My wife is a professional photographer, and for the last 3 years, she used Broncolor Siros 800L in the studio.
Outside of those 2, we had 3 Godox speed lights. For those unfamiliar, the Siros 800L system is around 5000 CHF for a set of 2. So we are talking about serious gear there.
Now both systems work perfectly fine, when they are alone. But combining them in any kind of 3-5 way flash setup is a major pain, as the radio systems don’t work together. Combine this with the very awkward (to phrase it kindly) Godox menu system, it made those setups not very productive, and some things just did not work at all.
So the 2 of us were contemplating on how to fix that. Ideally Broncolor should have some speedlights that work together, or (the Broncolor remote is actually made by Godox) a remote could be created that just controls all of them. Sadly, there is no hope that this would ever happen.
The only flash company we know off that creates studio lights and speed lights that work seamlessly together is Profoto. So we went to a local store and rented (for free), a Profoto B10plus, B10 and a A10 speedlight together with their airremote for the camera. The B10plus/B10 are in the same financial ballpark as the Broncolor versions.
The B10plus itself ends up being darker than the Broncolor L800, but mostly we never used that much power anyway, so while a concern, not a deal breaker for my wife. Weight/transportability is clearly in favor of the B10/plus system, and they have a real big benefit: you can charge them while using them. A b10 plus weights less than 2kg, where a Siros 800L is 4.2kg.
The Siros 800L recycles faster, 0.03s vs 0.05s. At the end of the weekend it was clear that the Broncolor won in power, but that was not surprising, as this is 800w vs 500w. It’s less than one stop though, we had around 2/3 in the scenarios where we compared them.
The real surprise during the 3 days we tested this, is that everything we did, just worked. Flawlessly, not even consulting a manual was required. My wife was using the airttl to control 3 flashes, i could use the A10 to control the studio lights as well, at the same time.
The OFC mounting system for modifiers is far superior to bowens or broncolor, it’s so easy to use. We don’t have a really gigantic modifier like a Para133, so maybe the OFC system would break then, but broncolor sells a para133 adapter for OFC, so i assume it works.
The displays are large and readable (my eyesight is not what it used to be), even in bright sunlight. The bluetooth remote app actually works flawlessly, which is surprising in this industry.
We tested the godox v1 vs the profoto a10, and in the tests we did, the A10 clearly wins in terms of:- the light created in terms of evenness- in TTL mode it created better exposed picturesIt is not world shaking, and if that money difference is worth this? Beats me, everyone has to decide for himself.
For my wife though: the ease of use, the guarantee to be able to get replacements fast when a unit breaks, the much better build quality, argues clearly in favor of Profoto vs Godox.
The ability to charge while using (reducing the need for additional batteries, which started this. Broncolor batteries are ~300CHF for one, she would need 2 of them….), the lighter weight which makes it easier to use them on location (pretty much enabling it – the broncolor’s are so heavy that most of the time it was “ah, let’s try natural light or the speed lights instead”), the easier to use mounting system for modifiers…. all in favor for Broncolor.
If she ever needs the power for the studio, there are faster/more heavy duty flashes from Profoto that still work with the same app, same remote, flawlessly together with everything else (we assume, we did only research this, did not test this in practice).
So now we are selling all of the old gear and are replacing it with Profoto, \ this is the only game in town that can combine HSS TTL across a range of different devices and remote control of all of them in manual mode.