Adaptalux Roundup 2023

Hello everyone, Sam here!

2023 went very fast, where did it go? Once again, there have been many changes in both Adaptalux and my personal life. I hope everyone is doing well over Christmas and looking forward to celebrating the new year.

Adaptalux has continued to grow steadily and push the frontiers of macro lighting. We have many new users saying our lighting is exceptional and the best on the market for macro photography. It’s now been 9 years since I started this venture, and every year we make many improvements and continue to think of new ideas that make our products even more useful for photographers. The work we see from our customers using our lighting is truly breathtaking.

This year we launched the Pod Mini, which makes our product range more affordable for all. We have already sold over 1,200 Pod Minis, which is quite staggering considering they launched only 5 months ago! They seem to be a big hit, and we have had comments on how flexible they are, both on their own or alongside the Pod 3. We always strive to please our existing customers alongside new ones when we launch something new so it’s great to hear everyone is equally pleased!

More Product Improvements

Continuous improvement is built into the heart of all of the design-based work I do, and when I see something that can be improved, we do it! Here are some of the big advancements made this year:

• Stiffer gooseneck, that holds the weight of the arms better and allows you to more precisely control lighting position.
• Pod 3 female connector improved further for increased connection reliability.
• Various improvements to the Pod 3 software.
• Various improvements to the Pod Mini software.
• Pod Mini design changed to a 1/4-20 thread due to popular request.
• iOS and Android App both updated.
• Expanded the number of parts we manufacture in-house.
• Improved Assembly procedures at our HQ for a number of products.

We hope these improvements continue to enrich your Adaptalux experience.

A Personal Note (again!)

On October 23rd this year, my wife and I welcomed our second Son to the world, Oliver. He and I share a birthday, which makes it easy and it was the best birthday present anyone could ask for! He’s now 9 weeks old as I write this and growing every day! He is very mischievous and sleeping is getting better by the day. Arthur is an excellent big brother, always at hand to bring extra dummies or an empty bottle if he is crying ha! We are now a family of 4, and for now, that’s certainly enough!

On the Horizon

I have spent a good amount of time this summer, designing new products for the Adaptalux range. These are in development, but rest assured, you will be seeing new additions to the Adaptalux family next year. These products will expand our product range further and will enhance your photography lighting in new ways. I can’t say much more than that for now 😀

Marketing and our Amazing Community!

We love our community! It has continued to grow this year and the Adaptalux Community Group on Facebook continues to really impress us. Please keep sending in your images, we love to see your work.

Ben continues to make great advances as head of the marketing department. As always, he continues to make fantastic macro tutorials for the Adaptalux YouTube channel and I know his techniques are an inspiration to many macro photographers out there. He’s slowly becoming famous! We also networked with Nottingham University this year, who invited us to photograph their large specimen collections. We will be back there again next year!

Behind the scenes, Ben continues to work on new marketing strategies and the website, with big improvements to website speed and usability. We continuously endeavor to stay competitive introducing incentives like free shipping and offers to certain regions.

If you have not checked out our YouTube channel, be sure to visit and subscribe to get new ideas and also take a look at our Community page and join the group.

Shipping Department!

Billie continues to brilliantly manage the ever-increasing demand for shipping while also finding time for product sub-assembly! The Pod Mini means there are now more parcels than ever to ship, but Billie smashes this challenge every single week.

Brexit continues to be a nightmare for shipping to Europe, but we are now starting to see improvements. I still begrudge Brexit, one of the most ridiculous votes in UK history and the loss of EU – UK trade and visa versa has had a huge effect on the UKs economy and small businesses. We continue to find ways to overcome this though!

Bring on 2024!

We have plenty more plans for 2024, which means it should be another exciting year. The Photography Show is back in March, and we are really looking forward to seeing you all. We have missed it this September! As mentioned, we have some new products in the pipeline and I am sure next year will also bring some challenges, but with our small but brilliant team, I am sure we will overcome them and grow once again.

Together, our team and you, our community, continue to push macro photography forward. We continue to open new macro possibilities by offering you innovative solutions for your macro lighting and boy do you continue to blow our minds with the images you capture.

Please keep sharing your images taken with Adaptalux studio on our Facebook group page, we love seeing your work and your creativity.

Thank you for your continued support over the past 8 (9?) years, I feel blessed that our products are now enjoyed by so many photographers around the world, which just started as a crazy idea in my head all that time ago. I hope you have a lovely Christmas and New Year, we will be back with a bang in January.

Sam 😄