The new Jinbei EN-350 portable Lithium power pack recently discussed, offers a similarly priced alternative to the popular VML power pack, but the other half of Paul C Buff’s popular combination is the Einstein monolight. There haven’t been many alternatives available to match the Einstein’s features and low price, but the recent Godox QT-600 may actually offer a reasonably comparable alternative.

There are so many studio monolights on the market now, and more constantly being released all the time. But models with any real stand out features are still pretty few and far between. Up until now I haven’t seen any that come close to the Einstein’s ability at anywhere near the price.

Like the (640Ws) Einstein, the (600Ws) Godox QT-600 offers –

Very fast flash duration’s for freezing motion

Very good color consistency across the power range

Fast recycle times of 1.2 seconds at full power

Accurate power consistency

A wide power range down to low power levels

And fast and easy remote manual power control

The Einstein and QT-600 both achieve these features by using IGBT circuitry in the flash design. So they are basically like very scaled up speedlights. But retaining these features is not easy when scaling up to much higher power levels like these 600Ws units provide. That’s where the Einstein has been a breakthrough, at least at the very low price point for a flash with this capability.

In the US its very hard compete with Paul C Buffs low price model of selling direct to the public (with exceptional customer service). But particularly for those outside the US the Godox QT-600 may now at least offers something in the way of comparable alternative.

How does the QT-600 compare to the Einstein?

The Einstein really has an advantage from the start because it provides 2 operating modes, one optimized for color consistency, and the other optimized for fast flash duration. The QT-600 is operating in just the one mode, so it has to make a compromise between the two, and the fast flash duration is where Godox have made some compromises.

There is a good review here by Phil Harbord, an electrical engineer in the UK, who has the equipment needed to measure the flash durations etc. Note – the SF-600 shown there is the same unit as the Godox QT-600, but sold by Lencarta in the UK as the SF-600 (or Super Fast 600).

Source: http://flashhavoc.com/godox-qt-600/

For more, please access to http://www.godox.com/EN/index.html.