General bug report for current V6 ii firmware
First of all I have nothing but respect for the brand and all that it's done so my intentions are only to make any possibly fixable bugs known to help make the system the best it can be.
Bugs:
-Off camera TTL exposures are roughly 1.7 Stops under what they should be at 0ev. I tested the exposures against Nikon's own dedicated system as well as godox systems and cactus was consistently underexposing. I tested this with RF60X flashes as well as Nikon and Godox flashes mounted on V6 ii's off camera and the results were all the same underexposure. This could probably be easily fixed with firmware.
-With the current TTL firmware, if you mount a Nikon flash on a V6 ii on a Nikon camera, you can not go over X-sync. If you then remove the Nikon flash the camera still won't allow you to go over xsync until you reset the v6 ii trigger. This also happened when using a canon flash on a canon camera, also locked at xsync (5d mark iv).
-If you mount a canon flash on a nikon camera, it does allow you to go over x-sync, which is strange.
-Nikon SB-700 flash will not work (screen shows M and error) on camera with the v6 ii and ttl firmware unless you set it to master mode in the flash, instead of just 'on'.
-Godox v860C (canon version) on top of a v6 ii on a nikon camera severely over exposes in TTL (calibration issue?).
-All nikon flashes, mounted on a v6 ii on top of a nikon camera severely under-expose in TTL if bounced and not direct. Approx. 2.3-2.7ev under exposure. If communication that the flash is in a bounce position is not possible due to hardware constraints, maybe adding a button/option to tell the v6 ii that the flash is set to a bounce position and compensate for it automatically would be a good option as most event shooters are bouncing and not direct
-Surprisingly a canon 430ex ii on a nikon camera in ttl exposed relatively well in comparison, so I'm not sure the last point is true.
- When using the 5d mark iv with an on camera flash in HSS, with the cross-brand HSS firmware, occasional out of sync frames still happen.
This is all I've noticed so far. The most important fixes should be correcting off camera ttl exposures and if possible, allowing HSS with on camera flash with the ttl firmware using matching flash/camera systems.
Bugs:
-Off camera TTL exposures are roughly 1.7 Stops under what they should be at 0ev. I tested the exposures against Nikon's own dedicated system as well as godox systems and cactus was consistently underexposing. I tested this with RF60X flashes as well as Nikon and Godox flashes mounted on V6 ii's off camera and the results were all the same underexposure. This could probably be easily fixed with firmware.
-With the current TTL firmware, if you mount a Nikon flash on a V6 ii on a Nikon camera, you can not go over X-sync. If you then remove the Nikon flash the camera still won't allow you to go over xsync until you reset the v6 ii trigger. This also happened when using a canon flash on a canon camera, also locked at xsync (5d mark iv).
-If you mount a canon flash on a nikon camera, it does allow you to go over x-sync, which is strange.
-Nikon SB-700 flash will not work (screen shows M and error) on camera with the v6 ii and ttl firmware unless you set it to master mode in the flash, instead of just 'on'.
-Godox v860C (canon version) on top of a v6 ii on a nikon camera severely over exposes in TTL (calibration issue?).
-All nikon flashes, mounted on a v6 ii on top of a nikon camera severely under-expose in TTL if bounced and not direct. Approx. 2.3-2.7ev under exposure. If communication that the flash is in a bounce position is not possible due to hardware constraints, maybe adding a button/option to tell the v6 ii that the flash is set to a bounce position and compensate for it automatically would be a good option as most event shooters are bouncing and not direct
-Surprisingly a canon 430ex ii on a nikon camera in ttl exposed relatively well in comparison, so I'm not sure the last point is true.
- When using the 5d mark iv with an on camera flash in HSS, with the cross-brand HSS firmware, occasional out of sync frames still happen.
This is all I've noticed so far. The most important fixes should be correcting off camera ttl exposures and if possible, allowing HSS with on camera flash with the ttl firmware using matching flash/camera systems.
Comments
Thank you for the report. May I know which firmware is loaded into your V6 II and RF60X?
Regarding to Nikon SB-700, can you switch the flash to TTL mode instead of M. The V6 II uses TTL protocol to control the attached flash. If it uses other modes, some error may occurs.
Regarding the 5D mark iv issue, it could be linked to the flash battery power level. If the battery is at low voltage, the misfire may occurs. The power level becomes unstable when the flash is not fully ready. To test it, you may change with fully charged battery or wait few more seconds between each fire. That will be helpful.
Senior Product Specialist
Cactus®
Harvest One Limited
The SB-700 does what is mentioned when set to TTL, not manual. I'm honestly not too concerned with it as I don't normally use the SB-700 on camera anyways.
The most notable bug is to try to fix the on camera flash TTL severe under-exposure (when bounced) if possible, and re-calibration off camera TTL values. I would be happy to provide a video of everything I've mentioned if it would help!
For the SB-700 ; it is indeed true that for it to work on camera, with TTL pass through enabled on the v6 ii, the flash switch must be set to master, and not just 'on'. But it does work when you do this.
However the flash exposure for the on camera SB700 is also exactly 1.7EV too dark, just like when using TTL mode with off camera flashes and the v6 ii on Nikon.
So basically, ALL ttl with the Nikon firmware is 1.7EV too dark, so maybe it won't be too hard to fix that with a firmware update.
When I say too dark I mean compared to the exposure the native system gives (like a SB 700 directly on camera without the v6).
I will report back with what I find on Canon, because I think this might only be a Nikon firmware bug.
There might be some correlation between bad exposures and interpretation of lens distance data or something.
Also I noticed that TTL exposures are changing with ISO instead of staying the same despite not being anywhere near maxed out on flash output needed.
I think I'll just stick to the HSS firmware and manual flash for now.