Flash VS Continuous Lighting for Photography
Choosing the right photography lighting can make the difference between an average image and a professional-quality photograph. Whether you're shooting portraits, products, fashion, or commercial work, the lighting you use plays a crucial role in defining your style, controlling mood, and achieving consistent results.
Whether you're a beginner building your first home studio or a professional photographer looking to expand your lighting setup, we'll compare both lighting types, explore their pros and cons, and help you choose the best photography lighting for your needs.
Flash Lighting
Strobes or flashes do just as the name suggests, the light appears for a brief moment rather than lighting the scene continuously. When you're using a flash as a light source the duration of the flash can be anywhere from an average of 1/1000 sec to as fast as 1/10,000 seconds or more. Most cameras will synchronize with the flash up to a shutter speed of anywhere between 1/60th to 1/300th of a second and cameras that support high-speed sync will go even higher.
Why use Flash?
The brightness of the flash units combined with their extremely fast speed makes flash a great solution for situations where you need to be able to stop fast movement such as sports or pet photography. Flash is also good for photography where you want to overpower ambient light and make your subject appear brighter than their natural setting.
It's also ideal for situations where you need or want to use artificial light, but you can't place it close to your subject, for example, while photographing football players on a field but the higher-powered flash units will be able to reach and light subjects more effectively.
In comparison, to freeze motion with continuous lighting you will have to use a faster shutter speed, meaning that you will either have to open up your aperture, or increase you ISO to compensate for the faster shutter speed, whereas with flash lighting, you can use the duration of the flash to freeze motion.
Flash and Strobe Lighting for Photography
Speedlights and studio flashes are popular types of flash for photography. Speedlights can be used on-camera with a hotshoe, or mounted on a stand, and are versatile, portable and more affordable compared to strobes, which come with higher power output, recycle time and modifier adaptability. Studio flashes on the other hand can be mains or battery powered and are often higher output and better for outdoor shooting and tricky ambient lighting environments.
Speedlights and compact flashes are powered by batteries, while AC power studio strobes are generally designed to work with mains power only.
Battery-Powered Flash
Pack and Head System: The AD1200PRO is a powerful battery-powered flash lighting pack and head system that provides flash durations of 1/200s to 1/10860s and speedy recycling times between 0.01 – 2.0 seconds.
Battery monoblock: The Godox AD600Pro II features a high-speed and powerful strobe flash with built-in technology enabling shorter flash durations between 1/220 second to 1/20,400 second (freeze mode) for sharper images. The recycling time between 0.01s～0.9s also provides optimum flash control depending on what you’re shooting.
This option can be used with AC adapters which means they can be powered by the lithium-ion battery as well as a power outlet.
Pocket Flash: There are options available for pocket flashes including the AD100ProII, AD200ProII, and AD300ProII. A pocket flash is similar in size to a Speedlite but it comes with higher power output and more versatility. These strobe flashes are portable and come with high-speed sync (HSS) and a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that provides full-powered flashes with minimal recycle time.
Speedlites: The V1Pro speedlite from Godox comes with a round head that produces a powerful beam of light with an exceptional flash duration of up to 1/20,000th second.
Main AC Options
For straightforward studio flash options, the PiXAPRO LUMI and the Godox MS and SK Flashes ranges are designed for standard and entry-level usage for flash photography. The LUMIs are also a great starter when moving from speedlite to studio flash as they offer around 3 times more power output, with features such as a built-in receiver, slave mode, fast recycling time and flash durations.
For a more versatile option with more advanced features, the QT Series is designed for specific usage such as action capture, stroboscopic mode, HSS, colour stable mode, etc. They have an ultra-short flash duration and super-fast recycling times at 0.05-0.9s, and options in up to 1,200w.
Continuous Lighting
Continuous lighting such as LEDs don't flash, and instead display light constantly so what you see is what you get. This can be a great asset for beginners to lighting or even advanced professionals who are working with very intricate lighting setups.
Continuous lighting can come in different forms, such as fluorescent lighting, LED Panels, LED Heads and more.
The Benefits of Continuous Lighting
Continuous lights are generally mains powered but many have the ability to run on batteries. Continuous light also allows photographers to shoot without the need for a trigger, meaning multiple photographers can shoot at the same time if needed. LED lights also frequently have the built-in ability to modify the colour temperature from tungsten to daylight balance. These are called bi-colour lights.
There is also a growing range of RGB lights that offer both RGB colour spectrum lighting and bi-colour lighting which are great for creative video work, or for photography without using gels.
RGB Tube Photography with Chloe Kerley, shot by Gavin Hoey at TPS 2024!
The advantage of continuous lighting is that what you see is what you get. What you see in front of you is what your final photo will look like, whereas with flash lighting, you have to take the photo to see the result. Continuous lighting will also allow you to shoot video as well as stills, so if you're looking for multi-faceted content creation, LED might be your best option.
See Similar: Using Continuous Lighting over Flash as a Beginner by James Marson
Continuous lighting also enables you to shoot at wider apertures for that shallow depth of field look which is sometimes difficult to achieve with studio flash due to its higher light output.
Continuous Lighting Options
The EZYLITE One-Light Kit is an economical solution for continuous lighting as it uses a bright fluorescent bulb with a supplied softbox and light stand in one. This light can be used for shooting portraits, still life, products, and even interviews on a tight budget, however dimming and adjustable settings are very limited.
LED Lighting for Photography
LED lighting is also an option - utilising Light Emitting Diode technology that produces a bright, even spread of light, that is significantly more efficient than fluorescent lighting and flash lighting (LED wattage nets a much more efficient brightness than flash wattage). LEDs can come in the form of flat panels or COB (chip on board) Head style that replicates a flash head.
LEDs are great for studio working and often come mains powered - while many have battery power option (some built in, some available separately), the continuous use of the light often means a battery powered LED out on location can drain quite quickly, and cut your shoot short prematurely. This often means they're easier to use in studio environments, depending on the light and your needs.
Glowpad Series slim-profile LED panels produce a broad diffused light source
without the need for a softbox thanks to the built-in diffusion, which makes the light much softer. These are great for small product photography shoots, baby photography, and vlogging.
Different LED panels have different beam angles and serve different purposes. Lights with a narrower beam angle (such as 45°) are great for when you need to light your subjects from a greater distance. Since the beam is more focused, it maintains its intensity, allowing the light to travel further.
COB LEDs in studio head light formats are getting more and more popular for their quality of light and ability to shape the light with different light modifiers (many in the popular Bowens S-Type fitting), and they are generally more powerful than LED panels.
Great LED options can be found for tighter budgets and for those who need a higher powered option too!
See similar: Exploring the Benefits of LED Lighting in Photography
A wide selection of Godox COB LED lights can be found on our website, with different features including silent fans, built-in lighting effects, varying powers (up to 500w or even more if you consider the film-grade KNOWLED range), many of which use the Godox fitting or the Bowens S-Type fittings for easy modification with things like softboxes and snoots.
The Verdict
There isn't a single light that's best for every situation. If you're new to lighting and plan to shoot people or products, continuous lighting is a great place to start because you can see the light as you work, making it easier to learn.
Flash provides more power, greater depth of field, and is ideal for freezing fast-moving subjects. Continuous lighting works for both photography and video but typically offers less power.
Check out our table below for what kind of lighting we generally* advise for different types of photography.
* Your mileage may vary! This does depend on your specific work and LED may work well for you where it might not for others.
| Type of Photography | Flash | LED |
| Portrait Photography | ✅ | ✅ |
| Food Photography | ✅ | ✅ |
| Product/Ecommerce Photography | ✅ | ✅ |
| Fast Motion/Sports Photography | ✅ | ❌ |
| Headshot Photography | ✅ | ✅ |
| Outdoor Portraits | ✅ | ❌ |
| Pet & Animal Photography | ✅ | ❌ |
| Photo & Content Creation | ❌ | ✅ |
| Baby and Maternity Photography | ✅ | ✅ |
| Wedding/Events Photography | ✅ | ✅ |
Ultimately, the right choice depends on your shooting style, subjects, and workflow. Some photographers prefer the power and flexibility of flash, while others value the simplicity and real-time feedback of continuous LED lighting.
If you'd like some advice for your shooting situation and you're still stuck between LED and flash, get in touch with us at info@essentialphoto.co.uk and our Product Advisor team will be able to help with some recommendations on lighting to get you started in your photography journey!
