How fast do "regular" Godox studio flashes charge?

[D135ima]

I want to do all sorts of dynamic things with my product, food and drink photography.

There is the QT series of Godox, which is positioned as flashes for quick shooting, but it is very expensive, in fact it costs the same as their battery-powered AD series.

So I thought, maybe there is no need for it? Maybe some flashes from their more budget series will be able to handle, say, 7-10-12 frames in a row at 1/8-1/16, maybe 1/4 power? After all, even my Canon Speedlight 430 EXII can took couple frames in a row. But I don’t see any detailed tests anywhere, and frankly, I’m confused about their studio flashes. They have produced so many series ! QT, QS, MS, DP, SK, SG, DS. Which brings up my second question: How to figure all this out ?

Let's say QT is a high-speed top series, then QS is a top series with a high-quality case from QT, but not high-speed, MS looks quite compact, I guessed that this is a compact series.

But the rest look the same. Except that the DP series looks more powerful. Starts at 400 and goes up to 1000. And here is another question - does this power make a bigger "buffer"? Maybe this DP1000 will be as fast as QT-400? Because where for QT400 it is 1/2 for DP1000 it is only 1/8+2/3. Or does it not work like that?

So yeah, I'm confused. What should I look for if I want to squeeze more juice, more in terms of power/speed/number of charges in a series, but I don't want to buy a flash of the most expensive series ?

Thank you

 

[tugwilson]

You are not alone in being confused by Godeox's AC strobe line!

Excluding the P2400 my take on it is that there is, practically, just the QTIII, DPIIIV and MSV ranges which are of interest.

The QT range are the only AC monoblocs which are IGBT lights. That is to say that they use a switching transistor to control the power which is what all Godox battery powered lights do. It makes them lots more expensive but gives them a far wider range of power and the ability to support HSS. They are quite an old design which have been through a couple of iterations making minor improvements. The "high speed" feature is about reducing the flash duration not the recycle time. You seem to be concerned with recycle time.

If you want to minimise recycle time you should use the most powerful light in the range at the lowest power possible.

If money is no object then a P2400 is the ideal choice.

In reality the QT1200IIIM is probably the best performer but the DP1000IIIV is a more cost effective option.

 

[D135ima]

The "high speed" feature is about reducing the flash duration not the recycle time. You seem to be concerned with recycle time.

If you want to minimise recycle time you should use the most powerful light in the range at the lowest power possible.

I thought these things were connected and followed one after another.

 

[tugwilson]

The "high speed" feature is about reducing the flash duration not the recycle time. You seem to be concerned with recycle time.

If you want to minimise recycle time you should use the most powerful light in the range at the lowest power possible.

I thought these things were connected and followed one after another.

No, the longest flash duration is a couple of orders of magnitude shorter than the shortest recycle time.

 

[D135ima]

No, the longest flash duration is a couple of orders of magnitude shorter than the shortest recycle time.

I meant that a more powerful flash model will have a shorter pulse than a weaker model if both of them are set to comparable output power.

 

[tugwilson]

No, the longest flash duration is a couple of orders of magnitude shorter than the shortest recycle time.

I meant that a more powerful flash model will have a shorter pulse than a weaker model if both of them are set to comparable output power.

That's true but, unless I've completely misunderstood your question, is irrelevant. You are concerned with recycle time and the flash duration is irrelevant to that