OMD EM1 III doesn‘t seem to recognize the flash anymore, doesn‘t automatically limit shutter speed

Joseph S Wisniewski wrote:

macrophoto_markus wrote:

I just noticed an issue with my camera and i‘ve tried everything

Define "everything".

and can‘t seem to find a solution.

My first step is to clean the contacts. A Q-tip swab and some pure isopropyl alcohol or methanol works great. By "pure" I mean something like sensor-cleaning grade. Not "70% denatured rubbing alcohol" from the chemist/pharmacy/drug store. Let them dry thoroughly, because alcohol and electricity don't mix.

• A pencil eraser wrecks contacts. It's slightly abrasive, full of sulfur, and typically picks up a ton of skin oil.

Thanks! I'll pick up some isopropyl alcohol later today and see if that works.

The next step is that Oly contacts are notoriously fiddly, and the end stops on the hot shoe are just as notoriously failure-prone. if they fail, the flash moves too far forward in the shoe, disconnecting one or more communication contacts.

Can you hear the larch pin engage when you mount the flash and turn the lock ring or lever (can't remember which Godox has) on the flash? If not, try gently sliding the flash forward and back. Is it locked in? Can you feel the pin drop?

I feel like it's locked in, the hot-shoe/end stops don't look damaged and there is a tiny click when sliding the flash into it.

Take a short wire and connect the flash's fire pin (the large pin in the center of the flash shoe, not the smaller data pins) to the ground contacts on either side of the grooves in the sides of the flash's shoe.

Yes, contact problems really are so epidemic that they're the first thing I check, even before settings. But now that we've got the mechanical stuff out of the way...

I'll try that too! Thanks for the suggestion.

Make sure you've turned off any "silent" or "electronic shutter" modes. Those modes disable flash on virtually every brand of cameras.

Try getting together with a friend with the same brand equipment and trying their flash on your camera and your flash on theirs.

The issue is, that connecting the flash, doesn‘t actually limit the shutter speed anymore, it almost seems like the camera doesn’t recognize the flash anymore.

There's no "almost". Mount a zoom lens and zoom a bit: is the flash tracking the focal length changes? No? Then it's dead, Jim.

I, unfortunately, don't have a zoom lens, what I mean is that if I connect the flash it'll somehow fire no matter what I set on the camera, when I turn off the flash on the camera itself the Godox will still fire, setting the flash to TTL won't work either, the flash won't adjust the brightness anymore, the strength of the flash is basically always the same. It feels like the camera can still send a "fire" notification to the flash but there is no other communication between them anymore.

I use a Godox V350O and when i connect it to my camera i can still set the shutter speed to like 1/320. In focus bracketing it doesn‘t limit the shutter speed either and doesn‘t fire at all, while it does fire in single shot mode.

I‘ve tried every setting i could think of,

I hope this doesn't sound condescending, but have you updated the camera firmware since the last time you had your flash work properly? Oly is the king of proprietary, obfuscated data formats, and it's fairly common for firmware updates to break communication with 3rd party accessories.

It randomly just stopped working, a couple of days ago when I took some moth pictures it all worked fine. Yesterday when I picked it back up again it just didn't connect to the flash anymore, no accidental falls in between or anything, the only thing I did was recharge the batteries and that's about it.

Oh, and I would highly recommend asking this in the u43 or Oly forums. Flash isn't exclusive to macro: you'll find a lot more Oly users in other forums, and one may have better answers.

Oh, yeah, good suggestion!

even resetted the camera and it didn‘t resolve my issue. Has someone encountered this before and can help me? It always worked just fine, i don‘t understand what‘s going on

How close are you to Livonia, Michigan?

Oh, and about your caption on your picture that you think you're going insane...

Embrace it. Sanity and art don't mix. Now, there are exceptions: for example, all of me are perfectly sane...

Thanks for the long answer I really appreciate it! I hope I can fix it somehow.

Edit: I think I may have found the issue? I am sorry if I can't explain it properly I don't really know much about cameras/flashes.

Here's the pin I think is the issue.

I just noticed that one of the pins on the Godox isn't protruding anymore. I unforunately sold all my old camera gear (a Panasonic and a Meike flash), but from the pictures I took for the listing it looks like this exact pin was sticking out on the Meike flash, while on the Godox it is completely flat. Do you think this could be the issue? Might be a really stupid question but I mostly use my camera to document arthropods for inat so i am really not well versed with this stuff lol

Edit 2: Oh it protrudes when you turn the lock ring, i am an idiot