Godox TT685N + Nikon Z50ii issue

Tulipone

Tulipone

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Following some health issues I needed to lose the weight of my FF Panasonic S5 and eventually decided the Nikon z50ii would meet my reduced needs. It arrived this morning.

Having a play with it, I wanted to use an external hotshot Godox TT685N TTL so put the flash on the hotshot and - no flash. Checked and the flash settings appear to be correct i-TTL Zoom and the flash adjusts when the focus ring is moved - so if my understanding is correct then the camera is chatting okay with the flash - it just doesn't trigger the flash. I have tried on Auto and on S with slow shutter 1/60th f8. The flash tests okay and also triggers when in slave mode and flashes when using my XPro trigger and set to slave.

What am I doing wrong? It is driving me crazy! One thought is that the Godox firmware is more upto date on the trigger but not the flash, there is a recent later firmware for the flash but cannot update as the Godox updater is awful and doesn't seem to work with OSX and I don't have Windows.

Is the TT685N not compatible with the Z50ii?
 
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Watching this, as I had similar issues last week but haven’t gone back it yet to investigate further.
 
I'm not 100% sure on your model, but some older flashes don't work TTL with mirrorless. I have a the original Godox V860 and it isn't supported in TTL mode on my Z8.
 
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wilt said:
I'm not 100% sure on your model, but some older flashes don't work TTL with mirrorless. I have a the original Godox V860 and it isn't supported in TTL mode on my Z8.
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I think that this is the thing. I was hoping someone would pop up and say that it was just the latest firmware needed....but I suspect not.

I need to make a decision if off camera flash is sufficient enough or flog these and buy compatible flashes.

Thank you for your reply.
 
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Tulipone said:
Following some health issues I needed to lose the weight of my FF Panasonic S5 and eventually decided the Nikon z50ii would meet my reduced needs. It arrived this morning.

Having a play with it, I wanted to use an external hotshot Godox TT685N TTL so put the flash on the hotshot and - no flash. Checked and the flash settings appear to be correct i-TTL Zoom and the flash adjusts when the focus ring is moved - so if my understanding is correct then the camera is chatting okay with the flash - it just doesn't trigger the flash. I have tried on Auto and on S with slow shutter 1/60th f8. The flash tests okay and also triggers when in slave mode and flashes when using my XPro trigger and set to slave.

What am I doing wrong? It is driving me crazy! One thought is that the Godox firmware is more upto date on the trigger but not the flash, there is a recent later firmware for the flash but cannot update as the Godox updater is awful and doesn't seem to work with OSX and I don't have Windows.

Is the TT685N not compatible with the Z50ii?
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The Godox firmware update software works fine with OSX. However their is different versions of the software you need to use depending on which flash it is. It is a bit of a pain as it’s trial and error as they don’t say which one you need.
 
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I'll try it again tomorrow. I am hoping I missed something but pretty sure I didn’t.

It seems strange that the same era trigger works and the flashes don’t.
 
Mirrorless can be a serious pain in the bum with flashes.

The first thing to check is that you are using mechanical shutter. Electronic doesn't play nicely.

It is almost certainly going to be a camera setting if both units are talking to each other.

Start from ground zero regarding your camera settings and build up (after you have saved your original settings of course.
 
DemiLion said:
Mirrorless can be a serious pain in the bum with flashes.

The first thing to check is that you are using mechanical shutter. Electronic doesn't play nicely.

It is almost certainly going to be a camera setting if both units are talking to each other.

Start from ground zero regarding your camera settings and build up (after you have saved your original settings of course.
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I hadn’t considered the electronic vs mechanical shutter. Thank you, will check tomorrow. To be honest the camera arrived today and no idea how to select either so that'll be useful reading for me tonight.
 
Not sure on the firmware.

Something I did find early on was that my image editing software (linux based in my case but I understand lightroom has had some issues) didn’t like the default raw files. They are some format called HEIF and have some sort of weird proprietary compression. You can turn it off for normal lossless raw files and this may be worth checking out before you take too many shots.
 
I always knew that there would be compromises with the z50ii and this is by no means a massive problem.

It takes some effort to change from electronic to mechanical shutter and that doesn’t seem to wholly be the answer - well the flash still doesn’t work in either mode. The electronic / manual option doesn’t fully work with my lens - the 16-50 and I think the VR stops mechanical shutter option being fully available. It also explains when the trigger works the flashes I guess also.

Day 2 tomorrow and if this is the worst issue then I’m content. It is small, light and from what I have seen so far, images very acceptable.
 
Mozthecat said:
Not sure on the firmware.

Something I did find early on was that my image editing software (linux based in my case but I understand lightroom has had some issues) didn’t like the default raw files. They are some format called HEIF and have some sort of weird proprietary compression. You can turn it off for normal lossless raw files and this may be worth checking out before you take too many shots.
Click to expand...
So far I have opted for raw + jpg and this defaults to nef and jpg - will check tomorrow though.
 
So I tried again with Godox to update firmware, still no luck. I note that USB-C seems to have issues and they suggest a USB-A hub rather than C. The XPro trigger does have a USB-C port and also was unable to update the firmware on that either. To be honest I think the firmware question is a red herring anyway - my issues stem from using the z16-50 lens.

The flashes work as slaves to the trigger so do what I bought them for - so even with the 16-50, a minor issue. Odd how you go down a little path without considering the direction!
 
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