My personal 'lighting tier list' where do you guys stand?

[alexning]

After spending way too much time (and money) on different kits, I’ve started categorising brands in my head. I’m curious to see if this aligns with your experiences or if I’m totally off the mark.

To me, Profoto and the Aputure LS series are the proper workhorses. You pay the premium, but they just work every time you flip the switch. Then you’ve got Godox, especially the AD range, which has been a total game changer for the money, even if the build quality feels a bit "plastic" compared to the high-end stuff.

At the bottom, I’d put the entry-level bits like Neewer or Amaran. Great for starting out or as a backup, but I wouldn't trust them for a mission-critical shoot.

Just my two pence based on my own setup (mostly FX3 for video and some stills). What’s your "never again" or "must have" brand?

 

[Garry Edwards]

A lot of this is just personal preference.

To me, the first-tier flash lighting is Bron, nothing else comes close, but the prices are beyond the reach of many of us, and I don't like their accessory mounting system.
Profoto make good products at a premium price, but (to me) they aren't worth the money, they are better than many but poor VFM.

Godox now totally dominates the market, because of their monopoly position. They started out by selling them to anyone and everyone who would stock them, resulting in a total lack of customer service, but people bought them because they were cheap, with competing sellers working on wafer-thin profit margins. They were never cheap in terms of factory gate prices, but the public didn't care about that, inevitably leading to their market domination. They are now a very large Company, they have diversified into other product types, lighting is no longer their only concern, and their prices are increasing all the time. Most of their products are adequate, but they're nothing special. And their approach to customer service isn't good, they leave it entirely to their dealers, with very limited support, so customers need to choose their dealer with care. This isn't a dig at Godox, their approach is pretty typical of Chinese manufacturers.

I know nothing about Amaran, but I believe that they only make continuous lighting, and if that's right then they are of little use to still photographers.

Neewer is a bit of an oddity. They started off (and largely remain) as a cheap re-brander, so there can be wide quality variations between products, but they've moved on. They now have their own range too, made in their own factory. These tend to be fairly specialised items, I've been able to test some of them because their UK stockist is Lencarta, and because of this I have access, and many of these products are impressive, but not cheap.

I think that we can worry too much about brands. There used to be some terrible products out there, but the internet has changed all that and the few remaining junk products are now obviously junk, and can be ignored - the same with many other products, e.g. cars, online reviews have killed bad products.

What really matters, apart from knowledge, care and skill, is the modifiers that we fit to our lights, badly designed and badly-made modifiers affect quality far more than flash heads. Sadly, the market has changed for modifiers too, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to get good modifiers, especially softboxes, because the public tends to go for the cheapest - they'll spend thousands on lenses, which they typically only use for displaying low-res web images, but won't spend a few £ more to get a decent softbox The sellers know this, and have largely stopped selling good ones. And, on the subject of modifiers, the main availability is S-fit, which again steers people towards Godox.

 

[sk66]

I've never personally owned high end lights (I have used them on occasion). To me the price wasn't/isn't justified. And the reliability isn't really a big concern IMO; because whatever you are using you're going to need/want backups. And I've never owned anything that was complete junk (unreliable, failure prone, etc). That said, I've also never owned offbrand Ebay special kind of kit either.

Currently I just have a few small Godox AD lights that I use (indoor/outdoor). I've still got a couple higher power monolights, but I have no need for them; I'm not even certain where they are at the moment.

 

[alexning]

A lot of this is just personal preference.

To me, the first-tier flash lighting is Bron, nothing else comes close, but the prices are beyond the reach of many of us, and I don't like their accessory mounting system.
Profoto make good products at a premium price, but (to me) they aren't worth the money, they are better than many but poor VFM.

Godox now totally dominates the market, because of their monopoly position. They started out by selling them to anyone and everyone who would stock them, resulting in a total lack of customer service, but people bought them because they were cheap, with competing sellers working on wafer-thin profit margins. They were never cheap in terms of factory gate prices, but the public didn't care about that, inevitably leading to their market domination. They are now a very large Company, they have diversified into other product types, lighting is no longer their only concern, and their prices are increasing all the time. Most of their products are adequate, but they're nothing special. And their approach to customer service isn't good, they leave it entirely to their dealers, with very limited support, so customers need to choose their dealer with care. This isn't a dig at Godox, their approach is pretty typical of Chinese manufacturers.

I know nothing about Amaran, but I believe that they only make continuous lighting, and if that's right then they are of little use to still photographers.

Neewer is a bit of an oddity. They started off (and largely remain) as a cheap re-brander, so there can be wide quality variations between products, but they've moved on. They now have their own range too, made in their own factory. These tend to be fairly specialised items, I've been able to test some of them because their UK stockist is Lencarta, and because of this I have access, and many of these products are impressive, but not cheap.

I think that we can worry too much about brands. There used to be some terrible products out there, but the internet has changed all that and the few remaining junk products are now obviously junk, and can be ignored - the same with many other products, e.g. cars, online reviews have killed bad products.

What really matters, apart from knowledge, care and skill, is the modifiers that we fit to our lights, badly designed and badly-made modifiers affect quality far more than flash heads. Sadly, the market has changed for modifiers too, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to get good modifiers, especially softboxes, because the public tends to go for the cheapest - they'll spend thousands on lenses, which they typically only use for displaying low-res web images, but won't spend a few £ more to get a decent softbox The sellers know this, and have largely stopped selling good ones. And, on the subject of modifiers, the main availability is S-fit, which again steers people towards Godox.

That's a very insightful take, thank you for sharing.

I’m definitely more of a pragmatist. Since I don't often do high-end commercial shoots that require the absolute reliability of Broncolor or Profoto, I tend to prioritize system redundancy—having a few backups is more important to me than the brand name.

You're spot on about modifiers, too. The quality of the light often comes down to what's in front of it rather than the head itself. As for Amaran, you're right—they’ve really carved out a niche for the YouTube and TikTok crowd where color accuracy and app control matter more than flash performance.

I really appreciate the perspective. It’s a good reminder to focus on the craft and the tools that actually fit the job.

 

[Curious Yellow]

Is the Neewer stuff that bad? I agree with the point about poor quality modifiers. I recently got back into indoor photography and the new stuff I’m buy8ng now is cheap and cheerful. However, the good stuff I had acres to several years ago was built a lot better.

 

[jknights]

Godox works well for me.
It is good price so easily replaced if there are breakages or damage.

 

[CharleyL]

Six years ago I was using a very popular pro brand of lights, but was getting tired of their frequent misfires and their need for adapters so I could fit many of my soft boxes to them. I wanted something better, and wanted a different brand, since this brand seemed to have lost their competitive edge, following the loss of their leader. I'm now retired, but still deeply involved in photography, though now on a much tighter budget, so I was worried that I might not be able to afford a complete replacement of everything. I was stretched quite thin in wallet during all of this, but I survived, buying a few lights at a time as the budget allowed and grateful that I was able to complete the transition.

Several Pro Photographer friends were recommending Godox/Flashpoint, so I decided to try them. I initially bought two Godox TT600 speedlites and a X2Tc transmitter. The transmitter choice was because I could stack my old transmitter on top of it and use both my old and new lights together. I had also decided to replace most of my soft boxes and lighting accessories, so everything would better work together. Everything is now Bowens Mount and any light can now be used with any soft box, reflector, snoot, etc. This kind of Flexibility that I've never had before in my photography lifetime.

It wasn't long before my decision became obvious. Every time one or more of my old lights failed to fire, the Godox speedlites never failed. About a year and a severe drain to my replacement budget, I had replaced not only my field kit lights, but also every one of my studio strobes and transmitters with Godox or Flashpoint. This meant 6 speedlites, and 9 studio strobes ranging in size from 300 w/s up to 1000 w/s, and 4 Pro Transmitters were purchased new to completely replace my old Pro Lights and transmitters. Last year I replaced my field kit with three Godox AD200 Pro II and their accessories, like the head extension cables as well. I did manage to sell my old lights about a year later, to another photographer who was totally convinced that he was getting a super deal on some Pro lights and transmitters, and his money helped me ease my budget pains considerably. Now, 6 years later, I haven't looked back. It was one of the best decisions that I've made in my lifetime. If a light fails to fire now, it has been because of operator error. I seem to bump channels more often than anything, but when everything is set up correctly, I haven't had a single misfire in 6 years since switching to Godox/Flashpoint other than stupid errors caused my me.

Charley

 

[Garry Edwards]

Six years ago I was using a very popular pro brand of lights, but was getting tired of their frequent misfires and their need for adapters so I could fit many of my soft boxes to them. I wanted something better, and wanted a different brand, since this brand seemed to have lost their competitive edge, following the loss of their leader. I'm now retired, but still deeply involved in photography, though now on a much tighter budget, so I was worried that I might not be able to afford a complete replacement of everything. I was stretched quite thin in wallet during all of this, but I survived, buying a few lights at a time as the budget allowed and grateful that I was able to complete the transition.

Several Pro Photographer friends were recommending Godox/Flashpoint, so I decided to try them. I initially bought two Godox TT600 speedlites and a X2Tc transmitter. The transmitter choice was because I could stack my old transmitter on top of it and use both my old and new lights together. I had also decided to replace most of my soft boxes and lighting accessories, so everything would better work together. Everything is now Bowens Mount and any light can now be used with any soft box, reflector, snoot, etc. This kind of Flexibility that I've never had before in my photography lifetime.

It wasn't long before my decision became obvious. Every time one or more of my old lights failed to fire, the Godox speedlites never failed. About a year and a severe drain to my replacement budget, I had replaced not only my field kit lights, but also every one of my studio strobes and transmitters with Godox or Flashpoint. This meant 6 speedlites, and 9 studio strobes ranging in size from 300 w/s up to 1000 w/s, and 4 Pro Transmitters were purchased new to completely replace my old Pro Lights and transmitters. Last year I replaced my field kit with three Godox AD200 Pro II and their accessories, like the head extension cables as well. I did manage to sell my old lights about a year later, to another photographer who was totally convinced that he was getting a super deal on some Pro lights and transmitters, and his money helped me ease my budget pains considerably. Now, 6 years later, I haven't looked back. It was one of the best decisions that I've made in my lifetime. If a light fails to fire now, it has been because of operator error. I seem to bump channels more often than anything, but when everything is set up correctly, I haven't had a single misfire in 6 years since switching to Godox/Flashpoint other than stupid errors caused my me.

Charley

I agree with you, very reluctantly. Godox is now the only practical choice for the vast majority of us. Clever marketing led to total market domination; their monopoly is now complete and the choices have effectively ceased to exist as far as the amateur market is concerned, and very few professionals can now justify one of the very few brands that still exist and that are substantially better.

Also, they're good enough for most of us.

Their market domination has its downsides of course, lack of choice means that they can charge what they like, and the prices keep going up and up. People used to think that they were a "value brand" but they never have been cheap, they just sold through internet sites, not through dealers, which meant that the sellers were all undercutting each other, leaving them working on wafer-thin profit margins that prevented any meaningful level of customer service, so if we bought a Godox product via an online sales platform there would, usually, be zero customer service if it broke down, that happened a lot in the early days and it still does today - even if the sellers can get replacement parts and even if they have the technical capability, they're limited in terms of profit.

What this meant - and still means - is that the prices to the end customer seem to be reasonable because the re-sellers make almost no profit, the profits go to Godox.

But. it's what it is, and I can't see the situation changing, there is simply no room in the market for a large competitor. This of course is partly due to technology, those of us who actually understand lighting know that it's all about control and effect, but the vast majority of people think that it's just about having enough light to take their photos, and so high iso camera capability has killed the market, and the rapid growth of AI will pretty much finish off what's left.

Your allusion to what I assume to be Paul C Buff is interesting. When their early products hit the American market they were a runaway success, due partly I think to lack of good and affordable competition, and also to the fact that people believed them to be an American product, but their performance was terrible compared to products available elsewhere. Their later IGBT flashes were in a different class entirely, and were superb at that time, you wouldn't think that they came from the same firm . . .

I bought a couple of them myself, but as they wouldn't deal with foreigners I had to get a friend in Florida to buy them for me and I arranged for them to be collected from him and shipped here. I had another friend in California, but he couldn't get them because the supplier wouldn't deal with people who live in California; apparently they were all commies there

 

[Earley Man]

Godox is a Chinese company and they have learnt from the Japanese that market domination is obtained by intially selling good equipment at, or less, than the cost of production, a price which the current producers can't match.

The result being that the current producers, who are selling at a fair price relative to their production costs, go out of business. The result being that over time the producers who entered the market selling at or near to a loss, can then raise their prices to a high level as their competitors have gone out of business.

 

[Garry Edwards]

Godox is a Chinese company and they have learnt from the Japanese that market domination is obtained by intially selling good equipment at, or less, than the cost of production, a price which the current producers can't match.

The result being that the current producers, who are selling at a fair price relative to their production costs, go out of business. The result being that over time the producers who entered the market selling at or near to a loss, can then raise their prices to a high level as their competitors have gone out of business.

That's business 101, but it isn't what happened here. Godox adopted a very different and much better strategy.

 

[CharleyL]

In the 6 years of me owning Godox/Flashpoint I have only had one gear failure, and it was my fault. I smashed a flash tube on a Godox SK400 light. Easily replaced by me with a relatively minor hit to my budget. Amazon had the Flash tube and I bought two so I would have one, for the next time. I have learned to keep 7" reflectors on all of my studio lights, unless taking them out of my studio for a shoot elsewhere. For travel, the bulb protector that comes with these studio flashes works well, but in the studio I found that storing them between uses was a problem, as I keep them either on a shelf or the floor in the back corner of my studio. For minimum space requirements, storing them on end seemed to work well, but with the bulb protectors they fell over quite often. I finally decided to buy needed 3 more 7" reflectors to allow me to use these reflectors so I could stand each light up on it's reflector, making it much less likely to tip over when on the shelf or the floor. I keep the bulb protectors in a box on the gear closet shelf, so I can use them whenever taking a light out of the studio. I wouldn't have broken that flash tube if I had adopted this storage method sooner.

Another thing that I learned the hard way is not to change reflectors or soft boxes without turning the light's power switch off first. Leaving the power ON and trying to change reflectors or soft boxes that have the metal Bowens mount almost guarantees that you will blow the fuse in the light. Metal contact between the end contact of the flash tube and the metal adapter at the same time that the metal adapter touches the Bowens mount on the light will blow the light's internal fuse if you don't turn the power to the light off before changing the modifier. I learned my lesson early, and it only cost me two fuses. Fortunately Godox provides two fuses with each light purchase, so I have plenty.

Yes Garry, you guessed the brand of my prior lights correctly. I had three of the ones named after the mathematician. They worked good, when they fired, but failed far too frequently for me.

Charley