It's 3pm. Outside it is humid, blazing hot, the ambient light is reading f32, and your bride wants portraits taken now....all you have on you are your speedlights. If you are a wedding photographer, you probably have found yourself in a familiar situation. Even if you have enough power to balance your shots with 1 or 2 speedlights, your flash's refresh rate becomes a major kink in getting photos taken quickly. Having one of these power packs might just save your day.
I will go ahead and say that I'm not a huge fan of having wired power packs around my waist but they do serve a purpose when you do need them. Of course you could solve the problem with larger mono blocks or portable studio lights but sometimes it's just easier to deal with two speedlights when you have to move quickly.
The Godox Battery Pack is clearly a rip off of the more expensive Bolt Cyclone Battery. But at almost $300 less, the Godox is a good bargain for any photographer shooting events or trying to light portraits mid day. I recently ran into a photography team based out of Washington DC (Moshe Zusman) and they were using similar battery packs to power a bunch of remote flashes staggered around the entire reception. When you need to use your small speedlights and need them to last for long sessions, these little battery packs can really come in handy.
The video above only compares the Godox and the Bolt so if you have any other favorites, tell us about them in the comments below.
![[Review] FlashBender Diffusion Panel, FlashBender, and Rogue Universal Lighting Filter Kit](https://cdn.fstoppers.com/styles/small-16-9/s3/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/rogue-008.jpg)
I've got two of them & love 'em. Can't recommend them enough!
What's a prodcution?
I do wonder how long your tubes will last if you keep hitting them that hard repeatedly. Any ideas why it's $129 on ebay? $200 on Amazon? Where it can be obtained for $79?
click the link and scroll down...there are some out of Chicago for $79
Sweet!
Can you do a story on a wedding photographer who staggers speed lights around the reception?? would love to see the results/method!B
recharges over 110 or 220v (for europe) ?
It's $79 on ebay but without the cables, etc.
You can take good photos without flash. Just sayin.
your opinion is completely irrelevant to this post, just sayin.
you have to use strobe inside for receptions. But say you have a dramatic sky and you have to put your people in the shade (for soft lighting), that sky is going to be blown out when you expose for the group.
this video doesnt exist
Only people that are scared of flash photography say such things. You can also take good photos with strobes....just sayin.
I start popping off full power flashes with my SB900 and get the overheating warning/shutdown after just a few minutes. This would be nice to not have to change all those AAs all the time, but probably wouldn't let me shoot any faster.
you might have to update your firmware. I know with the SB910's it will not over heat anymore and apparently the firmware for the 900 fixed that issue.
I'll check that out. Thanks for the tip!
i don't know if this is accurate. but isn't part of the over heating due to the AA batteries heating up? i know when i have gotten an over heat warning when i took the batteries out they where VERY hot to the touch. so external pack might solve that?
I have a Quantum Battery 1+ that I bought second hand on eBay. It works in the same way as above, but it uses a bit of a bodge to connect to the flash, but that does mean it will work with any flash that doesn't have an external power supply socket. The advantage it does have is that it can power two speedlights.
You do also have to be careful using these battery packs as it is a lot easier to overheat the flash.
The SB910 corrects the overheating problems.
They're still only NiMh batteries not lithium :-/
Yes true...But NiMh have much better recycle times vs Lithium :)
Get rechargeable NiMh Sanyo Eneloop.
Yeah that's what I use....still takes about 5 seconds to refresh an SB900 at full power. Sometimes with groups you want to shoot like 5 shots really fast and then you slow down to arrange the next group...it's awful when you have to wait 5 seconds between those 5-7 shots you want to take.
If u need 1/1 1sec reload, you're right. But it will bring some of the problems. Overheating. Some of the users cooked SB800's with a power pack attached. SB900 overheating control stop off in a a few shots. Or disable overheating control and accept a major risk with out of warranty. Speedlights could fail at any moment with power packs. Or get a http://tinyurl.com/6q2o2oz Metz mecablitz and use 1/2 or 1/4 power.
How fast can it charge at lower powers.? Would you be able to do short bursts.?
Looks like I would find this useful... if only I hadn't bought an SB-700 instead of 900. For the price of all things together, I think I'm going to just bite the bullet and buy the Paul Buff Einsteins and pack.
I have an SB-600, would this work with it? I because the cable connectors are the same. What do you guys think?
SB-600's don't have an external power port. I remember seeing a third-party dongle somewhere that fits in the battery compartment and has a cable allowing connection to an external power supply.
are they same cables as quantum?
I like this. I've been using the black box by Al Jacobs (
http://www.aljacobs.com/). Its $200 and built like a tank. It can run 2 flash units at once as long as the cables can reach. I"ll have to pick up a Godox for backup or larger halls.
I have one of the Godox PB820 and I'm really happy. IN my longest event with this battery I shot over 1500 flash photos and the status light keep saying "Full" (actually four lights). I love it when I use a speedlight on a beauty disk with this PB820 as a "small replacement" of my studio strobes on the go.
Also, I've been trying to figure out out to feed two speedlights with on PB820 (Like the Phottix who has 2 outlets), but until now, I couldn't find any "Y" connector, and probably doesn't work.
for Europeans - here you can buy them - rebranded Walimex!
http://www.foto-walser.biz/shop/Artikel/5385/120/Akkus_walimex_pro_Power...
Got mine last Saturday and it has met my requirements so far and I'm happy with it.
Godox rips off Bolt.
And late this summer you'll see Neewer and Yongnuo will rip off Godox.
Ironic isn't it?
Pretty good deal. I might pick one up, although for overpowering the sun High Speed Sync is your friend... buy some of those fancy pocket wizards and shoot at 1/3000sec.. ambient GONE!
Can these work with the yongnuo flashes?
Yes, they have the same plug and spec as the Canon speedlites
The Godox Propac isn't a rip off of the Bolt; the Godox Propac came first: http://www.lightingrumours.com/godox-propac-pb-820-battery-pack-review-1162 we reviewed it in 26th May 2011 after we got it directly from Godox at the Sonimag 2011 in Barcelona. Also discussed on the Flickr Strobist Forum: http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/discuss/72157626191608985/
I use the Pixel power packs and love them. And the price is even less than these. About 1/3rd the price of the Canon CP-E4, and actually built better (technology-wise). Here's a link in case anyone's interested. I need to buy one more, so don't everyone go buy them out of stock today. =) http://www.amazon.com/Pixel-TD-381-battery-Speedlites-extremely/dp/B0049...
I just ordered the PB820 two days ago from the link and today I received a message from the seller saying:
"We are sorry to tell you that, we intended to ship your item on time. However, we just got a bad news from our factory, telling that all this stock has been found some problem. They all have to be sent back to our factory to have a recheck. So we hurriedly asked all the items back in the delivery..."
So there goes that Idea...
Do you know if it will also power the Canon 430EX ?
The 430 EXII doesnt have a power cord slot.
I'm afraid the demand for them caused the prices to go up. ~$125.00 as of now :/
This: http://www.lightingrumours.com/godox-propac-pb-820-battery-pack-review-1162