X2T-P received: first tests and first disappointment

morenjavi · 09-24-2019, 01:36 PM - **1 Like**

Hello everybody:

In the middle of all the excitement for the new Pentax camera, I have received my X2T-P, that I ordered some days ago. So this day promised a lot.
This is not a detailed review, but just my impressions and quick tests.

BUILD QUALITY
I can't say if the plastics and construction are way better or worse than the XPro. I feel the XPro more robust... I like the texturized finish of the X2T more. Buttons seems of greater quality on the X2T. The X2T upper shoe seems robust, It can support a medium sized flash, but I think it's better to put a small one, just to handle the camera better if that's your idea. The Xpro have a soft cover for the USB and sync port; the X2T have the ports exposed. The main dial on the X2T, that you use to change power and other settings, feels better that the Xpro's main dial. And of course you have the nice lever lock foot.

TESTS WITH MY AD200
Change power, enable or disable the AD200, use manual or TTL mode, HSS ... everything seems to work as good or bad compared to the XproP. TTL needs the same adjustments as the Xpro, that is, when use HSS is better to compensate -0.7 or so.
Another test I did, was to control the AD200 in multi-master mode, with my XproP in one camera and the X2T on other one. It worked fine.

THE 'DELAY' SETTING
Ok, this was one of the main reasons to buy this trigger instead of another XproP: just to play with sync delay settings, because my idea was to sell my Cactus Triggers if this setting worked as the Cactus DELAY SYNC setting. So this setting does just exactly that, it adds a firing delay for your remote flash. This is good if you want to play and experiment. In my opinion, this setting have sense when your remote flash doesn't have HSS enabled. Then you can sync two ways:
A. 'exceed sync' (this is a term that David Hobby invented - here). This is to sync with your flash at speeds above sync speed, but just only up to 1/400 or so. First and second curtains doesn't cover the frame a lot, and you can get usable images and lower the ambient light, maybe a stop or more. For most Godox flashes, 4.4ms is a good setting.
B. Powersync/Hypersync. That is, you set your flash at full power (no HSS) and play with the setting to get the most light possible in the frame.
This setting doesn't enable or disable HSS on your remote flash, so you need to disable HSS to play with this setting. It's the same some of us did when we stacked the XProC on top of the Cactus V6-II months ago, before the XproP existed, to get HSS & power sync.
Honestly, playing with this setting is the only thing I do with my Cactus receivers, so my idea was to sell my Cactus triggers after buying the Godox one.

OTHER NICE FEATURES
Other features I like from this flash are the SCAN function that, well, scans and find what are the best channels to use in your area.
AF assist light is really nice
Top hotshoe. This shoe is a single pin one, so no TTL-pass or similar. It will fire your flash above sync speeds too.
I didn't test Bluetooth, sorry

MISSED FEATURES
Compared to the XProP you miss several features, like:

* lot of direct buttons to: select ALL groups, enable/disable MODeling light, CHannel or HSS sync
* zoom mode
* TCM. Yes, the X2T doesn't have TCM
* only A/B/C/D/E groups supported. The Xpro support up to 16 groups.

CAMERAS TESTED
I tested the X2T mainly with my K3-II camera, but also with my K5 an K10D. It's strange, but at the beggining, HSS was not working with my K5... but after some time of testing, it just worked. I have no idea about the problem... maybe dirty contacts on my K5, I don't know.

THE DISAPPOINTMENT
Ok, after testing this trigger with my AD200, I tested my old AD360 (mk I) and V850, flashes that need XTR16 receivers. Again, power control, HSS... everything seemed to work fine. Then I tested multi-master mode (in multi-master mode, the Godox trigger send all the power or ON/OFF settings to the remote flashes, and then, it fires) and noticed that the X2T didn't change any power setting. The Xpro did fine. Ok, not a big issue, modern triggers usually set all the remote flashes when you turn the trigger on. So turning off-on quickly is a safe way to set all your flashes with the trigger's setting. But this trick didn't worked with the X2T. So then I just made a simple test: enabling/disabling groups. I couldn't believe it, it didn't work at all. I couldn't enable of disable any flash with a XTR16 receiver.
This means that this trigger is unusable for me, I'm so disappointed... I hope this was a bug with this unit that will be solved soon... came on Godox, what's that?

Ok, that's all for now. If some of you have received this trigger, maybe you could make the same test I did with 'old' flashes. I liked to know if my unit is faulty, or it's a bug on the Pentax triggers. Thanks in advance.

Regards.

Last edited by morenjavi; 09-25-2019 at 12:31 AM.

Class A · 09-25-2019, 05:27 AM

So does the X2T work fine with your XTR16 receives in standard mode?

Why do you need multi-master mode?
If the latter doesn't work, it is probably possible to work around that, e.g., by making a change to the trigger before taking another shot with it.

I should get my X2T-P in one or two days. However, I don't have any XTR16 receivers to test with.

morenjavi · 09-25-2019, 11:28 AM

Hello

Originally posted by Class A

So does the X2T work fine with your XTR16 receives in standard mode?

No, using single or multimaster mode the problem is the same. I get a really 'buggy' behaviour with XTR16/XTR16s receivers. Setting the group to OFF/-- doesn't have any effect on v850/AD360 flashes. I did more tests and the trigger can enable a flash that was previously in OFF status. But, if you have a flash set to OFF, and you have your X2T trigger with the corresponding group set to OFF/-- too, and press the trigger button a couple times... the flash wakes up and fires, what is weird. This firmware seems buggy and not tested enough. With this firmware, this trigger is unusable for me, I have 3 Godox flashes, two of them need the XTR receivers. I can't disable when needed, and they will enable when not needed, it's great!

I have read the manual and it says clearly that this trigger is compatible with V850/AD360 flashes using XTR16/XTR16s receivers, so it's clear that the testing team didn't make its work. My hope is a future fix. I have noticed that X1T triggers have up to 19 firmware releases. Well, we are just on the first one v1.0 release for the X2T... so let's wait for the next

Originally posted by Class A

Why do you need multi-master mode?If the latter doesn't work, it is probably possible to work around that, e.g., by making a change to the trigger before taking another shot with it.

I need multimaster mode because I use two cameras, with two triggers with different settings for my three lights. Multimaster is not so mandatory for me, because most modern Godox triggers (XT32/XPro) send all the settings to the remote flashes when you turn it ON, so when I had the XT32 as my second trigger, my trick was to turn it OFF-ON quickly before shooting, and this way I was sure that the configuration were set correctly. This is not needed with the Xpro with multimaster mode enabled, but you can forget about multimaster on the XPro and make the same (OFF-ON before shoot).
I'm afraid there is not workaround for this, it's not a problem of setting the power, but basic enabling/disabling groups. I need different groups enabled for main and second camera/trigger. My workaround is... to use my nice XT32, or my XproC, that I stil have (but I liked to sell).

Originally posted by Class A

I should get my X2T-P in one or two days. However, I don't have any XTR16 receivers to test with.

Then you are lucky, you will not have problems for sure. My AD200 works fine with this trigger. Of course, if needed and your flash have USB port, You can change to buggy mode by disabling wireless on your flash, putting a XTR16 receiver, and enjoy

Class A · 09-25-2019, 08:31 PM - **1 Like**

Adding to morenjavi's first impressions I'm super disappointed to find the same inefficient group toggling approach on the X2T-P that exists on the XPro-P. I was hoping to be able to use just the group button to cycle through the modes (TTL/M/OFF) but one still has to use the mode button.

In a video demonstration of the X2T (admittedly the Canon version) this was clearly different. Either the presenter used the Flashpoint version (but the unit had "Godox" written on it) or the Canon version works differently (EDIT: It doesn't), or the initial design was different and the demonstration was that of a prototype.

@inkista Would you know anything about this?

The above alone pretty much means that I'll always use the XPro-P instead and will just have to wait for the Flashpoint R2 Pro MarkII to arrive to obtain an efficient group toggling behaviour. Group toggling is so frequently needed when setting up lights that it should be way easier to achieve than using group buttons and the mode button in combination (plus longer than necessary cycles for groups A-C).

FWIW, on both triggers groups D and E do not support TTL so at least the toggling these groups does not require one to cycle through TTL as well all the time.
The Cactus V6II allows to configure an "TTL & M", "TTL only" or "M only" mode, making it faster to toggle groups if one never uses a mixed approach.

The other big problem on the X2T for me is that the dial operates the wrong way around. Intuitively, I want to pull my thumb outwards to increase values. Sadly, the X2T requires me to push it in.
Again, the Cactus V6(II) has a configuration option that let's one choose the dial direction.

I find the "long-press" delay way too long. It takes too long for the long press action to activate; with a "2s" delay one is literally waiting for the action to happen. I don't understand why they chose such a long delay, in particular because long presses are frequently needed for toggling the modelling light and selecting the "ALL" group selected behaviour. A regular button click is so much shorter and I don't think there would have been any confusion between short and long presses if they had made the long-press delay much shorter. FWIW, the long-press delay on the AD200 appears to be about half that long (and could be made shorter itself).

I was surprised to see that the delay is configurable in tenth of milliseconds. That's very precise!
However, I think that a maximum delay of 9.9ms is not long enough. It may just be enough to fine-tune HyperSyncing, but it is certainly not enough for other creative uses of delay. The V6 (II) offers a much wider range (but only millisecond resolution).

Having said that most creative uses depend on the flashes offering a delay function and Godox delivers here.

I briefly tested the Bluetooth functionality and as expected it worked.

Overall, it is good to have a backup trigger for now, but once I receive the Flashpoint R2 Pro MarkII, I'll probably sell the X2T-P. It's main differentiator to the Xpro is the top hot-shoe and I never use on-camera flashes. The additional Bluetooth functionality compared to the Xpro is great as well (the phone app isn't ideal but allows quicker group toggling than any of the triggers), but I'll get that through the Flashpoint R2 Pro MarkII (and the Godox A1).

EDIT: I may not sell the X2T-P after all. I noticed that I can operate a group button and the mode button at the same time (using index finger and thumb). That makes it quicker to toggle a couple of groups compared to the XPro where the natural way of operating is to use the thumb moving between the group buttons and the mode button. Hmmh, I'll have to play with the X2T-P a bit more.

As for the Cactus comparisons I made above, I mainly wanted to show that there is room for improvement regarding usability. I think that the Cactus V6 (II) is better thought through in terms of UI ergonomics (the V6 II makes some unfortunate choices too, though). Overall, however, I think there is no doubt that the Godox system overall is preferable since Cactus offer only the RF60X whereas Godox offers a full ecosystem of lighting solutions. In particular the AD200 is a super attractive option for on location use. Had Cactus been able to launch the RQ250, it may have become another story but I haven't seen any developments since the respective Kickstarter campaign narrowly missed its goal.

BTW, the dial on the X2T is much better than any V6 (II) dial. The clicks are very well defined, it's quite large and well-positioned.

One positive change compared to the Xpro is the hot-shoe lock lever which is quicker to operate than the XPro's wheel.

Another positive change is that it is possible to choose an EV-based power scale instead of the common but archaic fractional system. I hope this will come to the XproP as well through a firmware update.

Last edited by Class A; 09-27-2019 at 03:03 AM.

pid · 09-26-2019, 01:06 AM

I am combining Cactus V6II with TTL Passtrough and the Godox Xpro-P on top of it to use a mixed environment of different flashes. Works fine, with no issues.

morenjavi · 09-26-2019, 01:09 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by Class A

inefficient group toggling approach

Agree.

Originally posted by Class A

I find the "long-press" delay way too long

Agree.

Originally posted by Class A

I think that a maximum delay of 9.9ms is not long enough

I compared this setting with the Cactus POWER SYNC ADJ. To set a 'exceed sync' scenario, I need about +10 on Cactus and 4.4ms on Godox. Both intervals seem roughly equivalent. If you need longer delays then it's not useful.

As I can't get FLASHPOINT versions, my option by now is to wait for a new firmware release that fixed the problems with XTR16 receiver. After selling some of my old speedlights, my plan is to get the V1, that have (I hope) good triggering capabilities. A setup with V1P on main camera and XproP on second camera can be adequate for me. This is really my main 'plan' for this year, turn camera+trigger+flash+bracket into camera+V1P.

Regards.

Class A · 09-26-2019, 02:07 AM