 recently Elinchrom introduced the ELC Pro HD line with a flash duration as low as 1 5000 even tough this may actually be a T 5 time instead of a T 1 time High end generators such as the Broncolor Scoro series have incre
30. ows you to use your strobes anywhere Most of my outdoor shootings involve soccer players on soccer fields no mains outlets there so definitely needed an inverter for my strobes ordered from T One an LP 750 unit but they actually delivered a more advanced LP 450X see more about this later The LP 450X is based on newer technology i e a high capacity Lithium lon LiFePO battery with an excellent 12 Ah capacity The LP 450X is relatively compact 267 x 206 x 292 mm and lightweight 6 8 Kg Three multi standard power plugs are available on top of the unit as well as 3 USB ports for powering or re charging portable devices smartphones GPS navigators MP3 players etc The unit is composed by two parts an 8V Lithium battery bottom and the inverter that transforms the direct voltage into 230 Vac The two Figure 29 Bird s eye view of the LP 450x Figure 30 The locks that keep the inverter and battery together parts are kept together by 4 levers located on the side of the unit and it is very easy to replace the battery with a ful ly charged one You can also use and external 12V battery such as a car battery you just need to connect it to the two plugs that are provided on the side of the unit There is a handle on top for easy transport but the LP 450X comes with a nice carrying bag with many sockets that can be used to store the AC charger cables etc The inverter supports two working modes
31. paragraph on color consistency above At 4 power obtained an alternation of good and total ly black pictures the first good the second black the third good the fourth black and so on The flash fired on each odd picture but it hadn t time to recycle before the next even shot in the sequence This means that for all practical pur poses at power the QT 600 has a recycle time of 0 25 or less The situation is even better at power all pictures in the 10 shot sequence were lit correctly meaning that at this power for all practical purposes the recycle time is only 0 125 or less I d like to point out that an IGBT flash like the QT 600 may fire before recycling completely if not working at full power while regular voltage controlled flashes can not This is why say for all practical purposes just don t care if my strobe has fully recycled or not as long as it can fire when want it to Perhaps at power and 8 fps the QT 600 does not recycle completely and eventually maybe after 50 60 flashes it will need a short pause to recharge completely its capacitors But then who cares of shooting a burst of 50 pictures 10 15 con secutive frames is all ask and the QT 600 delivers Unfortunately the QT 600 has no automatic stroboscop ic multi flash mode to fire a sequence of flashes at regular preset intervals One use of this function is to emulate a multiple exposure in dark environment by setting a slow s
32. r range regulation from 600 Ws to less than 5 Ws Accepts the very popular Bowens S type speed rings Comes with a Pyrex glass cap and a standard reflector at no extra price eee fe CUO TUZ azs Fantastic customer service from T One Modeling lamp has no proportional mode A 150 W modeling lamp may be too faint for some us ers Cons The glass cap and the protection cap do not cover the modeling lamp completely Ne Power regulation in one tenth of a stop in most of the range but only 3 of a stop for the lowest three stops No multi voltage support ABOUT THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMER amp COPYRIGHT
33. rify if the QT 600 lives up to its claims per formed a number of lab tests in my home studio I d rather call them domestic tests wanted to verify the actual power level in relationship with the man ufacturer s specifications the consistency of power output from flash to flash and from unit to unit the precision of the power adjustment scale The test consisted in measuring the luminous intensity of the 3 See note on page 2 flash with a light meter Sekonik L 358 located at a distance of 1 meter from the flash tube at ISO 100 The reading of this measure is actually the flash Guide Number GN in meters Of course there are many factors that may influence the measurement including _ the reflections from the environment the light modifier used with the strobe if any _ the light meter measuring mode etc performed the test in a 4x3x2 7 m room with white walls and ceiling and a light parquet floor The strobe was mounted on a light stand at approx 1 2 m from the ground and equipped with the standard 7 reflector The Sekonik light meter was standing on a desk with the light dome in recessed position Several systematic errors may affect the measurements First of all couldn t calibrate the light meter using a reputa ble reference In addition any small variation in the relative position of the light meter and the strobe could have pro duced a small yet detectable
34. s two Einsteins for a total of 1280 Ws in 7 seconds three times as long as the LP 450X Battery capacity is also great When used with strobes the LP 450X is rated at approximately 300 000 Ws of flash energy To translate this figure in a number of pops just divide it by the number of strobes and their power For in stance when you connect three QT 600 s 600 Ws each at full power you get a number of pops given by 300 000 Ws 3 strobes 600 Ws pop 165 pops With only two strobes at half power a more typical situation on location the number of pops rises to 300 000 Ws 2 strobes 300 Ws pop 500 pops That should be more than enough in most cases Again this is better than most of the competition at the same price level For sure the Paul C Buff Vagabond Mini Lithium is a much more compact and lighter unit than the LP 450X It is also less expensive one LP 450X costs as mush as two Vag abonds However a direct comparison is not easy as the Vagabond is a different beast with a smaller battery capac ity and a slower recycle time The LP 450X should really be compared to a couple of Vagabonds The Vagabond is easier to handle and to transport while the LP 450X is faster and has a considerably higher battery capacity If you re traveling with just one strobe and you don t need fast recycling then the Vagabond is a better op tion Otherwise the LP 450X will not disappoint you Test condition 1x QT 600
35. same applies when you re shooting 1 When measuring flash duration 1 5 indicates the time it takes for the flash light to drop to 50 of peak value while T 1 is the time for a 90 drop For regular capacitor discharge strobes non IGBT 1 1 is approximately three times longer than 1 5 While T 1 is a good indication of the flash5 action freezing capability i e it has a meaning for photographers 1 5 is mainly useful for marketing departments 2 Most vendors use a clever marketing strategy to count stops For instance if the power ranges from ito Ysthey count 5 stops 12 4 and Me but those are actually 5 power positions In photographic terms this is a 4 stop range because youre drop ping power by a factor of 2 Again a handbook example of marketing strategy a portrait of a soccer player making a bicycle kick if your flash can keep up with your camera burst speed then you don t need precise timing when hitting the shutter button Also you could play with long time exposures and fire a se quence of flashes thus obtaining the equivalent of a multiple exposure But if your flash recycles in 1 5 3 seconds as most strobes and speedlights do these wonderful possibilities are precluded to you All the above issues were overcome by the Einstein E640 by Paul C Buff PCB a fantastic device that revolutionized the market by introducing the IGBT technology which is the key factor in speedlights flash duration perform
36. t so I m not including it in this review also tested the optical slave in regular mode and it worked flawlessly didn t test the optical slave in pre flash mode Power adjustment According to the user s manual the QT 600 allows to adjust power in a range of 7 f stops i e from 1 1 to 1 128th This is one f stop less than the Einstein but still a remarkable range As most digitally controlled strobes the QT 600 provides a step by step regulation using a scale that goes from 5 0 low est energy to 10 0 highest energy This is actually 51 steps but if each step corresponded to 0 1 f stops then one would expect 71 steps for instance from 3 0 to 10 0 How this is ex plained The answer is that the energy scale is not linear from 10 0 down to 6 0 every step actually corresponds to 0 1 f stops while from 6 0 down to 5 0 every step corresponds to rough ly f stop don t know why Godox engineers chose this solution which is to some extent counterintuitive at the bot tom of the scale but it s likely to be a cost related decision Anyway the most important fact is that the flash energy is widely adjustable When using the QT 600 outdoors you can take full advantage of its 600 Ws power which is rough ly equivalent to 8 speedlights working together In a small studio you can go down as low as 5 Ws corresponding to a speedlight at 16 power This is what I call flexibility Power measurements In order to ve
37. t be considered a major issue The light sensor for the slave function is also mounted on the top just near the han dle which is generally considered to be a good design choice The enclosure is metallic apparently an aluminum alloy a material with great heat dissipation features The general construction feels sturdy and made for a long lifetime even in harsh conditions The finishing can be improved but this is not a big issue for a studio tool The bracket for the light stand is also made of metal The weight is 3 Kg 1 Kg more than the Einstein which is also considerably smaller than the QT 600 making it more portable However the Einstein s body is mainly plastic so the QT 600 is more resistant to frequent traveling The glass cap in front of the flash tube does not add any thing from the optical point of view by contrast the frosted dome of the Einstein is designed to diffuse the light of the modeling lamp but it provides an extra degree of protec tion in case of accidental crashes of the strobe You d rather pay a few dollars for a cheap glass cap or forget about it alto gether when it breaks than spend a hundred or so dollars to replace a broken flash tube Strangely enough the glass cap does not protect the modeling lamp see for instance Figure 2 and Figure 5 simply don t understand the rationale behind this In the first pictures saw on the web the modeling lamp was smaller and entirely protected by the glass
38. to a single case Introduction As an amateur photographer my preferred genre is sports photography and mainly shoot soccer Freezing action is a key requirement in my work even when I m not shooting sports My portraiture subjects are athletes more often than not Even my still life pictures are not so still as they fre quently involve splashing water or other liquids In order to freeze action you need a very fast exposure which can be obtained in either of the following ways with available continuous light using a fast shutter speed like 1 1000 or quicker with flashes using equipment with a very fast flash duration I m deliberately ignoring High Speed Sync and HyperSync technology in this introduction Until now mostly worked with available light or to a limited extent with speedlights When compared to studio strobes and power packs speedlights do not require a power plug are easier to carry around and to some extent easier to use thanks to TTL technology which can be very useful when the subject is not standing still for example think about a soccer player in a header action Speedlights as they name suggests are also blazing fast when used at fractional power such as 1 4 or flash duration can be as low as o 000 which is roughly equivalent to a shutter speed of 000 Nonetheless speedlight power is faint when compared to studio equipment Use them on location at no
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