Godox AF assist beam not working with Sony a7rIII and a7III

[jdriesen]

I purchased a Godox V860IIS flash to use with my Sony a7 cameras. For the life of me, I cannot get the AF assist beam to illuminate, which means that I can't use the flash effectively when I need it most -- in very low- to zero-light situations. I've tried contacting Godox, but their customer service seems to be somewhat worthless.

Has anyone had this issue? Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks.

 

[phototeacher]

I have found the same with my A9 and Flashpoint versions (TTL R2 Mini and Zoom TTL R2) (Yes, latest firmware on the flashes!)

I have enabled the AF assist light on the camera, and that does work, but is a rather noticeable orange light. I can't find a way to enable only the flash's AF light on either unit.

 

[Dan Vincent]

I purchased a Godox V860IIS flash to use with my Sony a7 cameras. For the life of me, I cannot get the AF assist beam to illuminate, which means that I can't use the flash effectively when I need it most -- in very low- to zero-light situations. I've tried contacting Godox, but their customer service seems to be somewhat worthless.

Has anyone had this issue? Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks.

That's because the IR assist on flash signal was deliberatly disabled by Sony on E-mount bodies. It won't work if you use, say, an HVL-F60M either, which has an IR assist.

With the release of the HVL-45RM and HVL-60RM, Sony added an LED AF assist on the flashes, which the camera will trigger. Godox has reverse engineered this signal and if you use the X1T-S transmitter, the red AF assist grid will work. It's currently the only Godox flash product where the assist beam will trigger on an E-mount body.

However, Godox has yet to update the firmware on the V860II/etc flashes and the X1Pro-S transmitter to enable the same feature. It's predicted this will show up on the next round of firmware updates for these devices, but they have yet to be released.

 

[phototeacher]

Great information. Hopefully Godox will be able to develop the firmware 'fix' for this.

 

[SQLGuy]

Except that it does work with an Opteka iISO flash on an A7II with the LA-EA4. So, it's not impossible... just weird. There are plenty of other things wrong with that Opteka flash, but they - possibly by accident - got the AF assist to work.

Note that it does not work with this same combination on an A7. Another combination I tried is the Minolta 3600HS(D) on both the A7 and A7II with LA-EA4. No assist with either of these combinations.

I don't know why Sony messed this up, and I really don't know why they refuse to fix it, other than maybe more of trying to push people away from A mount lenses.

--
A7R2 with SEL2470Z and a number of adapted lenses (Canon FD, Minolta AF, Canon EF, Leica, Nikon...); NEX-7 converted to IR.

 

[Trebor129]

I think the Sony body only works with a white-light AF assist. For this reason, I don't think Godex can AF-assist.

 

[techjedi]

Except that it does work with an Opteka iISO flash on an A7II with the LA-EA4. So, it's not impossible... just weird. There are plenty of other things wrong with that Opteka flash, but they - possibly by accident - got the AF assist to work.

Note that it does not work with this same combination on an A7. Another combination I tried is the Minolta 3600HS(D) on both the A7 and A7II with LA-EA4. No assist with either of these combinations.

I don't know why Sony messed this up, and I really don't know why they refuse to fix it, other than maybe more of trying to push people away from A mount lenses.

Its not really about A-mount lenses, its about the MILC sensor. My believe is that it was intentional. The traditional AF assist beams are IR-based wavelengths and MILC sensors have an IR filter. The belief is that since the AF is performed at the sensor, the AF assist beam would never be seen by the AF system due to the filter. It is likely they disabled the AF assist lamp signal from the camera intentionally to avoid support requests saying "Why doesn't my flash's AF beam seem to actually improve AF speed on my mirrorless body?????". So the flash is likely not even seeing a request for AF assist.

Your example of the Opteka flash with LA-EA4 works is because that adapter has a complete SLT PDAF system built into it (bypassing the MILC on sensor AF system), so a traditional IR assist beam would be seen by the adapter's AF system. I am not sure why various combinations of this adapter/body/flash are not consistent.

They couldn't have firmware updated existing flashes to use a different wavelength of light for the AF assist beams, so there isn't a way they could have worked. (at least the pure IR ones).

So then in later flashes, they added an LED-based AF assist lamp which would be seen by the sensor and likely altered the triggering spec to have a traditional AF assist firing mode and a new AF assist mode for the LED lamp. As someone else mentioned already, it was only after this change that Godox X1T-S firmware update allowed the AF beam to trigger. The Godox likely looks for the new signal type and fires its non-IR visible AF assist beam, etc.

Presumably, other flash/trigger manufacturers using non-IR AF assist beams could take advantage of this new mode/trigger and update their firmware accordingly.

 

[SQLGuy]

Except that it does work with an Opteka iISO flash on an A7II with the LA-EA4. So, it's not impossible... just weird. There are plenty of other things wrong with that Opteka flash, but they - possibly by accident - got the AF assist to work.

Note that it does not work with this same combination on an A7. Another combination I tried is the Minolta 3600HS(D) on both the A7 and A7II with LA-EA4. No assist with either of these combinations.

I don't know why Sony messed this up, and I really don't know why they refuse to fix it, other than maybe more of trying to push people away from A mount lenses.

Its not really about A-mount lenses, its about the MILC sensor. My believe is that it was intentional. The traditional AF assist beams are IR-based wavelengths and MILC sensors have an IR filter. The belief is that since the AF is performed at the sensor, the AF assist beam would never be seen by the AF system due to the filter. It is likely they disabled the AF assist lamp signal from the camera intentionally to avoid support requests saying "Why doesn't my flash's AF beam seem to actually improve AF speed on my mirrorless body?????". So the flash is likely not even seeing a request for AF assist.

Your example of the Opteka flash with LA-EA4 works is because that adapter has a complete SLT PDAF system built into it (bypassing the MILC on sensor AF system), so a traditional IR assist beam would be seen by the adapter's AF system. I am not sure why various combinations of this adapter/body/flash are not consistent.

They couldn't have firmware updated existing flashes to use a different wavelength of light for the AF assist beams, so there isn't a way they could have worked. (at least the pure IR ones).

So then in later flashes, they added an LED-based AF assist lamp which would be seen by the sensor and likely altered the triggering spec to have a traditional AF assist firing mode and a new AF assist mode for the LED lamp. As someone else mentioned already, it was only after this change that Godox X1T-S firmware update allowed the AF beam to trigger. The Godox likely looks for the new signal type and fires its non-IR visible AF assist beam, etc.

Presumably, other flash/trigger manufacturers using non-IR AF assist beams could take advantage of this new mode/trigger and update their firmware accordingly.

Yes, but no. The fact that the LA-EA2 and LA-EA4 use A57 AF modules means that Sony should have enabled AF assist with (D)SLR flashes from day 1 when these adapters are in use.

The fact that the Opteka's assist light works for some combinations is mostly confusing, but, since the behavior did change between the A7 and A7II we know that Sony had some awareness about flash-based assist lamp issues.

The fact that Sony disables the body's assist lamp for all adapted lenses (at least for first and second gen A7 cameras), even though it would have helped even with the LA-EA2/4, seems to me to indicate that they either assigned someone who didn't know what they were doing to handle that part of the firmware, or that they really didn't care, or that they really were trying to provide other motivations for people not to use adapted lenses. Have they changed this in the 3rd gen models? There is no way this is not a firmware controllable behavior.

 

[dbm61]

I purchased a Godox V860IIS flash to use with my Sony a7 cameras. For the life of me, I cannot get the AF assist beam to illuminate, which means that I can't use the flash effectively when I need it most -- in very low- to zero-light situations. I've tried contacting Godox, but their customer service seems to be somewhat worthless.

Has anyone had this issue? Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks.

That's because the IR assist on flash signal was deliberatly disabled by Sony on E-mount bodies. It won't work if you use, say, an HVL-F60M either, which has an IR assist.

With the release of the HVL-45RM and HVL-60RM, Sony added an LED AF assist on the flashes, which the camera will trigger. Godox has reverse engineered this signal and if you use the X1T-S transmitter, the red AF assist grid will work. It's currently the only Godox flash product where the assist beam will trigger on an E-mount body.

However, Godox has yet to update the firmware on the V860II/etc flashes and the X1Pro-S transmitter to enable the same feature. It's predicted this will show up on the next round of firmware updates for these devices, but they have yet to be released.

I keep hearing conflicting reports on the X1Pro-S. Some places I've seen says it works, and the reminder is to be in AF-S mode, not AF-C. Other places quote the generic "Godox and AF assist doesn't work with any Sony mirrorless cameras", yet the X1T-S is known to work, so that's not true.

 

[Melte]

Yes, it does now with the XT1-S trigger and off camera flash.

I have the Godox V860IIS flash and the XT1-S trigger on my A7RIII and the flash assist beam works after I upgraded the trigger and flash to the latest firmware. You have to go into the trigger menu and activate it under the new Fn10 position.

--
Cheers, Erik

 

[Cypher42]

But, does it improve your low light AF acquisition, and does it blind your subjects? :/

 

[Melte]

Actually I am not using it because the low light AF is quite good and I am shooting basically only fill flash. I did a test in a black windowless room with the door closed and the AF light went on and focus was aquired almost with the same speed as in good light in my non-sientific test.

 

[Dan Vincent]

I purchased a Godox V860IIS flash to use with my Sony a7 cameras. For the life of me, I cannot get the AF assist beam to illuminate, which means that I can't use the flash effectively when I need it most -- in very low- to zero-light situations. I've tried contacting Godox, but their customer service seems to be somewhat worthless.

Has anyone had this issue? Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks.

That's because the IR assist on flash signal was deliberatly disabled by Sony on E-mount bodies. It won't work if you use, say, an HVL-F60M either, which has an IR assist.

With the release of the HVL-45RM and HVL-60RM, Sony added an LED AF assist on the flashes, which the camera will trigger. Godox has reverse engineered this signal and if you use the X1T-S transmitter, the red AF assist grid will work. It's currently the only Godox flash product where the assist beam will trigger on an E-mount body.

However, Godox has yet to update the firmware on the V860II/etc flashes and the X1Pro-S transmitter to enable the same feature. It's predicted this will show up on the next round of firmware updates for these devices, but they have yet to be released.

I keep hearing conflicting reports on the X1Pro-S. Some places I've seen says it works, and the reminder is to be in AF-S mode, not AF-C. Other places quote the generic "Godox and AF assist doesn't work with any Sony mirrorless cameras", yet the X1T-S is known to work, so that's not true.

A new firmware update was released yesterday for the XPro-S. Aside from adding .1 EV stops, it also adds:

1.To change C.FN-MIN to C.FN-STEP and add the adjustment of 0.1 step.
2.To add the option of C.FN-AF,which supports to achieve AF function in a7RII、a7RIII、a7III and a9 cameras.

It's a bit hard to decipher but my read is that it enables the AF assist light on the XPro-S. I use A-mount so I can't test it, but if anyone here has the XPro-S and updates the firmware you should be able to test to see if the AF Assist light turns on.

 

[Snapsh0t]

Thanks for spotting that. I see new firmware for the various TT350s too.

I've updated my XPro-S and the AF option is tagged on the end of the C-FN list with options for DSRL or MILC. So I chose MILC, made sure the AF switch on the side of the XPro-S was On and pointed my A7R III under my desk - nothing. Powered up a TT685S as wireless slave - got correct exposure on test shot but no red light. I'll wait a few hours until it's properly dark here and try again.

 

[Dan Vincent]

Thanks for spotting that. I see new firmware for the various TT350s too.

I've updated my XPro-S and the AF option is tagged on the end of the C-FN list with options for DSRL or MILC. So I chose MILC, made sure the AF switch on the side of the XPro-S was On and pointed my A7R III under my desk - nothing. Powered up a TT685S as wireless slave - got correct exposure on test shot but no red light. I'll wait a few hours until it's properly dark here and try again.

I think AF Assist also needs to be enabled on the camera body menu, so check that out too.

 

[techjedi]

I purchased a Godox V860IIS flash to use with my Sony a7 cameras. For the life of me, I cannot get the AF assist beam to illuminate, which means that I can't use the flash effectively when I need it most -- in very low- to zero-light situations. I've tried contacting Godox, but their customer service seems to be somewhat worthless.

Has anyone had this issue? Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks.

That's because the IR assist on flash signal was deliberatly disabled by Sony on E-mount bodies. It won't work if you use, say, an HVL-F60M either, which has an IR assist.

With the release of the HVL-45RM and HVL-60RM, Sony added an LED AF assist on the flashes, which the camera will trigger. Godox has reverse engineered this signal and if you use the X1T-S transmitter, the red AF assist grid will work. It's currently the only Godox flash product where the assist beam will trigger on an E-mount body.

However, Godox has yet to update the firmware on the V860II/etc flashes and the X1Pro-S transmitter to enable the same feature. It's predicted this will show up on the next round of firmware updates for these devices, but they have yet to be released.

I keep hearing conflicting reports on the X1Pro-S. Some places I've seen says it works, and the reminder is to be in AF-S mode, not AF-C. Other places quote the generic "Godox and AF assist doesn't work with any Sony mirrorless cameras", yet the X1T-S is known to work, so that's not true.

A new firmware update was released yesterday for the XPro-S. Aside from adding .1 EV stops, it also adds:

1.To change C.FN-MIN to C.FN-STEP and add the adjustment of 0.1 step.
2.To add the option of C.FN-AF,which supports to achieve AF function in a7RII、a7RIII、a7III and a9 cameras.

It's a bit hard to decipher but my read is that it enables the AF assist light on the XPro-S. I use A-mount so I can't test it, but if anyone here has the XPro-S and updates the firmware you should be able to test to see if the AF Assist light turns on.

This is great news! I will try this out tonight. I was only saving my X1T-S for the assist feature.

 

[lattesweden]

Its not really about A-mount lenses, its about the MILC sensor. My believe is that it was intentional. The traditional AF assist beams are IR-based wavelengths and MILC sensors have an IR filter. The belief is that since the AF is performed at the sensor, the AF assist beam would never be seen by the AF system due to the filter.

From my understanding you are fully correct and this is not a new problem for Sony only, it has been around for 10 years since the Panasonic G1 came out as the worlds first mirrorless system camera. All old DSLR manufacturers flashes with IR-light has the same problem. My old Panasonic flash doesn't work with AF-assist on the m4/3 bodys.

Same with Olympus flashes (which are often the exact same unit but with another name and model number). They both went over to white LEDs for AF-assist some years ago.

Sony of course got the same problem with the old DSLR flashes and with the rather recent HVL-F45RM and 60 they went the same way with white LEDs for video and AF-assist. Second generation Sony bodys got support in a firmware update. Third generation bodys seems to have it already from day one.

DPreview reported that they found out in their test that current Nikon flashes don't have a working AF-assist light on the Z6/7, and we know why.

I am more curios why neither the AF-assist light on the camera body or the white LED on the flash only work in AF-S and not AF-C mode, but I have found that old DSRLs seems to have the same function here. So if they just implemented it like it always have been or if there is a technical explanation I don't know.

The Godox reciever uses the same updated AF-assist protocol as the HVL-F45RM and 60 it seems but have red light instead.

Your example of the Opteka flash with LA-EA4 works is because that adapter has a complete SLT PDAF system built into it (bypassing the MILC on sensor AF system), so a traditional IR assist beam would be seen by the adapter's AF system. I am not sure why various combinations of this adapter/body/flash are not consistent.

Do we know if all old DSRL flashes from Sony (meaning everything except the new for mirrorless developed HVL-F45RM and 60) also works with the LA-EA4 and their IR-based assist light?

 

[techjedi]

Your example of the Opteka flash with LA-EA4 works is because that adapter has a complete SLT PDAF system built into it (bypassing the MILC on sensor AF system), so a traditional IR assist beam would be seen by the adapter's AF system. I am not sure why various combinations of this adapter/body/flash are not consistent.

Do we know if all old DSRL flashes from Sony (meaning everything except the new for mirrorless developed HVL-F45RM and 60) also works with the LA-EA4 and their IR-based assist light?

These are not scenarios I have personally tried out. This was mostly my theory as to why it *could* work in that combination.

In an unrelated note, I heard Godox just released new firmeware for the Xpro trigger that enables the same AF-assist feature that was added to the X1T-S a few months back. I will be trying it out tonight.

 

[Snapsh0t]

Good point. I could well have turned that off.

 

[Snapsh0t]

Note the subtle change in the title....

Yes, it works!

Not had a chance to test it at any distance yet but I've seen the pattern it projects and heard the camera lock on to it. :-D