Westcott have announced the FJ100 today, and there are actually two of them; there's a speedlite and there's an off camera strobe.
It's the strobe I want to talk about here, partly because it's the more interesting of the two, and partly because it lands right on top of a light a lot of people already have strong opinions about.
The headline is simple enough … hundred watt seconds, a colour touchscreen, a removable battery that charges over USB-C, and a body small enough to disappear into a jacket pocket, and Westcott are selling it at £217 plus VAT.
A hundred watt seconds in something that size
The thing worth sitting with for a moment is that number; a hundred watt seconds is proper output. It's not a speedlite pretending, it's a strobe, and it's arriving in a housing that measures about 16 by 13 by 8 centimetres and weighs 700 grams with the battery in.
The whole design brief here was clearly footprint.
The spec sheet has the usual things you'd want and a few you might not expect at this size …
There's a modelling lamp. There's zoom control running from 24mm all the way out to 200mm. There's stroboscopic mode. HSS up to 1/8000th, TTL and manual, front and rear curtain, and a freeze mode that shortens the flash duration when you need it. It works as both a host and a client on the FJ wireless system, so it'll trigger your other lights or be triggered by them.
The battery is the bit that matters
700 full power flashes on one charge.
Of everything on the spec sheet, that's the one that changes how you actually work.
700 at full power means a wedding day, or an event, or a long portrait session, without the moment where you glance at the battery icon and start quietly doing sums about ISO.
It charges over USB-C, which means a power bank in your pocket, or a laptop, or the back of the car. You can run it off mains as well, so it does studio duty without eating charge cycles.
And it's the same battery family as the FJ80, so if you've already got a drawer of those, they carry straight over.
The touchscreen
The screen is crystal clear. The screens on the other FJ units are very clear anyway and easy to read even in bright sunlight, but this one is a noticeable step up.
That matters more than it sounds like it should. You're reading power values at arm's length, often in bright light, and usually in a hurry.
The Octa 15 and what goes on the front
Alongside the light there's a new Octa 15, a 15 inch softbox that clicks open in one motion and comes with the grid in the box. It's the same twist lock mount you already know from the FJ80, so existing Westcott twist lock modifiers go straight on.
For anything larger there's the S2 bracket, which is designed so the weight sits correctly through the stand rather than hanging off the light itself. That's what lets you put a proper sized box on the front of something this small, and it means my favourite 3' x 4' is still on the table.
The Creative Pack gels drop straight on the front. [FILL IN: the one, two and four light backpack kits, if they're public at launch. Check the retail listings rather than the briefing before you mention them.]
How it compares to the Profoto A2
This is the comparison everybody's going to make, so let's make it properly. The A2 is Profoto's 100 watt second light, and it's £699.
Same wattage. Roughly three times the money.
A few of those deserve a sentence rather than a row.
The modelling lamp difference is the one worth pausing on. Profoto's runs at 3500 K, which is warm, and nowhere near their own flash at 5800 K. Westcott's is 5500 K, essentially daylight, and close enough to its own flash to be useful. One is for judging where your shadows fall, the other you could actually shoot with.
The zoom is the clearest gap. The A2 doesn't zoom at all.
The weight is the odd one. The Profoto is genuinely the smaller light being about the size of a drinks can and the Westcott about the size of a regular coffee mug, but with the battery in and the stand adapter on, which is how you'd actually use it, it comes out at 773 grams against the Westcott's 700. The smaller light is the heavier one.
But none of that is three times the money's worth of difference, and the battery gap runs the other way by a long distance.
Where I'll be with it
I'm looking forward to getting out and shooting with this one properly, and there's a video coming very soon showing it in action, so do keep an eye out for that.
I'll have it with me at all of the Wex Roadshows ( LINK ) I'm on as well. If you're coming to one, come and find me and have a play with it yourself. Pick it up, put it on a modifier, fire it at something. That's a far better way to work out whether a light suits you than any spec sheet is going to manage, mine included.
The travelling is the part I'm quietly pleased about. I've got flights over to Belfast and up to Glasgow coming up, and something this size just goes in the bag without a second thought. Anyone who's wrestled a full sized strobe through an airport will know exactly why that matters.
A hundred watt seconds, a touchscreen, USB-C charging and 700 full power flashes at £217 plus VAT.; on paper that's a lot of light for the money
