Is it possible on a Sony A7-series (A7riv in particular) to do off-camera flash without an added trigger or flash in the hot-shoe? If so, is this only with particular Sony flashes? Are any Sony flashes meant for off-camera using this method?
I’ve begun using Godox for off-camera flash with an X2 trigger and was just wondering if it would be possible somehow to do the same setup without having to carry a trigger on top. I’m not really a big fan of balancing a flash on top of my camera.
Not possible. I mean, some you could use a PC cable, but that would be a step backwards. Well, if you have a tone of continuous lights in a studio, it could be fine.
Huh. I had thought I had seen a video somewhere where someone was configuring manual flash strength straight through the Sony camera menu interface.
Are there any technical obstacles to Sony doing something like this? They’ve already got the “don’t need a cable” advantage for Sony-brand microphones. If there were a similar advantage for Sony-brand speedlights I imagine it would steer some more folks toward buying them.
You could use off camera flashes that have optical slaves and have a flash on the camera, though I'm presuming you're asking about not having to have something in the hot shoe. If that's the case then this doesn't help and would be worse than using radio triggers.
morris e wrote:
Huh. I had thought I had seen a video somewhere where someone was configuring manual flash strength straight through the Sony camera menu interface.
Are there any technical obstacles to Sony doing something like this? They’ve already got the “don’t need a cable” advantage for Sony-brand microphones. If there were a similar advantage for Sony-brand speedlights I imagine it would steer some more folks toward buying them.
You can control the TTL flash output compensation through the camera menu. You cannot control manual flash output. The TTL exposure info comes from the camera and should be equal between different strobes as long as they are compatible with the Sony TTL signals. TTL flash is a one way conversation from the camera to the flash. When a flash operates in fully manual output mode the camera has no way to know what output options it might have. I have never seen a camera that had manual flash output control to external flashes.
Could Sony embed wireless flash control in a camera? Sure. But I'm not aware of any camera brands that have it built in. The camera would be bigger, heavier, more expensive and likely only compatible with Sony's own flash units. Since Sony doesn't make a very wide variety of strobe equipment that would be rather limiting. There are several different non-cross compatible wireless systems on the market: Godox, Elinchrom, Pocket Wizard. If Sony licensed and built in hardware/software to talk to all those systems, the price and heft would continue to increase. I'd rather choose my own flash system then pay for something upfront that I may not even use.
Sony is in the microphone business. So it makes some sense that they might offer baked-in compatibility with their own mics. I'm not familiar with that though. To do something similar with flash, Sony would really need to offer a complete range of strobes which they currently do not.
