I am a victim of Instagram advertising. They are responsible for a disturbing number of impulse purchases I have made and the most recent purchase is for the Godox Lux Master Retro Camera Flash.
This super snazzy looking flash had me drooling and then whipping out my credit card to shell out about $250 (plus another $20 for the dome reflector and $90 for the X3 trigger, but more on that later). It has a gorgeous old-school look with a cool silver fan reflector and the whole thing attaches to the side of your camera with a bracket to turn you into a 1930s press photographer. I have the Luddite gene and love all things vintage, so when it arrived on my doorstep I couldn’t wait to show up at my next event looking like Weegee and shouting “Smile, kid” with a wink and a cigar in my mouth.
My usual flash for event work is the Canon Speedlite 430EX II. Yes, the same one I bought in 2009, with the DEMB Classic Flip-it! reflector I probably bought around the same time, but the velcro still works like magic. Events are a smaller part of my photography business, so obviously an upgrade in that department hasn’t been on my radar for some time.
But the Godox Lux Master Retro is incredibly different in shape, design, and use from your average flashgun, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone what I learned during my field test: You can’t really use it the same way you would a hot shoe-mounted flashgun. That might be great for some photographers and off-putting for others. I’m not the type to practice in the studio and test new gear before using it in the field—I guess I’m an adrenaline junkie—so I spent about five minutes getting to grips with the buttons, then immediately took it to a corporate event I was shooting in a beautiful old building where I thought it would fit in perfectly.
Here is my setup: the Godox Lux Master retro camera flash, the X3 trigger and the dome reflector.
I bought the reflector with the dome to have a softer alternative to the shiny silver fan reflector that comes with the flash because I was worried it might light people’s faces too harshly and I wanted to have a few options to experiment with. The silver fan reflector had sharper shadows, which is cool if that’s what you want, but it wasn’t what I wanted for this event. I also found that people were a bit distracted by the big shiny silver dish next to the camera and looked at it instead of the lens. I didn’t have that problem when I used the dome diffusion over the white reflector, which was shaped like a cute tiny beauty dish with a smooth white dome on top.
Here are some grab-and-grin images with the Lux Master:
Here’s one I shot with my usual setup in a room with really warm lighting, which I usually like to cool down a bit and then later adjust the skin tones and bring out some blue. This was shot with my Canon Speedlite, cooling down the ambient colors by adjusting the white balance in camera and then using a CTO gel on my flash, straight out of the camera (SOOC) and no post processing yet:
And here I used the Lux Master without gels and set the white balance in camera so that all the light is the same temperature, SOOC without post-processing:
The dome structure seemed to have a little trouble getting light to the back rows for larger groups, as you can see here, where it didn’t overpower the ambient light at all:
- Insanely cool to look at, great fun to take with you and grin at parties
- Well-designed, elegant and easy-to-understand touchscreen controls
- Fun modifiers to play with
- The option for TTL and external flash on a tripod
- Bulky and damn heavy, which makes it a great second grip for your camera, but that’s what 1930s news photographers are used to and not us modern photographers, so all that extra weight is a strain on the shoulder
- It tilts up to light the ceiling, but doesn’t have a modifier that includes a forward flare, so it’s really only suitable for snapshots where the flash is aimed directly at the subject.
- If you don’t want to use the shutter cable, you need a separate trigger. I have the X3 and had one set to TTL and the other to manual or something because the X3 would change the settings I was making on the flash. It’s a learning curve that I couldn’t seem to get over because of impatience.
- 2 hours charging time without removable batteries, so it can’t be your only flash for a long event
- No easy way to apply color correction gels
Overall, the Godox Lux Master Retro Camera Flash is a cool bonus flash for experienced event fans who want to try something new (or old) and fun. It’s versatile enough to try new things if you’re tired of your usual setup, but don’t make it your default flash for all event conditions.
