Our friend and visual storyteller, Leonardo Carrizo, took the new Godox AD400 Pro Lights out for a dynamic portrait shoot inside and outside around downtown Columbus!

This is going to be a short and sweet post about my experience using the new Godox AD400 Pro lights. The reason why it is short is because you can check out the video review I did for Midwest Photo here:     

 

In the video you’ll hear me talk about my experience, see some behind the scene clips and of course photos from my photo shoot. That said, showing the photos in the video is very different than actually seeing them on the blog post. Therefore, here you’ll get to see the actual photos and judge the quality of the light. I gave myself more artistic freedom while doing post-production and retouching than typically.

This was the first location and images we were able to make with one Godox AD400 Pro with a Godox P120H 48″ Deep Parabolic Soft-box. It’s amazing what you are able to do with just one giant parabolic soft-box. Notice the circular feathering of the light. Even though I did work the contrast in post-production, most of the vignette was there because of the parabolic soft-box. It was surprising how good the light was from the start so Ally was able to just work on her poses.

Then we try some beauty shots against a white wall. We used the same Godox AD400 Pro with the Godox P120H 48″ Deep Parabolic Softbox from the left. We added a second Godox AD400 Pro from the right aimed at Ally’s side and the wall. This filled the shadows and made the wall whiter. To complete the look my friend Vitor held a silver circular reflector below Ally so the light from the Parobolic softbox would bounce up and fill the rest of the shadow. As part of my workflow, I always look at my images in black and white. It allows me to see the overall tones in grayscale.

With just one easy button you can switch the Godox AD400 Pro to High-Speed-Sync and I loved that! If you sync the light and camera to a higher shutter speed you can open up your aperture and have shallow depth-of-field. My Canon 5D Mark III has a sync speed of 1/200 sec but because I switched to high-speed sync I was able set the shutter at 1/800 sec. my aperture wasf/4.5 and ISO 100.

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I cropped the image to give you a close-up look on the eyes and the shallow depth of field.

Never pass the opportunity to use diffuse sunset light when you have a model in a red dress! The image below is all-natural light. Notice the warm tone on her and the wall behind her.

Since I was supposed to be testing the Godox AD400 Pro but I didn’t want to lose the sunset light,  I added a pop-of light from behind to the wall. The image below therefore has mixed light. The sun is lighting Ally and the flash unit the wall behind her. Notice how the wall is now white compared with the image above.

Here you can see the window and location better and a dramatically different look in the same space. I exposed for the background (and subtracted a few stops). Then my friend Vitor held a Godox AD 400 Pro head towards Ally from above. The light is much harder on this image because we didn’t use a soft-box. Instead, Vitor just had the light with the reflector that comes in the box. The light also has a very practical handle for this type of situation so it’s easy for a friend or assistant to pick-up and point towards your subject.

Finally, we were able to go outside and test the light with the Columbus skyline. There is nothing like having the ability to move around from one location to the next without having to worrying about powering your lights. In general, lights with a battery pack are the way to go if you need more power than a standard off-camera flash.

We had a great time using the Godox AD400 Pro and were able to create several different images is a short amount of time. We were able to shoot for two hours and capture over 700 frames on a single battery. We moved from indoors to outdoors without any issues and I’m very happy with the results. If you haven’t yet,  please watch my video review of the Godox AD 400 Pro.

Photographer: Leonardo Carrizo

Assistant: Vitor Oliveira

Model: Ally G.

Godox AD400 Pro

Godox P120H 48″ Deep Parabolic Softbox

Camera: Canon 5D Mark III

Lenses: Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III USM ,Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM and Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM

Check out Leonardo’s work at his website and Instagram!

Also, check out this interview of Leonardo from the MPEX Blog!