When gear conks out, it tends to conk out in great batches all at once. October has been my “conk out” month this year.
My Godox flash trigger has been on the blink for a few months - the on/off switch became loose, so that any contact with anything else caused it to switch on. This resulted in the thing draining of power in my Peli case all the time. It was time to replace it with a new, all-improved flash trigger. Enter the Godox X-Pro 3 with it’s digital interface, improved control of multiple flashes, and USB recharging.
I headed out to a job nearby, and stuck it onto my Nikon D850 to get cracking. The live-view function on my Camranger/iPad combo decided to stop immediately, and the flash wouldn’t fire at all. I’d brought the old flash trigger as backup, so I switched to that - nothing. All flash firing was knackered. I was flustered, and the homeowner must have thought I was a total amateur. My old Nikon D4 was in the case, so I changed cameras, and started again with the old flash trigger. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the relevant USB cable for the camera/Camranger setup, so had to revert to using the viewfinder and rear screen to shoot everything in the house. It worked, but was a bit of a hassle. When I got home, I put all the gear through testing.
The hotshoe on the D850 was devoid of power - nothing put on there would fire - not even a Nikon flashgun. I had a busy few days ahead, and didn’t fancy risking it with a single camera with a 750,000 shutter count, so I panicked a bit and quickly hit the WEX website to find a cheap, temporary replacement for the following day. I got a Nikon D750 body for about £400, and sent the D850 off for investigation and repair (at a cost of between £270 and £490 urghhhh).
The following day I used the D4, the old flash trigger, and the correct cable to handle 3 jobs succesfully. When I got back home, the new camera had arrived. Later in the day I unboxed it and tested everything. As soon as I tried to shoot test frames with the new Godox trigger, the hotshoe just went flat - exactly like the D850 had done the previous day. Nightmare.
I did some reseach, and Google’s Gemini AI query unearthed some vital information that explained the problem. The new Godox triggers have a design which can cause older Nikon cameras to shut down the hotshoe circuits to protect them from blowing out. Doing a factory reset (holding down two buttons) brought everything back to normalcy. If I’d just researched before doing anything else, I could have avoided spending almost nine hundred quid on repair and replacement. Coming up to the months where I’m almost destitute, that’s a lot of money to waste.
I’m going to try and circumvent the repair fees by contacting Wex repairs (formerly Fixation) to ask them to just do a reset and check the flash contacts rather than taking the thing apart.
In the meantime, I’ll send the new trigger back to Godox and carry some extra batteries to keep using my old trigger. If I’m in the refund period, I might send the D700 back as well. It’s going to be a long, cold winter at this rate.
