Godox AD200 electronic flash (work in progress)

[Guest]

I wanted to thank you for this discussion. It was very helpful and saved me countless hours of research and saved me from any soldering. Only to discover I already owned the right strobes.

 

These are recently discontinued products from Flashpoint. I was going to order some of these uncoated tubes when I was surprised to discover it was not required. I guess the company started using a supplier with coated tubes at some point.

 

I have the AD200 and mine is also partially coated. I think it is newer production than the other two which are clear. The AD360 Streaklight and the Xplor600 are completely clear!

 

Unfortunately these can no longer be ordered, so I hope to get some good hours from the supplied bulbs. If I knew this prior I would have ordered some extra bulbs but then again those might have arrived coated.

 

So far the AD360 is my favorite because it is easy to position like a normal speed light and has a power in the middle of the two. The AD200 is good and solid to hold like a flashlight when I need to ad hoc fill. The Xplor600 is bulky and powerful but works very well for UV.

 

Photos were taken with a Novoflex 35mm f3.5, Baader U-Venus and a 365nm torch.

 

Xplor600 Clear

 

AD360 Streaklight Clear

 

AD360 Streaklight Crop Clear

 

AD200 Partially Coated

[Guest]

I'm about to use the extension cable for the AD200 to allow for shorter working distance micro photography. The tests with a U-Filter of the speedlight head looks good. For the time being it will mount it to a small table top tripod.

 

Eventually I would like to fix the head to the camera lens and make a reflective beauty dish to act as a ring. Which material best reflects UV for this purpose? 

 

Is it better to leave to protective glass intact for safety or should I remove it for more transmission? Could the excess heat cause issues with the subject?

 

 

 

Bulb is uncoated (top). Protective glass is uncoated (left). Fresnel lens is polycarbonate and blocks all UV (bottom).

 

 

Flash head with protective glass inserted (top). Fresnel lens plastic (bottom)

 

Photo taken with speedlight head at full power.

 

 

Here are photos of the round head with diffuser and strobe for the AD200. This would also work on the extension. It looks like the type filament is the same one used for the bare bulb head just mounted in a small reflector with diffuser. It might even have less UV coating.

 

However, the difference in light coverage is night and day. With the diffuser in place the UV photo was about 4 stops darker that the other speedlight tested above. Without the diffuser the test photo was still about 2 stops darker than the speedlight tested above.

 

That doesn't make this useless because now I realize the round head below is a miniature version of the bare tube with beauty dish having great diffusion. So, for micro work this might actually work better than the speedlight test above. 

 

The round head is wider and more obstructive than the square speed light but nowhere near the setup I have now with a 5" inch dish mounted on the power brick. The round head has a 3" dish.

 

The only other thing I can consider is with IR it would be nice to quickly fit the glass diffuser onto the front to lose some light and not over power the subject. This flash unit only goes down to 1/128 and I prefer not to use high speed sync.

 

 

 

 

 

The twisted filament is lightly coated.

 

 

 

The glass diffuser doesn't appear to have an type of coating to block UV.

 

 

[Guest]

I am curious if these tubes are UV coated on the inside or outside?