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Features

The Best Profoto Lights for Portrait Photographers

Chris Gampat
No Comments
08/03/2022
5 Mins read
Brittany Smith The Phoblographer Profoto B10x Plus Product Image0178

Photographers that truly care about their work often use Profoto lights. That’s pretty much a universal fact if you’re a portrait photographer. Over the years they’ve become incredibly versatile and offer things like constant lighting and insanely good flash output in a single package. And even today, they still manage to be worth the purchase over much more affordable lights. Portrait photographers doing shoots in studios and on-location will really value Profoto lights for their reliability and power. But more than that, they’ll also like how consistent the colors are. We dove into our Reviews Index to find the best Profoto lights for portrait photographers. Take a look!

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How to Use This Guide to Profoto Lights

Here are some tips on how to use this guide to Profoto lights for portrait photographers:

  • We’ve tested every single product that we’re recommending here. In fact, all the product photos and sample images were shot by our staff. Our Editorial Guidelines don’t allow us to talk about products that we have tested in these feature round-ups. And to read more about those Editorial Guidelines as well as our accredited reputation, please visit our link here to see that and much more.
  • Profoto lights are more or less the industry standard for portrait photographers. Book any photo studio and they’re bound to be there. If they aren’t, I’d be a little suspect.
  • What makes Profoto lights so good? The color consistency means that you don’t need to do as much work in post-production. The powerful output mixed with the small size is incredibly valuable. They’re also pretty easy to use. Our Editor in Chief uses Profoto lights very often.
  • Most of these lights also have built-in LEDs which work as constant lights. But you’re kind of wasting your money if you’re just using it for that.
  • Some of these lights work with the Profoto Camera app on your phone. So you can quite literally use your phone with these lights. It’s pretty cool.
  • Profoto lights can use radio transmitters for Canon, Sony, Nikon, OM System, Panasonic, and Leica.
  • Profoto lights have great flash duration, which helps capture fast movement and overpower the sun’s ambient lighting when high speed sync isn’t available.

Profoto B10X

Who Should Buy It?

In our review, we state:

The Profoto B10X is powerful and portable. It will serve many types of on-site photographers well, from portraits to weddings. It’s strong enough to fight the sun, yet small enough to take on-site. Colors remain consistent from shot to show. It’s a great light for photographers with a large enough budget.

While the light is excellent, it’s best at half power where it will perform consistently even for burst shooting. That’s not uncommon; all flashes recycle faster at reduced power. Photographers who tend to shoot a lot of full power bursts may instead opt for the Profoto B10X Plus, which has twice the power but drains battery faster.

Pros

  • Portable, yet powerful
  • Easy to use
  • Large rear display
  • Powerful modeling light with temperature adjustment
  • 250 Ws of power creates a lot of versatility
  • Better battery life than the B10X Plus
  • Remote access with the Profoto Control app

Cons

  • Power needs to be lowered for consistency in high-speed bursts
  • I wish the Profoto Air Remote displayed more information.
  • High price point

Buy Now

Profoto B10x Plus

Who Should Buy It?

In our review, we state:

“The B10x Plus has a design that is meant to be taken anywhere. Switching between continuous and flash lighting is a quick adjustment. Wedding photographers, photojournalists, fashion, commercial, and portrait photographers will love this light.

The ability to plug in the unit and recharge the battery while simultaneously shooting is a nice touch. But, I do wish this light had a longer-lasting battery. This light is meant to live untethered.

Profoto has color and light consistency down to a science. It is why you buy into the system. The Profoto B10x Plus is a sleek, powerful, and reliable light that produces beautiful results time and time again. Its consistency and HS functionality will meet the most demanding requirements for clients.”

Pros

  • Portable design
  • Fast recycling time
  • Consistency
  • HS with designated trigger
  • Variable Modeling Lamp temperature
  • Power output

Cons

  • Battery life should be better
  • It’s $2,295 and that doesn’t include extra batteries or an air remote.

Buy Now

Profoto B1x

Who Should Buy It?

In our review, we state:

“The Profoto B1X is an extremely and highly capable light. Its capabilities will be most valued by the professional photographer that needs this kind of output so that they spend less time editing and more time getting actual gigs to pay the bills. Profoto continues to be great at build quality and overall fair simplicity vs many other manufacturers with a close exception perhaps being Phottix. Additionally, you can rest assured knowing that the color consistency is great, the power output is more than satisfactory, and the overall functionality and versatility will mean that these lights can tackle any job.

With that in mind, most photographers will have no problems justifying the price point of $2,499 for a Profoto B1X unit and a remote.”

Pros

  • Very color consistent
  • Well built
  • Powerful
  • Lots of power in the battery
  • Fairly simple to use
  • Lovely light output
  • Very bright modeling light

Cons

  • When working with individual lights, I wish that you could get a better reading as to what the actual output is via the Air remote. But Profoto didn’t do this because lots of photographers have multiple lights on a single group or channel. So the adjustments are done to cater to that crowd.
  • Pretty pricey, but if you want peace of mind and a light that will last you for years, you’re not going to complain at all.

Buy Now

The Phoblographer’s various product round-up features are done in-house. Our philosophy is simple: you wouldn’t get a Wagyu beef steak review from a lifelong vegetarian. And you wouldn’t get photography advice from someone who doesn’t touch the product. We only recommend gear we’ve fully reviewed. If you’re wondering why your favorite product didn’t make the cut, there’s a chance it’s on another list. If we haven’t reviewed it, we won’t recommend it. This method keeps our lists packed with industry-leading knowledge. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

lighting portrait portrait photographers profot b1x profoto Profoto B10X profoto b10x plus profoto lights review wedding photographers
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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