Yongnuo incompatibility with my Panasonic gear

[tribal-warrior]

Ive purchased a Yongnuo YN-560III and YN560TX via eBay. Ive managed to pair them together (I can change settings on the Yongnuo speedlight by pressing buttons on the TX as well as firing the flash with the TX.) However, for some strange reason, the TX will not fit on the hotshoe of my Panasonic M4/3 cameras. Doesn't seem to be physically compatible.

The Yongnuo speedlight does fit fine on my camera hotshoes. But I can't fire the flash when I press the shutter button. I wish it was as easy as using my Dad's old speedlight on my 35mm SLR film cameras (all I had to do was tighten the dial above the hotshoe, turn on the flash and it was all ready to go.)

Ive gone into the menu on my G6 and played around with flash settings but still can't get the speedlight to fire when I press the camera's shutter button. Is there some special setting I need to have enabled?

 

[tribal-warrior]

Edit: Okay Ive tried attaching the 560TX again and this time, it does slide into the hotshoe of my G6 but not all the way. It does stick out a bit at the back. Is this normal? There are some pins on the TX that seem to be prevent it from sliding any further. After turning on both the TX and the speedlight (with the TX still mounted to the camera), I pressed the G6's shutter button but the speedlight's flash still won't fire.

 

[tribal-warrior]

There's another strange thing I noticed – in relation to the disappearing menu items. When the attached speedlight is turned off, I can gain access to flash options in the G6's menu like wireless flash and group numbers etc. As soon as I turn the speedlight on, the camera menu disappears. When I turn the menu back on, those additional flash options cannot be accessed. I'm only left with very limited flash settings like flash exposure compensation, choice of first or second curtain etc. I turned the speedlight off and on repeatedly and it doesn't appear to be a coincidence – it does affect the camera's menu (particularly the flash options.)

With the speedlight turned off, I made sure that the group number in the G6's menu matched the speedlight's allocated group number – Group 1. I then turned the speedlight back on and the camera menu and the additional options disappeared as expected. Regardless, I pressed the camera's shutter button but the flash did not fire. The G6's manual states that the external flash must be set to RC mode. Though seeing as the speedlight and TX can communicate with each other, surely this would be the equivalent of RC mode?

 

[tribal-warrior]

Okay, Ive just had some success but I'm still not there all the way. There's a button on the speedlight you press to change modes – options are S1, S2, slave flash mode and RX slave flash mode. I just assumed that it was already in RX slave mode since I had already binded both Yongnuo units together some time back. I went through the modes again by pressing the same button – it's a pity that it's nearly impossible to tell what mode you're in most of the time since the text and icons on the lcd screen are so tiny. Only S1 and S2 are readable. I came across a mode where some tiny little icons and unreadable text appear on the far left of the lcd screen. The speedlight was attached to the G6 at this time. I pressed the camera's shutter button and the speedlight's flash fired. At last!

However, while in this mode, the speedlight and the TX are no longer communicating with each other. If I press the test button on the TX, the speedlight will not fire. And I can no longer change the speedlight's settings with the TX. So I changed the speedlight back to the other mode (which is indicated by some icons on the far right of the screen) and once again the TX will communicate with the speedlight. But the speedlight won't fire when I press the camera's shutter button. I removed the speedlight from the camera's hotshoe and replaced it with the TX. I then changed the mode on the speedlight to where the icons appear on the far left of the lcd (the one which is recognised by my camera.) With the TX mounted to my camera, I pressed the shutter button but the (now seperate) speedlight refuses to fire. I played around with some mode settings on the TX but to no avail.

So to summarise, I can get the camera and the speedlight to communicate with each other. And I can get the TX and the speedlight to communicate with each other. But I cannot get all three of them to communicate with each other at the same time. Do you reckon there is a way? The whole reason I bought the speedlight and TX together was so that I could use them in conjunction with the camera (all in sync.)

 

[tribal-warrior]

Okay Ive found a part way solution. I still can't get the Yongnuo TX to work with my G6 but Ive found out that I can still do wireless flash. I can trigger the Yongnuo speedlight by using my G6's pop up flash. When the pop up flash fires, it sends a signal to the external Speedlight to fire. Of course I won't have quite the same flexibility as I would by using the dedicated TX (namely working distances) but still it's something. And of course, firing the camera's pop up flash could potentially spoil my lighting set up but I'll just cover it up with something thick and black during the shoot.

 

[tribal-warrior]

Ive just connected an RF-603 flash trigger to my Panasonic G6's hotshoe. It turns on okay (has a flashing green light) but doesn't seem to communicate with the speedlight. The speedlight is meant to have a solid blue light to indicate that it's sensing the flash trigger. When I press the camera's shutter button, the speedlight will not fire. Also, nothing happens when I press the big round button on top of the flash trigger. And by the way, I have set the speedlight to RF-603.

 

[tribal-warrior]

Finally I got it to work! I can now fire the speedlight remotely by pressing the camera's shutter button with the TX attached. Yep, it was those darn pins! A bit of a fidgety process removing them (had to take apart the back panel of the TX with two sets of four screws to access the circuit board.)