Every time there’s a new CEO be light on the market that has similar specs to an Aputure light but for less money you’ll undoubtedly see them tagged as Aputure120 d killers but they never are they always have significant drawbacks like terrible build quality or a 50 millimeter jet engine for cooling ruining the audio of your videos that list includes the previous efforts from Godox like their SL series but these new lights from Godox the VL series are not only 350 dollars cheaper than their matching Aputure lights but they’re also as good or better in pretty much every category.
Today we’re going to talk about Godox VL series COB light, which includes Godox VL 150, VL 200 and VL 300. The Godox VL 150 which is similar to the Aputure120 II to the Godox VL 300 which is similar to the Aputure 300 a mark II , So there’s some conveniences and quality aspects of Lights that the Aputure mark 2 have nailed that many other lights fail to live up to and I’m gonna go over those now, but on these Godox lights since we finally have a suitable replacement now it’s worth noting however that if it wasn’t for Aputure I don’t think Godox would have a model to base their light on and achieve such excellent results.
So even though we should naturally expect technology to advance upon what’s already out there. We have to give credit to Aputure here as well so these new lines from Godox are dimmable from 100% down to 0% in one percent increments so none of that ten percent minimum nonsense and more importantly the brightness response is linear so 100 percent is twice as bright as 50% and 20% is twice as bright as 10% and so on some lights including the 120 D mark – from Aputure have a strong curve to the output and they ramp up quickly near the last 20%. The 300 D mark – was the first light from Aputure to include a linear response option and we’re seeing that
Speaking of curves the VL lights have a very similar fan curve to the Aputure lights as well previous efforts in this class have commonly had the shortcoming of being much noisier but that’s not the case anymore for the VL series in my tests the volume of the fan when active matched that of the Aputure lights and even better, It takes longer before it kicks in and has a higher threshold for brightness level before triggering the fan in my studio with a room temperature of about 22 degrees Celsius or 72 Fahrenheit I could run the VL 150 at up to 50% power without the fan turning on and the VL 300 up to 35% power before activating the fan which is actually quite awesome.
For the previous Godox lights, doesn’t come with any kind of carrying case but the VL series has taken notes from Aputure as well and are using very similar protective rectangular bags with generous padded inserts .
When it comes to build quality though both of these new lines are fantastic they now have a solid metal construction with a very sturdy yoke and a big knob that locks down with a twice gasketed rosette that can easily take a full sized light dome without any drooping the Bowens mounts are also very secure and they’re easy to operate with a sliding release lever and actually instill more confidence when using modifiers like barn doors or the for now you get a more secure fit on the Godox lights the mount and the tilt break are two areas where most discount lights have been lacking in the past.
Another thing Godox learned from Aputure is APP countrol, it has added phone app support as well to keep up with apertures new app.
Gerald Undone has done a test comparing the Godox VL300 and Aputure 300 D IIm and find that the Goodx light is quite brighter than Aputure in one meter away on 35% power on both light, about 11300 with the Godox VL 300 both reading around 50 400 Kelvin and 10,500 Lux for Aputure.
5% discount here on Amazon for Godox VL light
Comment below if you need any discount for Godox light.