The Light Pix Q20 - A Very Tiny Flash

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LightPix Labs FlashQ Q20 II. This little flash may be epic. Or maybe sonnet-like. Oh well, consider it the first line of a haiku. In short, it's small. This little flash has been around since 2017, judging from the number of YouTube posts describing it. Alas, I am a legend only in my own mind, and the influencers of uber-cool failed to send me advance notification. If they had, I would have shouted about this flash much sooner.

Am I Late To The Party? I first saw it in a post from Mattias Burling made in April 2020. (Slide forward to 5:15 to skip the unrelated filter stuff). By that time the flash was old news, but it was new news to me. 

The flash is totally manual, so it can function on almost any camera with a hot shoe*. This also means that I would have to calibrate the output using the old, tried and true system using a Guide Number to calculate the proper aperture based on the-flash-to subject distance.

Guide Numbers? Based on the manufacturer's specifications, the Guide Number for ISO 100 is 65.62 in feet, or 20 in meters. If these numbers are to be taken as accurate, it means that when set to full power and used with a flash-to-subject distance of 10 feet, the proper aperture would be half way between F 5.6 and F 8.0. I will probably experiment and establish my own preferred guide number value, based on whether the flash is be used as a primary light source, or simply as fill. I just write it on a piece of tape and attach it to the flash itself.

Using Guide Numbes: When I first learned about guide numbers in the early 70s, I was using flash bulbs (!) and a Vivitar Flash set to low power to conserve battery power. Of course these were the film days, and since the time between the initial exposure and the final print was measured in weeks, I kept notes on the camera settings in a small brown binder. This was long before digital technology allowed "in flight adjustments" to exposure and composition could be made via image preview. These were Trial and Error times, and I made plenty of both.

Now let's start thinking digital. First, let me review the five factors influence the appearance of each flash photograph you make:

1. ISO Setting,
2. Shutter Speed (exposure time),
3. Aperture Setting,
4. Output, Flash and
5. Distance, Flash to Subject.

Once you've established a combination that gives you the images that you like, write the details on a piece of tape and stick it to the flash. You'll find it much easier to set the camera and flash (Settings #1 through #4) and walk back and forth until you achieve Setting #5. Practice estimating a specific distance (I was good at estimating 7') and try to do most of you shooting at that distance.

Foot in the Remote Mode

Built In LED Movie Light: I may as well mention that it has a continuous LED video light, a feature I personally find incredibly annoying. Similar units seem to make the switch from flash to video light at the drop of a hat, and they'll drop the hat themselves. Let's just say that both flash and LED are controlled by pressing the (left arrow) and (right arrow) buttons, to decrease and increase the output, respectively. A line of tiny LEDs will light up to let you know the level of output for either mode.

Optical Remote Mode: An additional surprise is the inclusion of an optical remote mode. Simply put, it allows the flash to fire when it detects another nearby flash. In the Nikon world, it's called SU-4 mode. It also has an S2 mode, which allows the flash to fire on the second burst of light, thus ignoring the pre-flash associated with TTL flash metering.

Remote Mode: Now here's the magic. The foot of the flash is detachable by pressing a button. Once separated, the foot becomes a radio controller for the flash. It not only serves as a trigger but also allows for output adjustment using the two tiny buttons on the the foot. If you look closely, you can see them on the detached foot in the photo at the left.

To use the flash in the Remote Mode, you simply depress the large button above the foot and separate the two units. Then press and hold the Power On button located at the front of the foot until the LED lights up. According to the manual, this powers the foot for about three minutes, after which time it shuts itself off to conserve power. They thoughtfully provided a low-power warning light visible on power-up.

Pig-Tailed Charging Cable. Notice the  orange charge-status LED.

Power: Speaking of power, the flash itself uses two AA batteries, while the foot has a small built-in battery that you charge using a USB cable connected to your charger or laptop. The flash comes with a pig-tailed USB charging cable with two connectors so you could charge both the flash and the foot from a single charger if you are using rechargeable AA batteries. Being small, I of course misplaced the cable. No matter, I can use any of my existing USB chargers anyway.

Remote Mounting: When the Foot/Remote is removed, you can see that a 1/4 x 20 socket has been provided on the flash bottom to facilitate mounting on an equally tiny mounting gizmo like a Lilliputian Justin Clamp. In reality, a wad of chewing gum will hold the flash anywhere. No, it won't , but you might be able to use a ball bungie to lash the unit to a tree branch if that's the effect you're looking for.

Gels: And it that isn't cute enough for you, it also ships with a set of tiny gels that slide into a slot in the flashtube's clear faceplate. I haven't actually used them in the field, but have already misplaced them several times. They are just that small.

Bounce card (a white business card) pinched in place by the rotating flash head.

Improvised Bounce Card: One additional feature is the tilting flash head. The bad news is it lacks a bounce card, something most current flashes with a tilting head provide. Just a reminder about using the bounce card: In and of itself, it only provides some additional light into your subject's eyes when you're bouncing your flash off of the ceiling. Used by itself, light bounced off of the card isn't enough to properly expose a subject unless you're very close and using a very high ISO.  

Card inserted at an angle for effect

If you find yourself needing a bounce card, you can simply rotate the flash head to one click short of 90 degrees up. You'll notice a gap between the head and the main body of the flash. Simply slip a standard-sized white business card in the slot and rotate the head to the 90 degree (straight up) position. This effectively locks the card in place while clamping it in a forward leaning angle.

The good news is a standard white business card can be wedged into the narrow gap formed by the tilting head. If you use a high ISO setting, you can make some very pleasing ceiling bounce exposures. Again, determining optimal exposure is by trial and error, but when your photos start looking the way you like them, write down the settings and tape them to your flash.

Gels: A quick word on gels: The flash comes with a packet containing a red, yellow, blue, purple, and yellow gel, all the groovy colors that were so "in" with the Flower Power Generation. For the rest of us, there is also a quasi-CTO gel that is a fairly close to the standard 3200K temperature we call Incandescent. I found it worked best with a Kelvin setting of 3800K, but that could just be my old eyes. Anyway, it will get you in the ballpark so you can fine tune the color in post production.

1/1250 second, F 4.0, ISO 200, flash filling the shadows

In The Field: This photo was taken during a local Mountain Man Reenactment Event. For this shot I used a leaf-shuttered Fuji X100S. The lit shot (above) shows that this small flash can provide just enough light to balance the background blue sky with the subjects in the foreground. This can happen only if you use a camera with a leaf shutter, a necessary feature that allows you to synchronize flash at a large aperture setting. 

1/1250 second, F 4.0, ISO 200, no flash

Without the flash, you can see just how much that little flash helps. The key is the leaf shutter. The shutter speed of 1/1250 of a second allowed me to use a shooting aperture of F 4.0, large enough to actually benefit from the output of the tiny flash. Flash synchronization for most interchangeable lens digital cameras is about 1/200 of a second.

I believe that this little unit may be the ideal flash to carry on those outings when you're absolutely sure you won't need one. I consider the manual output control a plus because it forces you to bypass some of the downfalls associated with TTL flash metering. In these sample photos, the subjects are relatively small in the frame, and even Nikon's Matrix Metering may fail to figure out the proper light output. Experiment, and when you find combination that works for you, write yourself a note and tape it to the flash head.

*I have one older point and shoot, a Nikon P7000, that steadfastly refuses to work reliably with anything other than a genuine Nikon speedlight. It didn't function 100% with the FlashQ either.

Update: December 23, 3021: I had some functionality issues with the flash. It appears that the unit misbehaves when the batteries are less than fully charged. I would suggest if your unit starts to function erratically, change out the batteries!

That Egg Shaped Lens

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I am sure I'll go broke buying every inexpensive manual focus lens made in China. It seems that as soon as a lens is brought to market, a number of variations appear ready to compete in both price point and performance.

Every since I started taking photos for the Journal, I've come to appreciate how useful wide angle lenses are. They allow me to work at shorter subject to camera distances when necessary, especially when working indoors. Outdoors, the wide view angle allows me to include large to huge swatches of cloud infused blue skies while reducing distracting background details.

My newest lens, a TTArtisan 17mm F 1.4, has played to good reviews on the Internet, so far as bloggers can be trusted. True, everybody is entitled to their own opinion, and there are too many bloggers ready to parrot, "Bokeh this, bokeh that, smooth focus, sharp center, nicely packaged, classy box, blah bla BLAH".

Prior to this latest purchase, my collection of manual focus wide angle (20mm or less) under $250.00 lenses included, in order of purchase:

12mm F 2.8 7artisans Lens: The first of my wide angle lenses, it produced some very acceptable images. The most compact of my four wide angles, it unfortunately utilizes a non-removable petal lens hood. You cannot attach filters unless you purchase a special filter adapter that is held in place with a setscrew. 

12mm F 2.0 Samyang Lens: This was the most expensive lens of the lot. I purchased it because it was on sale. I'm a sucker for fast lenses. It takes regular 67m filters and has a giant removable petal lens hood. However, it is smaller than the Zeiss 12mm F 2.8 I already own. It has yet to make a photo that made my eyes pop.

15mm F 4.0 Opteka Macro (close focusing) Lens: I saw a video where the unique perspective provided by a macro wide angle lens, and thought it might be interesting to try it when I found a lens at the right price. The Opteka is a corner-cutting copy of the more expensive and better made Venus Laowa tilt-shift lens of the the focal length, and sold at a fraction of the cost. I used the Opteka once, and wasn't really impressed with its performance either as a wide angle lens or a macro lens. Big and clunky, mine has a Nikon F mount which I adapted to my Fuji X bodies. So configured, it's demeanor can only be described as "clunky". Incidentally, there apparently was a lawsuit against Opteka by the Venus people, so the lens is not readily available.

Why This Lens? Lens speed was the primary attribute. There are several of these manually focused wonders boasting 1.4 maximum apertures and better. Visually, the focusing seems to have a very precise in-focus / out-focus threshold, The focusing ring rotates smoothly, and while the knurled portion of the ring is quite narrow, the actual gripping surface of the focusing barrel is almost half the entire length of the lens. This, along with its position closest to the body, make for easy focusing, so far as finger placement is concerned. 

Speaking of finger placement, this TTArtisan lens, along with its two predecessors (35mm 
F 1.4 and the 50mm F 1.2) share a similar ring configuration: Aperture at the front, focusing at the rear. If you count the non-knurled portion of the focusing barrel, the gripping surface is extremely generous. 

Shop TTArtisan here.

If I had it to do all over again, I should have bought the trio of TTArtisan lenses and called it a day. I would have missed two of the 7Artisan lenses, the 12mm and the 25mm, whose focal lengths neatly straddle the 17mm. Still, shifting from one lens to another would be incredibly easy since control placement on the TTArtisan trio is almost identical. Also, the rotation of the aperture rings and focusing barrel are the same, too.

Observations From The Field: I have taken this lens out on two of my morning walks, and have found it very easy to focus, probably due to the F 1.4 maximum aperture. Its sharpness is more than adequate, but as you might have guessed, I have other sharper lenses to use when image sharpness is an issue. The TTArtisan lens will accept 40.5mm filters, while the 12mm F 2.8 won't accept any filters without the special adapter. Because of the design of the lens, I can't mount any of my lens hoods because their edges intrude into corners of the image space. Still, that bit of added protection provided by the filter makes me more likely to carry this lens. It's 17mm focal length, while longer than my 12mm, hasn't proven a handicap. 

When it comes to prime lenses, I prefer focal lengths that double at each step. If I chose the 12mm as my wide, I'd carry a 25 and a 50. If I chose the 17mm, the next two lenses would be the 35mm and a non-existent 70ish lens. As of now, 50-55mm are the longest focal lengths available in the inexpensive, manual focus, manual aperture lens lineup. I'll give some very serious consideration to an 80mm if and when one becomes available in a suitable price point. I might consider adding both the TTArtisan 35mm 1.4 and the 50mm 1.2 lenses for the simple reason that the focusing ring and aperture ring placement are handier than the 7Artisans lenses I already own.