Nikon D750 working with Cactus V6 yet?

LensCapTim

Hello!
   I currently have a Nikon D750 and I am very interested in the Cactus V6 and RF60 system. I switched from Canon to Nikon and still have my Canon 550EX which I am fairly confident I can program to be used with the Cactus V6 system.
My main question is the Cactus system now working with the Nikon D750?
I have read about issues with the hotshoe being a little to forward causing a misalignment with the trigger pins causing firing errors etc. I have heard one small fix is to move the V6 a tad back followed by locking it down.
Has re-positioning the V6 work? Does the clamp not lock fully allowing slippage of the V6 unit causing it to be unreliable?
Thank you for your time on this!

-Mr. Tim-
www.lenscaptim.com 

Antonio

Hello Mr Tim,

I am glad you asked as our R&D team have kept on testing the new hot shoe and they discovered, despite working with D750, it has compatibility issues with some other cameras.

Since the V6 is designed as a multi-brand flash trigger, we cannot risk it by including the new hot shoe on mass production units. As you may already read from other reports, the D750 hot shoe is different from any other NIkion cameras. Therefore, for the time being, we will only offer V6 with D750 hot shoe on our Cactus Store: http://store.cactus-image.com/

Upon checkout, add a note with your order that you intend to use the V6 on a Nikon D750 and we will manually change the hot shoe for you, test it on a D750 before shipping them off to you.

In regards to your question about reliability, even with the new hot shoe at certain mounting angle contact may still be off. However we wouldn't call it unreliable by any means.

On the existing V6, you actually need the V6 to mount further in.

Please let me know if you have further questions.

Thank you.

MDobiey

Just bought a bunch of V6 to find they are not working reliably with my D750!? 

Had to do some research to find this. With the Nikon D750 being one of the most popular recent camera models don't you think you should make that problem more visible to your customers? At least during checkout you should notify that there is an issue and ask if you would need a hotshoe for the D750. You advertise the triggers more or less as compatible with everything there is. And only after buying and running into problems you find out that this is not quite true. No the best sales strategy, I'd say as you will have LOTS of unsatisfied customers and bad reviews. All me friends turned away from buying the V6 after I told them about my issues...

Well, before sending back or selling my V6 I have a last question: If I buy the V6 with a special hot shoe for the D750 will it be compatible with other Nikon cameras? Because it would be pretty useless if I have to have different triggers for different cameras. The whole idea of getting the V6 is that I don't...

Class A

@MDobiey, I think it would be a good idea for Cactus to make a remark about the D750 in the V6 product description or at checkout.

I don't think it is a good idea, however, to blame Cactus for the problems with the D750. After all, it is the non-standard Nikon D750's hot-shoe that's causing the issue.

Nikon D750 users have reported problems with other third-party equipment and even when using older Nikon flashes on the D750, so it is not just third-party equipment that is affected by Nikon's decision to design a hot-shoe that does not quite have the measurements it should have. Shamed be he who thinks Nikon did it to sabotage third-party manufacturers.

Did Nikon warn you at checkout that the D750's hot-shoe is different to any other Nikon model's hot-shoe? Again, I think your suggestion for Cactus to alert users to the issue and point out the option of ordering a special version of the V6 with a dedicated D750 connector is a very good one. I just have a different idea with whom you should be angry with.

LensCapTim

I agree with Class A on this, it's unfair to place a blame on Cactus for a goofy production run of D750s. We live in a world of supply and demand so with that there will always be first run errors. Cactus can provide a mount change which is pretty awesome and very customer care driven. I can see how it can be a frustrating hotshoe issue but there is a remedy.

LensCapTim

I agree with Class A on this, it's unfair to place a blame on Cactus for a goofy production run of D750s. We live in a world of supply and demand so with that there will always be first run errors. Cactus can provide a mount change which is pretty awesome and very customer care driven. I can see how it can be a frustrating hotshoe issue but there is a remedy.
I just ordered the V6 &RF60 combo from Adorama, I can't wait to create images with these tools!

I agree with Class A on this, it's unfair to place a blame on Cactus for a goofy production run of D750s. We live in a world of supply and demand so with that there will always be first run errors. Cactus can provide a mount change which is pretty awesome and very customer care driven. I can see how it can be a frustrating hotshoe issue but there is a remedy.

MDobiey

Yes, of course it is very strange decision by Nikon to use a different hot shoe and yes they should make that clearer in their product description. Finally it is Nikon who is responsible for ALL trouble caused by this design. Especially since they claim to have used a standard ISO 518 hot shoe (http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/dslr/d750/spec.htm) and maybe it is even still within the ISO norm.

Yet people buy the Cactus as an accessory for their D750 and not vice versa. And Cactus is aware of the problem. So while I blame Nikon for the hot shoe, I blame Cactus for not properly informing customers. 

I am not especially angry as I kept my other trigger system just in case and I did not screw the job but they have to be aware that they are producing unhappy customers and bad reviews this way...

LensCapTim

@MDobiey,
   How is your experience with the standard mount for the Cactus V6 on the D750, do you have to move it in a certain position in order to get it to work fine and when you lock it down is it locked pretty tight which does not cause any issues?
I am curious to know more as the complaints do not seem to be specific as to what the unit is doing on the Nikon D750, like do they have to be pushed further back in the Nikon's Hotshoe to have no issues or pulled back a little bit? No one really seems to specify on this.

 

Antonio

...don't you think you should make that problem more visible to your customers? At least during checkout you should notify that there is an issue and ask if you would need a hotshoe for the D750.

Thanks for the suggestion. I will discuss with the marketing team and post an update later.

... If I buy the V6 with a special hot shoe for the D750 will it be compatible with other Nikon cameras?

Yes the current special hot shoe is compatible with other Nikon models as well as other manufacturers but not Pentax.

We are thinking if it is worth looking into making a dedicated D750 shoe with an even better mount and connection stability, but not sure if there's an enough demand for it. On the flip side, many other cameras will not be supported and this is ideologically against Cactus' brand agnostic mentally so we are a bit reluctant.

Plus, I doubt (hope) Nikon won't be using the same hot shoe again on future models. We are not sure about the demand... however, the D750 has been selected as Gear of the Year by both Dpreview and Pop Photo.

I am curious to know more as the complaints do not seem to be specific as to what the unit is doing on the Nikon D750, like do they have to be pushed further back in the Nikon's Hotshoe to have no issues or pulled back a little bit? No one really seems to specify on this.

 

It's the two contact pins at the back that are too tiny so that even a slightest movement of the flash / trigger, the camera looses contact and no TTL information is being passed through.

By beefing up either sides of the hot shoe plate so that when a flash / trigger is mounted, it would minimize any wiggling sideway movements and avoid the two pins from loosing contact / connection.

LensCapTim

So if you have a flash on the unit on top of the camera it cause TTL pass through issues from a not so sound connection. But if you're using the unit alone on the camera for off camera manual flash does it work normally? That's my main concern as I don't care for TTL Flash and solely use manual flash for creative lighting.

raychan

If you use off camera manual flash, the TTL pass-through doesn't bother you at all. The V6 is still capable to control power of the off camera flash. 

LensCapTim

Thanks @raychan!
 My V6 and RF60 arrived and is working perfectly fine with the Nikon D750  in off camera flash in manual. Honestly I have been using manual off camera flash for a long while now and once you run through the paces of good lighting technique you can get a feel for what your flash setting needs to be at, otherwise you can also use the handy feature of the V6 to adjust the power level of the flash and chimp away until the image looks right. I wouldn't rely on the "ease" of TTL lighting as the camera is trying to put things into a neutral gray which is not what most photographers are going for when they are being creative with their photo. Also if you decide you want to shoot out doors and don't have TTL for High Speed Sync one easy option is to get a Variable ND Filter for your lens. It will be less expensive then any TTL flash and triggering system and much faster to use, doing so I recommend getting a 77mm one and several step down rings for other lenses that are a smaller filter diameter. 
One Variable ND filter I recommend is the Tiffen Variable ND Filter, it has only a small color cast, which is ease to fix in Lightroom or Photoshop, and most importantly it does not mess with the images sharpness. It goes from a ND of 8 to 2 which is more then enough when shooting at F1.4, 1.8 to F2.8.