Godox IT32 Flash

Everybody's Talking At Me: Internet influencers have pounced on this new flash and have proclaimed it the greatest advancement in flash photography since powder. Likes and followers allow them to directly benefit from their evaluations, and presumably make a living doing it. Unlike influencers, I present products that I actually purchased, and how they might positively affect my flash enhanced photography. My newest flash happens to be the wunderflash  Godox IT 32. So what about it got everybody excited?

Compact Form Factor: I wanted my next flash to be compact and pocketable. While I still believe the Nikon SB800 was the GOAT speedlight, it's a lot of flash to carry on a casual jaunt. The IT32 is comparable in size to  the Godox TT350, and larger than the LightPix Q20 II  Volumetrically, all of these flashes have from half to a third of the volume of an SB800.

Buy yours here.

Built In Batteries: I wanted a compact flash that had a built-in rechargeable battery. I checked the printed specifications and the IT32 packs a 7.4 volt rechargeable battery, while the TT350 and the Q20 II rely on a pair of AA batteries which provide about 3.0 volts. Almost twice the voltage than the TT350 in a comparable package.

Rotating and Swiveling Flash Head. As you can see, the IT32 has a very conventional form, just slightly smaller than the full sized speedlights. The separate head allows for elevation and rotation, albeit limited to 90 and 270 degrees respectively. A diffusion panel and fill card can are also present. The separate head also permits the use of a slide-on diffusion dome. You will find TT350 has similar capabilities. The Q20 only elevates, and lacks a diffusion panel and a bounce card.

Zoom Flash Head: Only the TT350 can change the output angle of the flash. 

TTL Automated Flash Exposure: Both of the Godox flashes have TTL flash metering while the Q20II has manually selected output. And even if I never use it, it's nice to have it as a backup. I have not used it extensively, but it appears to work well, and would be just the ticket for some low power,  fumble-free outdoor fill illumination.

Off Camera Remote Triggering: This is the big one. Until you've tried it, you can't imagine how useful this feature is. Now radio flash triggers have been around a long time, beating out light-based triggering in terms of distance and reliability. Normally you'd buy a compatible pair consisting of a transmitter you mounted on the camera and a receiver attached to the flash itself. I believe the big breakthrough was the Q20II which incorporated a transmitter in the hot shoe when it was separated from the flash body. Super convenient, but manual only in this first integration, and deployment required that the shoe be "turned on" to establish communication. The TT35 was compatible with the larger Godox flash trigger, but it was compatible with the large family of Godox (and Adorama branded Flashpoint) flashes. The IT32 not only gave the photographer an extremely compact trigger built into the shoe, but engineered it to automatically turn itself on when the shoe and the flash were separated. 

 

Output: Back in the day, the Guide Number was the accepted measure of flash output. It was provided by the manufacturer, so you can be assured that the number would be "optimistic". To use, you calculated the shooter aperture by dividing the Guide Number by the flash-to-subject distance. These GNs were suggested by the manufactures:

• IT32: GN = 59' at ISO 100
• Q20II: GN = 65' at ISO 100
• TT350: GN = 118' at ISO 100 and 100mm zoom equivalent.

At first glance our IT32 appears to be trailing the pack, but there's more here than meets the eye. First, the IT32 recycles to full power in a third of the time it takes the Q20II. And the power lifting TT350, the only member of the trio equipped with a zoom flash head, achieves this by zooming the head to concentrate the light into a much smaller area.

Colored Gels. The Q20II comes with an assortment of acetate gels in a variety of pretty colors. Installation requires that you insert the gel into a tiny slot on the face of the flash head. They also came in random colors, and I admit to having used the blue gel to make this photo.

The TT350 has no easy way to attach a gel. It would be a simple task to cut some gels in the shape similar to the ones Nikon used for the SB800 speedlight. Each had an additional tab that slipped into the diffusion screen slot while the screen itself held it close to the face of the flash. For a better look at how Nikon did this, click here to see an earlier post.

The IT32 has integrated four tiny magnets into the small colored filters which are easily attached to the flash face. It is interesting the the two filters that come with the flash are not random colors, but consist of a CTO (color temperature orange) filter to tint the flash to simulate a 3200K incandescent photoflood, and a 1/2 CTO filter, which tints to flash to provide a warmer, more flattering light for portraits, or to simulate late afternoon lighting. If you're even thinking about getting a IT32, you can order the magnetic filter/gels here. If you don't mind losing a ton of light, you can mount one filter on top of the other.

Reason To Own: The off camera capabilities make this a great lens for experimentation, and the addition of the TTL feature makes it an easy lens when you don't want to worry about exposure. This little unit will never replace the versatility of my bigger kit flashes, but that's really not what it's for. I think anybody should believe that the IT32 can step to the plate and knock one out of the park, It's a compact flash that fits easily in a pocket and has a surprising feature set. 

I made this pair of photos during my morning walk. The left photo was made with the flash off-camera and overhead, while the right photo was made with the flash extended arm's length to left of camera. Flash output adjustments were easily made with the thumb wheel. For the few minutes I spent on the session, I was very pleased with the results. No adjustments were made in post production except for minor cropping.

Brightin Star 10mm F 5.6 Pro Fisheye

By the time you read this, I will have already purchased, and lightly tested, both of the a Brightin Star fisheye lenses. I took out the Pro Fisheye because of the adjustable aperture, just to see how the lens would perform. I used my first Fuji mount fisheye, a Pergear, and enjoyed using it. After getting past the silly distortion of my facial features being distorted by the lens, I decided to take the lens seriously and try to find some happy compromise between the uniquely wide angle of the lens, and the uncorrected circular distortion.

Note: Contrary to some of the online evaluations, the lens aperture ring does have clicks, but they are soft and only at the full stops.

I took the 10mm F 5.6 Pro model lens, mounted on a Fuji X-E2 body, with me on a walk along the Sausalito shoreline. I parked beside the San Francisco Bay Model, as its location allows me to walk past a variety of boats at rest in their slips.

Doors to the San Francisco Bay Model in Sausalito. The windows are indeed round.

This photo is the entrance to the San Francisco Bay Model in Sausalito. I tried to position the doors as close to the center as possible, and did my best to keep the camera level. From an exposure perspective, the photo is "out of bounds", but the I believe the placement of the round windows so close to the center of the photo creates an interesting juxtaposition for a fisheye lens.

This cute little sign has a circular graphic that when centered, gave me a fairly normal looking image. The placement of the horizon line minimizes the distortion, while the randomness of the foliage on the right minimizes the visual impact of the edge distortion.

Post Production Corrections: One could say that a fisheye lens is just a wide angle lens with under corrected barrel distortion. It follows that some post production software can correct these errors. In Elements  I used the Spherize Tool to see if any meaningful correction could be applied. I was able to pull the "bulge" in slightly, and render the vertical edges of the sign a little straighter. With no discernable reference points on the left and right thirds of the frame. the finished rendition doesn't shout "fisheye" but could pass as a conventional wide angle lens photo. That is much more grief than I care to endure, as I could just as easily installed a conventional 10mm wide angle lens.

Blue Sky Exposure: In earlier posts about the fixed aperture Brightin Fisheye, I  had complained that the fixed aperture setting of F 5.6 wouldn't be small enough to provide some outdoor flash capabilities with the Fuji camera bodies I favor. I made three blue sky exposures with the highest possible synchronization setting for an X-E2 body (1/250 second).

Fuji X-E2 Body. From left to right: F 5.6, F 8.0, F 11.  Camera Settings: ISO 100, 1/250 second exposure

Based on these three test shots, I could basically set my lens to F 8.0, my ISO to 100, and my shutter speed at 1/250 of a second and get a very nice blue sky. Not ideal for recording fluffy clouds, but the information is useful.

Sun Stars: This flag photo was made with an emphasis on the sky and letting the flag exposure go along for the ride. I was surprised by how nice the sun star turned out. If I had an important subject in the near foreground, I could have used a flash providing it was close enough to me, and that the light falloff wouldn't be objectionable. This is probably the only time that the "sun star", the effected created by the aperture design, held any interest for me.

I noticed this mural painted on a retaining wall behind a smog station located in the Castro. While the damaged sofa seems totally appropriate for the mural, the tableau seems out of place in the Castro. I was attracted to the comic detail of the cars, especially the Volkswagen station wagon with the old-fashioned room skylights. The camera was set to Aperture Priority, with1/3 F stop underexposed. I purposely cropped the right edge of the frame to minimize the presence of the pile of boxes at the left edge. There is not significant detail on the left edge of the frame.

My observations beg the question: Why use a fisheye? Nearly all of these shots could have been replicated with a 10mm rectilinear (non-fisheye) lens. I suspect that because the lenses are essentially zone focused (focus set my distance), it frees me to concentrate on the unique perspective the lens provides. Fisheye lenses require an appreciation for the roles the frame's left and right thirds play (or don't play) in keeping the viewer's attention at the center of the frame. That can be challenging, and for the moment, that's reason enough.