OM System OM-1 & Godox Flash for Focus Stacking Fixed! ep.469 

Thanks for the tip on using the FLM3!

What you have stated is my experience as well. As for legacy mode, I put some tape over the 4 pins on the camera's hot shoe and mounted the trigger. Works the same as legacy mode!

Glad it helped!

Happy to help.

Glad to help

You're welcome!

Same experience here. I use the Flashpoint V350-O which is exactly the same as the Godox counterpart. The only reason I picked the Flashpoint is in case I need to claim warranty & Adorama covers it. The V350 works beautifully with the OM-1 Focus Stacking. The lithium ion rechargeable battery alone makes it worth it since I used to carry a lot of AA batteries for my Meike 320. The V350 also has never misfired in my experience. Makes me so irritated with the kind of experience I had with Nikon's & Canon's top speedlights that are almost 4x the price of a V350. And the size gives a good height for my diffuser, not too tall like a regular speedlight but not too low like the Meike 320. Good day!

I'm thinking of replacing my tt350 with the vn350. My tt350 is getting flaky and not powering on all the time. I'm not really into macro, so size is not an issue for me when it comes to flash. Still, it's nice to carry a small flash with me everywhere.

@@mikef.9931 Hiya thanks for the comment am I right in thinking the V350O works with focus stacking on the OM1 ? I was going to buy that flash but it was out of stock everywhere in the uk when i wanted one thats why I got the V860iii .

@@jimwilson542 Hey Jim! Sorry for the late reply. Yes you are right in thinking the Godox/Flashpoint V350-O works with the OM-1’s Focus Stacking feature. Here’s what worked for me. I use the M.Zuiko 90mm macro. When I set the stack at 15shots, 4 focus differential, 0 charge time…I am able to get flash on all frames IF the flash power is set to 1/16 or weaker. I use a homemade white plastic diffuser with a foam glued to it. I get really good pics between from f3.5 to f11. I’d say my success rate with these settings is about 60% HANDHELD because I have shaky hands even with the IS turned on both on the body & the lens plus the 90mm focal length. Of course, the percentage increases drastically with a tripod. When I set the flash power to anything above 1/16…the speedlight’s recharge time is longer & you will need to set the charge time on the camera to a longer interval. This then results to my struggle of trying to keep the camera steady for an even longer time. In my opinion & use-case, to set the charge time longer than 0 defeats my purpose because of my shaky hands. So that’s my own limitation when it comes to using the Focus Stacking on with the Godox V350. You might not have that problem with a .1sec, .2sec, .5sec or even a 1sec charge time. If so then you can have an even better success rate than me while doing a handheld shot with the stacking & flash on. To sing my praises to the V350, I went to a garden yesterday & my camera was probably powered on or on standby for almost 6 hours & the flash was on for the same duration. I used up on BLX-1 & 2 Wasabi equivalents. But the speedlight’s Li-ion battery was still at around 60% when all was said & done. And I probably lit about 3,000 frames with the flash. A big chunk of that were single frame shots with 1/2 power. Even with the limitations I mentioned, if my V350 ever breaks then I’m buying another one in a heartbeat. For these reasons: rechargeable, battery life, good size & more than enough power even when used with a white plastic diffuser & a packing foam glued to it. Apologies for the long reply, I was just happy & excited to share my experience with you.

@@RobTrekSir, first of all, I must thank you for all that you do for us. All these informative videos that’s on your channel, that’s how manuals should be written. I’ve always wondered why manufacturers brag about features on ads when a camera is coming out but they never explain those features in their manuals & more importantly the don’t always explain the use-cases for those features they dearly brag about. Rant aside, the V350 was a day & night difference for me because of the Li-ion battery. I also have the V1, same thing. I will never go back to AA-battery-powered speedlights again. Purely just out of convenience. Also, in my experience, Godox speedlights are just more reliable that Nikon & Canon. I used to have a Nikon SB-900 & my bestfriend a Canon 580EXii they were both anything but hearthaches & overheating. They were also almost twice the cost of the V1s. At $150, the V350 is not cheap. But to me it was worth every penny. At least for my use-case. Thank you again for your hard work!

I think the advantage of the v350 over the tt350 is simply the recycle time. The lithium battery makes a huge difference. But I'm sure you realize that having an 860. As for the other things you wrote, I'm a bit confused. Please elaborate on what this white balance trick is. If I'm using the flash on-camera, focus stacking works regardless of white balance setting. Also, if I take the flash off for single shots, the flash icon greys out in the control panel and I'm back in full control of the camera. I'm not even sure I answered your question in this video, as I assumed you were having trouble using stacking with off-camera flash. Let me know. Thanks. -Rob

@@RobTrek I am not sure how it worked either I asked a pro photographer I know and he was bewildered but I did change the white balance setting after I had tried everything else i had seen suggested , the comment was made by someone replying to a question as it had worked for him to someone who was having the same problem v860iii and OM1 not working together for stacking . As I mentioned it was not the ideal solution so a couple of days ago I reset the camera and was resigned to the fact to just use the flash for single shots . I set my C1 to focus stacking because in good light I am getting nice results hand held and no flash . I had the flash on the camera and had forgot to turn it off when i saw a nice insect to stack and hey presto the flash worked as though it was set up for it ? it fired multiple times even though the recharge time was set to zero . So I changed the settings in stack to 0.1 recharge time and it worked ok for the rest of the day . Anyway I have just retested it did a few test stacks and it works ok as though it was meant to so fingers crossed it will carry on working ok . The v860 works great I use it in manual mode . I hope this helps ( I`m not the best at explaining things in writing so thats why there could have been some confusion about how I use the flash thats my fault ) . And once again many thanks for the time you put into these videos and explaining the OM cameras .

Hi, Steve. Good to hear from you. Yes, I did address the reflector at 03:40.

Thanks for sharing the Nikon version info.

I suspect the "N" version for Nikon is not compatible with the OM-1. Hence, this odd behavior. Try using a little scotch tape to cover the 4 smaller contacts on the hot shoe and see if that works.

@RobTrek Thank you Rob, I will try that. 👍🙂

I just tried this with some scotch tape and it worked!

@@RobTrek I tried this and it didn't fire the trigger at all. Can you be more specific?

Hi. Sorry for the very late reply. Unfortunately, for focus stacking, the godox flashes do not work with the OM-1. However, focus bracketing should work. The key to focus bracketing is to make sure you're not using flash power more than 1/8th or 1/16th. If you need more power, you need to set the charge time to the allow the flash time to recycle.

My V1 works when I set it to Manual. In TTL mode, it fails. So you will need to set the power output of the flash. Make sure you set it to power output that matches the bracketing. For example, 15 shots, set power to 1/16 or lower. For 25 shots, 1/32 or lower. If the flash output is not enough to light the scene, then you'll need to raise iso or use a lower aperture. Shutter speed won't have much effect but it needs to be less than the sync speed 1/250 for mechanical and 1/100 for electronic shutter.

It's most likely the flash power is too high and it pauses to recycle. Try not to use anything more than 1/8th power and it should work smoothly. However, if that is not the case, let me know all your exposure settings so I can further diagnose.

@@RobTrek Alright, thank you very much for your help!, I will test it this week!

@@RobTrek I'm getting it to work, Can I send you a photo of my settings via an Instagram message?

You need to think about moving the focus plane along the entire depth of the subject. A good way to practice is lay a ruler down on the table and start focusing from 0" to 10". Make sure your depth of field overlaps as you move the focus point from front to back. Then stack in PS and look for "holes" - places that are out of focus. Then try again. If shooting smaller subjects, practice from 0" to 1" and so on.

@@RobTrek Thank you! That helps a lot.

I just tried it. It works fine. Just keep your shutter speed 1/100th or faster and set everything else manually.

@@RobTrek fantastic thank you my friend. I actually don’t have the OM-1 yet but not being able to shoot High Rez in flash mode at work for product photography was stopping me from getting it. But I love all the fun features it has for after work like the live ND and starry sky. Now that I know it can I will definitely be grabbing one but I might wait for the Mark Ii to come out with the graduated ND and 14 bit files So glad I found this video. Thanks again my friend.

I don't have the xpro F, but I do have the V1 F. It does fire in full manual mode on my OM-1. Also, I can put the V1 F in transmitter mode and it will control all my other godox flashes in full manual. The camera can be in any mode, PASM, just the flash power needs to be in manual. So I think it's safe to assume the xpro F will work.

@@RobTrek Is there any possibility that something bad will happen if I try to see if the trigger fires the Godox AD 300?

@@dandanu2526 Nothing bad will happen. I mix godox flashes for Nikon, Fuji, Olympus, Sony all the time.

@@RobTrek It works fine! Thank you so much Rob for everything you do for us!

No changes. OM doesn't think it 's a problem and Godox has not done anything.

@@RobTrek Okay. I had the xpro II ordered then I found out about its replacement. I was able to cancel my order and place a pre-order for the new one. Hopefully it will have solved the problem.

@@LarryFasnacht It should. Others have commented it worked for them.

Thanks for the link.