GODOX VL150 Review

Yo

I have godox SL200 in my amazon basket ?

I have one requirement lumens per dollar. (and cheapness - Im not in the mood for $1000 lights right now)

Is there a reason I should not get this ?

S
godox.jpg
 
I have the SL150 and work with someone who has the SL200. I also bought it for bang/buck ratio and as far as I know, nothing else has a higher ratio. I later bought a Nicefoto HA-3300b 330w COB for more output at $650 or so.

I like the Godox a lot and I approve of the color output.

There's a bit of fan noise but it's generally been fine during my interview shoots. If I recall correctly, the 200 may even be quieter than my 150.

The light will shut down for a couple minutes if it overheats (there is a temperature reading on the LCD screen) but I believe that has only happened to me at full output when using a fresnel attachment that really traps heat by the COB. Softboxes and reflectors have been fine. So has using the fresnel at 50-75% output. But that may be something to be aware of and to test.

Actually, at B&H now the SL150 is $209 and the 200 is $359. The 150 used to be more expensive but now has better bang/buck. But it has a 3.5 star review average as opposed to 4.5 for the 200, maybe due to more fan noise.
 
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ahalpert said:
Whoah - get the 300s then!
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Yeah, it's just about the money. I have two of the 47" parabolic softboxes but my gaffer has complained that I need a few that are smaller too so going to pick up the 35" and 27" versions too. So VL300 x 2 = $1,500.00, Parabolic softboxes one more 47" so I have three, one
for each light = $150.00, 35" x 2 = $260.00, 27" x 2 = $200.00. That's where it's getting to be too much $$. Just sunk $10k into my latest vMix computer build, plus a lot of talkback mics, headsets, headphone amps, cables, Display port splitters, etc. Building a two person pilot to
co-pilot vMix system isn't cheap, two 4K 32" screens, 3 1080 screens, KVM duplicators, iPad control for mixer, etc. It all adds up. Going with two VL150s saves be about $800.00 but I am concerned about them not having enough horsepower, although I do have the one VL300
which is great as a key.

I'm nervous dropping so much $$ when this year has been such an unpredictably bad **** show as far as booking paying work. Live streaming has been good but not what I would have made if production was still happening. Largely because there is no post with live streaming,
or at least very little.
 
ahalpert said:
Well, sometimes the budget makes the decisions for us. I know it does for me!

Have you tried Glow softboxes? I have a 60" octagonal and really like it - umbrella-open.

For some reason, adorama sells them for crazy prices - they have the 28" parabolic at $69 - https://www.adorama.com/glsbez28.ht..._fZrvoZ85RgaAi6qEALw_wcB&utm_source=adl-gbase
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I have not tried those. I am using the Nice Foto and a Laofas, they are essentially the same, just different colors in the fabric panels.
 
Has anyone noticed a significant magenta bias on these fixtures? Curtis Judd's review measured it as needing almost a half green gel with a CCI of .4 green.

I have another LED fixture that has a magenta bias in that realm, and it's a pain to match it to other lights without having backgrounds go green when correcting in post.

I have a 300d mk2 and would love to augment it with a few powerful but cheaper fixtures like the VL300, but the color makes me hesitate a bit. With a COB, it's at least not that hard to gel using the aputure gel holder inside a parabolic. With my large panel that has the magenta issue, it's a real PITA.
 
I dont have the VL, I have the Godox SL150. I believe it has a slight magenta bias but I think it's subtle and pleasant. I use it together with a Nicefoto 3300 330w COB and the color matches pretty well. No gels required.

Then I have a studio essentials 100w COB from B&H which is kind of a piece of crap and has a stronger green bias than the Godox magenta bias. I gel the studio essentials magenta when using it with the other 2.

I bet the Godox would mix well with the Aputure but I've never tried it
 
ozmorphasis said:
Has anyone noticed a significant magenta bias on these fixtures? Curtis Judd's review measured it as needing almost a half green gel with a CCI of .4 green.

I have another LED fixture that has a magenta bias in that realm, and it's a pain to match it to other lights without having backgrounds go green when correcting in post.

I have a 300d mk2 and would love to augment it with a few powerful but cheaper fixtures like the VL300, but the color makes me hesitate a bit. With a COB, it's at least not that hard to gel using the aputure gel holder inside a parabolic. With my large panel that has the magenta issue, it's a real PITA.
Click to expand...

To me, the magenta bias is there but it's subtle, I wouldn't term it "significant", I would term it minor, but I don't own a color spectrometer. I shoot a white, black and gray card and an X-Rite for each setup and the adjustment is pretty minor. I would NOT advise mixing any LED instruments from different brands. I have used my Aputure Lightstorms as a fill
source with the VL300, that's where it gets weird. If you are in the Aputure world, stick with Aputures. This is the precise reason why I am buying two more Godox, I don't like mixing them with my Luxli, Aputure or Nanguang LEDs, I want my shoot to be all Godox so as to not fight different color casts in one shot.
A single adjustment for most of the lights in one shot is a heck of lot easier than dealing with multiple color casts.

I'm totally breaking my own rule in a shoot next week. I will be using the three Godox lights as key, fill and rim on talent and the rest of the large set will be lit by half a dozen Kino Diva 400s with the 5,500k daylight tubes. I don't have a choice, but I am going to separate the lighting into zones
for sure, the BG will be lit by the Kinos and I am going to try to get talent to stay in front of that zone, to stay in the Godox zone, but we'll see how that goes. I might end up in a color correction challenge on that one but I don't have enough of either to light the whole set (It's a big, wide set)
 
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Bought two more of the Godox VL300s to go with my one. Was planning on using all three on a big studio shoot today. We unpacked one on set today, fired it up. Broken antenna and the fans are hitting something in the housing. Likely this is all shipping damage, the two working
ones are doing great but will have to send this one back for an exchange.

Not smart to order a new light and unbox it at the shoot but we didn't have a choice with timing and availability.
 
So I bought £300 odd a Godox200SL from amazon.

Booted it up quickly with the provided reflextor.

It would seem that..
-its quite noisy
-its a bit pink
-there are many lumens
-the wash is not that even

Overall it seems like a good thing to fill a 6.6

Id like another

If one totals the area under the WFM then that could be proportional to the amount of light, here we can see it is brighter than my lupo using that metric.
Its also not that even...

Top godox 200SL with stock modifier, bottom Lupo Dayled 2000 full flood. Bothh 100% power, camera setting unchanged.
godo200_sla.jpg
 
Still waiting on the Aputure Nova P300c I ordered 8-21-20.

From the Aputure Facebook page "Aputure The P300c is available, just check our website for all of our dealers so you can find the one that you prefer!
And the LS600d is coming SO SOON!"

Yet my order is unfulfilled like so many others.
 
puredrifting said:
Bought two more of the Godox VL300s to go with my one. Was planning on using all three on a big studio shoot today. We unpacked one on set today, fired it up. Broken antenna and the fans are hitting something in the housing. Likely this is all shipping damage, the two working
ones are doing great but will have to send this one back for an exchange.

Not smart to order a new light and unbox it at the shoot but we didn't have a choice with timing and availability.
Click to expand...

Following up on this, my third replacement VL300 came, put it right to work shooting a two camera live stream hosted by comic Alonzo Bodden and actress Nancy Allen for "May Contain Nuts", A comedy show for WE Spark, a childrens Cancer charity.
The Godox all worked so well, everyone loved the lighting and they all worked perfectly. https://one.bidpal.net/maycontainnuts2020/custom/custom4 The live show begins at 01:01:00
 
"Not smart to order a new light and unbox it at the shoot but we didn't have a choice with timing and availability. "
vs rental?
 
Hi guys, I'm considering a small cheap two light setup. Just stuck with a decision of one VL300 and VL200, 300 vs 150? I think its better to have a power headroom.
 
Vik Kamenicky said:
Hi guys, I'm considering a small cheap two light setup. Just stuck with a decision of one VL300 and VL200, 300 vs 150? I think its better to have a power headroom.
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More power = always better. I was going to do the same but just stretched a bit and bought three VL300s. Options are good.
 
Gweilo66 said:
"Not smart to order a new light and unbox it at the shoot but we didn't have a choice with timing and availability. "
vs rental?
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Find me a rental house in LA that rents Godox. None of the usual suspects do and I am a big believer in matching LED colors by using the same instruments and not mix and matching brands.
 
puredrifting said:
Find me a rental house in LA that rents Godox. None of the usual suspects do and I am a big believer in matching LED colors by using the same instruments and not mix and matching brands.
Click to expand...

That has always been my standard operating procedure with LED's. Until recently. The difference in brands used to be so apparent, you had to. But now, especially with the high-end and more mainstream brands, mixing is usually not a problem. I regularly mix Litepanels, Intellytech's, Astera's, Dracast's, Quasar's and Hive's with no issues. I can't remember if I've ever mixed in the Westcott Ice Lights with any of these, though.

The only LED's that I own that I can't mix in seamlessly are my Nila's. They're just too damn green. And if you use any of the corrective 'minus green' filters, they look magenta compared to the rest, then. And it's a damn shame, because they are some of the best engineered(heavy duty) lights on the market, but drop the ball where it's most important.
 
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