We get hands-on with the Godox A1, a flash and radio trigger for smartphones. Is it any good?

If you have been following Lighting Rumours’ Patreon page, you may have already seen that we recently received a pre-production sample of the Godox A1. This little device created quite a buzz on the internet when it was first announced, because it allows smartphones—such as the iPhone, but later Android devices—to trigger studio flashes.

We at Lighting Rumours have had some time with this new product and here are our first impressions.

Hardware

If you are used to dealing with big and heavy strobes, you will be surprised with how small and light this little device is. It is really meant as smartphone accessory and be easily carried in any jeans or jacket pocket. There is a tiny screen on top to provide you with current settings and some basic buttons to change the modes. In practice you wont be using much of it because everything on this flash is meant to be controlled with a smartphone.

The internal battery of the Godox A1 can be charged using a USB-C cable. It has both a Xenon flash tube and a LED modeling light. The flash has a guide number of 8.1 and the LED is rated at 1 watt.

Besides being compatible as a slave flash for the Godox 2.4 GHz system, the flash can also act as master when it connected to a smartphone through Bluetooth 4.0. Although I am not sure why, there is also a 2.5mm jack on the device to use other devices to trigger the flash.

Because of the smartphone there is a limitation on the sync speed that can be used. Do not expect any possibilities to exclude ambient light, because the sync speed is limited to 1/45 second.

The photographer Robbert Dijkstra from lightingrumours has done a review of Godox Flash A1, please feel free to visit: http://www.lightingrumours.com/godox-a1-review-9153, thanks!