The Godox Witstro AD180 is the first serious manual bare bulb hotshoe flash alternative to emerge, with 150WS, Remote Manual Power Control, and even remote FP HSS, filling the void left when flashes like the popular Sunpak 120J where discontinued a number of years ago.

Update – Godox also now have the larger AD360, 307WS version of the Witsro available as well. This is aproximately one stop more powerful than the AD180, and aproximately 830grams vs 600grams for the flash body. And the AD360 comes with a flat base option, otherwise it is similar to the AD180 in most respects.

NOTE – Radio Trigger options compatible with the Witstro HSS mode can be seen in the post HERE.

The Short Version

For around the price of a full size Canon or Nikon Speedlite, the AD180 puts out around a stop more light, with the broader, and in modifiers, generally softer bare bulb light quality. And that’s light you can really use at full power, unlike speedlights which often need to be run at 1/2 power or less to save from overheating. The AD180 is manual power only, though it has Remote Manual Power Setting, and FP HSS (High Speed Sync) off camera via reliable radio triggers (which is quite a unique feature in a flash unit like this). From my testing you would need at least 2 to 4 regular HSS enabled speedlights to match the one AD180’s light output in HSS.

The AD180 is powered by a Lithium battery pack which always has bucket loads of battery power to spare (up to 900 full power pops with the AD180, and 1800 full pops with a regular speedlite!). Even if you’re not interested in the flash, this little battery pack alone is brilliant. With the AD180 there are no AA batteries to mess around with at all, just the one simple pack that always has power to spare. And it fully charges again in a couple of hours when needed anyway, with one simple plug to the charger, and you can have a few charging at once. You can forget the crazy AA battery management routine altogether with this flash! Its really hard to convey in words just how much that simplifies things, and the time and preparation effort it saves.

Then you have a clear bright LCD screen which is always lit, and a super simple user interface that really puts most speedlites to shame. As well as clear and simple Remote Manual Power Control with positive feedback using good clear sound beeps, and all via reliable radio transmission with around 100m range. Recycle is 2.6 seconds at full power, or a healthy 1.2 seconds with an optional splitter cord, and you can keep that up shot after shot.

This is one well designed and well built, solid little flash unit, that’s very hard not to like. If there are any shortfalls its probably in the trigger system, which is already very functional, but still in the process of further refinement regarding HSS functionality etc. The remote and trigger system are plug in and easily replaceable later (and relatively inexpensive), so that is not a big issue anyway. The flash itself is a solid and well considered design, I would imagine is going to be around for some years to come. As mentioned the simple functionality of the AD180 for off camera use already really puts many speedlites to shame, and the flash unit itself is not that much heavier than a speedlight loaded with AA batteries inside. If you need more power for tackling the sun a 300WS version will also be available mid June.

Note – Remote FP HSS is currently only supported with Canon cameras, and using an optional Godox Cells II radio trigger unit to enable that. But we have found this can actually be used with Nikon cameras now by using some other fairly common radio triggers like the Pixel Kings. More on that bellow under High Speed Sync. I found Light output in HSS mode is up to 2 stops more than a Canon speedlight, so that’s a decent advantage. Likely even more advantage compared to Nikon speedlights which are even lower output in HSS than Canon.

Source: http://flashhavoc.com/godox-witstro-ad180-ad360-review/

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