Godox AK-R21 Light Projector System First Look

Just before the end of the year, Godox announced a new interesting new product for flash photographers – the Godox AK-R21 light projection attachment. This unit is designed to work with round and rectangular compact flash units and has a number of interesting features.

Projection attachments

There are quite a few projection attachments on the market already (we reviewed several including one from Godox itself). Many of these are designed for the popular large Bowens mount and while they can be adapted to fit smaller Speedlights, they are typically pretty bulky and could be pretty expensive.

Godox decided to take a different route. Instead of developing another Bowens projector attachment with gobos they created a much smaller, lighter, and far less expensive Speedlight projection system that uses slides (although from what we can gather these are not

It is worth mentioning here that this is not the first Speedlight projector on the market. Back in 2013 a product called lightblaster was introduced by an Israeli company and can use Canon EF lenses and normal slides to project an image when connected to a Speedlight.

The Godox AK-R21 system on different Speedlight/strobes

Godox AK-R21 – A different approach

Godox took a somewhat different approach with the AK-R21. This attachment is small and lightweight and can connect to many types of Speedlights. It uses one of three different Godoxz lenses (it might give you optics which is more suited to projecting but fewer options than using an existing mount like EF which would give you a lot more options).

You can buy the Godox AK-R21 with a 65mm lens or get an optional 50mm or 83mm lenses from Godox. The unit uses what looks like proprietary slides and Godox already released several dozens of them which you can buy fairly inexpensively.

Godox AK-R21 tutorial

The unit comes with an option to turn the slide 360 degrees and focus or de-focused (Godox recommends that for “for better result, it’s recommended to zoom your flash focal length above 80mm”).

AK-R21 for product photography background

Godox AK-R21 on a model shoot

Pricing

The AK-R21 currently doesn’t sell as a kit (we guess this will come soon) but you can buy the projection unit and some of the accessories including the slide holder and slide kit for around $140.

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Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.