Interfit S1 and Profotto Remotes

austin · December 2016

Would like to see Cactus be able to pass through on the hotshoe TTL/HSS protocols for nerco-four-thirds cameras. Many pros are shooting on these and numbers are growing.

The hotshoe communication protocols that are used to perform TTL, HSS, and wireless firing are all proprietary and brand-specific which puts Cactus into a niche that no one is filling. There may be concerns of canabilizing sales of triggers on the moonlight side but imagine the potential of putting a Cactus v6ii on you camera hotshoe and then attaching a remote which would then then be able to forward the communication from the camera to the remote. From there the remote would behave as if on a Canon, Nikon or Sony camera depending on the remote being used. Attaching a Cactus via PC sync is an extra hop and isn't necessary at that point. Yes it would eliminate some Cactus triggers, but the potential is huge considering the photographers like myself who have enough of playing the Canon and Nikon game and moved our business onto a new platform. How about it Cactus?

Antonio · December 2016

Hi @austin,

"TTL Pass Through" can be done when you have a camera and a flash both running on the same system.

You said Micro FourThirds (M43 / MFT), so let's say you have an Olympus E-M5 Mark II and you also have an Olympus Fl-600R, you may mount a V6 II on camera's hot shoe, and then the flash on top of the V6 II. And you will be able to use the FL-600R as if it is mounted directly on the camera.

But on your subject you mention Interfit S1 and Profoto remote, I suppose you are looking to use your Olympus / Panasonic camera to trigger one of these studio strobes?

Unless you have an Olympus / Panasonic TTL transmitter by Interfit / Profoto, you will be able to use TTL Pass Through on the V6 II.

Are you looking for TTL metering?

Or you simply need HSS?

Blair · January 2017

@Antonio
This is almost exactly what I have been wondering about as well.

I use a Panasonic GH4 and original v6 with several rf60's. I just ordered a pair of Interfit S1 strobes with the Interfit transmitter for Canon (There is no Olympus/Panasonic one available).

What I would like to do is purchase a V6ii and attach it to the camera, then put the Interfit transmitter for Canon onto the V6ii. The idea would be to control my RF60's with the V6ii and control power and firing of the S1's with the Interfit transmitter.

Will I be able to use HSS on the Interfit strobes with this setup? I do not care about using TTL with the Interfits but it would be a cool bonus.

Antonio · January 2017

Hi @Blair

...Will I be able to use HSS on the Interfit strobes with this setup? I do not care about using TTL with the Interfits but it would be a cool bonus.

We can't be sure as we do not have one to test.

As I mentioned numerous times before, such a daisy chain (stacking) is not how the V6 II was originally deisgned to function, despite some had success in such a setup.

Thanks.

Blair · January 2017

Is daisy chaining perhaps something that you guys would consider developing more in the future? It would be kind of like what Metabones is for lenses but for adapting different brand flashes.

I'm not familiar with the technicalities of how the communication has to work through the hotshoe but it would be cool to be able to use a V6 or future transmitter to operate as an adapter where the V6 can be set to a camera brand and receive the data from the camera for HSS, TTL, whatever else then basically mask the signal so that when it goes out the top hotshoe it behaves like it was a different brand camera.

For example in my situation; a GH4 sends the data through to the V6 which interprets it and converts it to behave like a Canon body, then a Canon specific transmitter for say Profoto which is on top of the V6 thinks that it is attached to a Canon body and would perform its job as it was designed.

Again, I have no idea if this is something that is even possible to do. It would be a really cool way to eliminate problems with photographers using each others gear and not having to worry about who is using which brand. It would also be great for the people who are shooting on something other than Canon/Nikon/Sony where there are no studio strobe transmitters available for other brands. As far as I know Elinchrom is the only brand doing a Panasonic/Olympus transmitter.

Antonio · January 2017

Hi @Blair,

Probably no. The reason is (from what R&D advised me before) is that you are essentially mixing two radio system together and there ough to be delays and such a usage is not intended by us nor other third party manufacturers. We could possibly "look into it" but the study itself means a new project and require new budget.

I have already voiced your comments to management. Will see what they think.

Thank you for your suggestions.

austin · January 2017

@Antonio
This is almost exactly what I have been wondering about as well.
I use a Panasonic GH4 and original v6 with several rf60's. I just ordered a pair of Interfit S1 strobes with the Interfit transmitter for Canon (There is no Olympus/Panasonic one available).

What I would like to do is purchase a V6ii and attach it to the camera, then put the Interfit transmitter for Canon onto the V6ii. The idea would be to control my RF60's with the V6ii and control power and firing of the S1's with the Interfit transmitter.

Will I be able to use HSS on the Interfit strobes with this setup? I do not care about using TTL with the Interfits but it would be a cool bonus.

Blair -

I have the same camera and setup using a Canon Interfit S1 remote on top of the Cactus v6ii hotshoe. It supports HSS. Make sure you update the software on your Interfit remote and strobe to the latest firmware or it WON"T work. You can download from the Interfit website. You can either let the TX Cactus find the correct profile to use in Auto as Antonio suggests, or you can manually define the flash as Canon. For now I have to have a Cactus v6ii set to RX connected to each strobe via a PC sync cable. The only use I can get out of the Interfit remote is to set the power, turn on the modeling light, assign groups, etc. It will not remotely send fire signals.

If the Cactus hotshoe would send fire signals to Canon Interfit remote as it expects from an actual Canon camera, then all would be fine. It doesn't appear after hours of testing that Cactus is converting the signal to the correct pin or it's not sending a signal at all. I haven't had time to run a meter on this to determine which.

What I would expect to happen is that regardless of whether the Cactus detects an actual speed light on their hotshoe, they should send a fire signal to the fire pin based on what it detects during the pairing process. My Cactus identifies the unit on the hotshoe as a Canon device but isn't sending a fire signal for whatever reason or sending it to the wrong pin. If this is solved for we will have a solution that will allow the remote to send out fire signals directly to the strobes without a need for the PC sync. Thanks to Paulster for raising this issue.

Blair · January 2017

Thanks for the info Austin.

The first sentence of your reply I thought made it sound like you were able to fire the Interfit S1 by having its Canon transmitter stacked on top of your V6ii. The rest of your post then made it sound like that didn't work at all. I just wanted to clarify, were you able to get any functionality by doing this or did you need to use Cactus receivers and a sync cable to get anything to work?

I'm just trying to figure out what I need since I don't feel like dropping $400 Canadian on 3 V6ii transmitters at the moment to experiment with. Pretty sure I'm going to buy 1 right away and just use my two original V6 to receive if need be.

I'm a little confused as well why the Interfit remote isn't receiving the firing signal even for manual non-HSS control. I have no problem firing a Canon 430exii speedlight from my GH4 or stacked on the V6 so clearly the Canon flash is getting a firing signal, just not sure why the Interfit remote doesn't get it.

Antonio · January 2017

Hi @Blair

... I'm a little confused as well why the Interfit remote isn't receiving the firing signal even for manual non-HSS control. I have no problem firing a Canon 430exii speedlight from my GH4 or stacked on the V6 so clearly the Canon flash is getting a firing signal, just not sure why the Interfit remote doesn't get it.

Well, my guess is that something must be missing on the Inferfit transmitter, that is lacking when compared to an original Canon flash in how it would behave in the same situation.

Blair · January 2017

@Antonio

I hate to hijack this discussion for the sake of solving my problems but it seems to make sense to continue the conversation here.

I bought a Cactus V6ii which arrived today so I have been doing a bit of playing around. I'm still not able to get things to play nicely together though and was hoping for some more insight. I have been trying things in two different configurations.

Configuration 1:

Camera (GH4), with V6ii in hotshoe set to TX, Interfit transmitter is on top of V6ii. RF60 also turned on to receive.

The V6ii is auto detecting the camera as an Olympus and the flash as a Canon which seems correct. HSS is off.

When I try to take a photo the shutter button gets pushed, the Interfit strobe fires immediately, then there is a moderate delay and the camera shutter triggers with the RF60 timed correctly with the shutter.

If I don't use the shutter button and instead use the trigger button on the V6ii then both the Interfit and the RF60 will fire at the same time with no delay, but of couse without the camera shutter releasing. It seems like the V6ii is preventing the camera from firing the shutter on time for some reason, any thoughts?

Configuration 2:

Camera (GH4), with V6ii in hotshoe. RF60 in RX group B, V6 (original) in RX group A with sync cord going into the Interfit strobe.

There is a small delay for the shutter to release but the strobes fire at the correct time. The delay is enough to be annoying though and would make capturing a specific moment very difficult.

If I use an original V6 on the camera with the V6ii plugged into the Interfit with a sync cord there is no delay.

Is there any way to get rid of the delay or is it because I'm mixing V6 and V6ii? I would really hate to buy more V6ii units and still have a delayed shutter response.

All pieces of hardware have been updated to most current firmware versions.

By the way, thanks a lot for your continued involvement in the community. It is fantastic to be able to have such good customer support.

Interfit S1 and Profotto Remotes

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