Budget Monolight: Godox MS300 practical observations

The Godox brand has been pumping out budget lights for a while now and in recent years the options for entry level monoblock has fallen away with Bowens folding, leaving only Elinchrom D-Lite RX One 100Ws (and its aging user interface/controls) or the Chinese Godox MS200/MS300 rated at 200Ws/300Ws. This is not a review (there's plenty of good ones over the years since its release in ~2019) but with budget/entry level monoblocks, there's generally reasons for the categorisation.



I had a chance to play with a loaner unit for a few weeks and some practical observations.

Replacing the supplied (tube, excluding the cap, 7cm long/3cm wide) modelling lamp with an E27 LED bulb is a must given the (unnecessary) heat generated but you'll want to ensure to find dimable bulbs if you want to use proportion output. The modelling light can be also be totally disabled or disabled as the flash fires which is useful to avoid potential contamination of exposure. The optical slave function is useful but triggering via the 3.5mm sync (mono) cable is my preferred option after having turned off the Godox radio trigger function. The unit has a memory function that persists across powering down the strobe so once you set up the unit, you can forget about it.

The umbrella holder uses a tension spring and integrated into the unit's plastic mount to secure umbrella 8mm shafts, even though some reviews show a thumb screw - previous experience of using tension springs has been hit or, largely, miss especially when are simply on the reflector making the unit front heavy.

Power Output

For use in home studio, the Godox MS300 at lowest power, metered directly in front at 1m (unless stated otherwise) from face (reasonable single person upper or 1/4 body headshot distance):

• 120 cm umbrella octabox face, enclosed without the reflector - f/2.8 ISO 100
• 45 inch / 116 cm white bounce umbrella face
  
  • with reflector - f/3.2 ISO 100
  • without reflector - f/2.8 ISO 100
• 90 cm umbrella softbox (Photek Softlighter-like)
  
  • without reflector - f/3.2 ISO 100
  • with reflector - f/2.8 ISO 100
• (supplied umbrella) 7" reflector - f/4 ISO 100
• 55cm white beauty dish, non-opaque silver reflector plate
  ^{metered at 55cm from lip of dish
  gridded image has daylight ambient contamination due to openning lens}
  
  • bare dish (concave deflector faces out) - f/4 ISO 100
  • bare dish (convex deflector faces out) - f/4.5 ISO 100
  • with 20 degree grid (concave deflector faces out) - f/2.8 ISO 100

Note the metered values are as-in - generally I would shoot 2/3 stops open (want f/2 exposure, meter for f/2 +2/3stops aka f/2.5) - but in reality, the shooting apeture will be less given that we typically are not shooting straight on from the modifier but they will be angled etc. For example whilst the beauty dish value above is shown as f/4, when the BD angled at 45degrees, the meter shows f/3.2 which effectively gives me a shooting apeture of f/2.5

Consistency

Flash output consistency at the lower output rnage (1/32, 1/16 and sometimes 1/8) power can fluctate 1/3rd stop even when there are 2-3 sec pauses between firing. This was observed in images and also via an incident meter held at the consistant distance. At 1/16th power, there were a few times that I observed a full stop of difference output power!


^{lowest output: note the black in 2nd from left, 1/3rd stop less output}

I believe output consistency is a known and largely accepted caveat for budget monoblocks in the lowest power output ranges.

The flash tube is rated at 5600 k (+-200k) but colour temperature fluctates, as corrected/measured off a (WhiBal) neutral grey target. The temperature is obtained as shown in the raw converter software - the colour may be influenced by the Westcott white bounce umbrella modifying the light into but from experience that modifier has no significant cast/tint - furthermore its a more accurate usage (the light modified). At the lowest power level we're getting about 5010 k to 4960 k (tint is pretty close) with temperature getting warmer (lower kelvins) whilst the temperature increases as the power output is raised. When getting to 1/8th power and up consistency is much more stable with 1/8th power giving a consistent 5180 k. It's not terrible as you'd expect to be colour correcting as part of your raw conversions but might need to take note for balancing daylight etc.


^{demonstrating colour temperature shift from 4900k - 5700k: 4th from left being neutral}

No Other options?

It's a budget monoblock. But because it's a monoblock it offers something different over a traditional speedlight, firstly with its power output and then with the light spread (bare bulb).



Godox have an upgraded version of the MS300 but the only apparent change is the integration of the modelling light - for me this is a step backwards since this is now non-replacable/fixed output (10W ~800 lumens) unlike the E27 bulb where you can find 1500 lumens and up LED bulbs. Even the flash tube is user replacable even if sourcing the unit is a little difficult.

As a budget monolight with a Bowens S-mount there are a vast array of light modifiers available to get any amateur started, especially with the umbrella based options. The conern for power and colour consistency at lower power output remains which will give some challenges for shooting wide open but as an entry point unit in a less than saturated studio/monoblock market, its not bad with said caveats.