Flashpoint R2 Pro MarkII Flash Trigger

[adamhiram]

Just when I thought I was done discussing gear, I had to replace my flash trigger after suffering damage from a fall, so here we are again...

My Godox Xpro-N trigger (Flashpoint R2 Pro) works intermittently after falling from a height of maybe 2-3' and Landing on a soft padded carpet. About 25% of the time it won't turn on unless I squeeze the casing together. I've had it almost 3 years so I doubt it's covered under warranty, but I'm surprised to find out it's so delicate that it can't survive a minor drop onto a cushioned surface.

So after reading a number of reviews and recommendations, I replaced it with a Flashpoint R2 Pro MarkII. Overall, the improvements are pretty significant and it is a definitely a better user experience. These include backlit buttons, being able to turn the beep on and off remotely, controlling modeling lamp brightness, and dedicated buttons for each flash group making it much quicker to turn each group on and off. At the same time, it also feels like I am using a partially functional product that was never really finished.

• It is noticeably bigger to accommodate more buttons. So many buttons. Many of them seem redundant or non-functional.
• The Single Group Test button doesn't work on my TT600 speedlights, only bigger AD-series strobes (i.e. AD400Pro)
• The AF Assist Beam doesn't appear to work. This may be because I switched to a mirrorless body (Nikon Z6II).
• The Zoom feature doesn't work with my TT600 speedlights. This didn't work on my 1st gen Xpro-N trigger either, but it also didn't have a dedicated button.
• The backlight doesn't come on by default, which means I have to press an extra button to turn it on every time. Also, all the backlight button does is turn on the backlight. It doesn't turn it off, and pressing any other button serves the same purpose.
• The battery level indicator still doesn't show the correct level with rechargeable batteries. Alkaline batteries last forever, but I've had issues in the past with older batteries leaking and corroding the contacts. It's a shame they didn't account for common 1.2V Ni-MH batteries, such as Eneloops.
• The "Audio Buzz" button that turns the beep on and off is all-or-nothing. If I have a light set to full power, especially if I'm shooting with speedlights, it's nice to enable the beep on whichever light has the longest recycle time. There is no ability to enable the beep for just one group, and I definitely don't need to hear 3-4 beeps after each shot.
• Controlling the modeling lamps on my AD400Pro units doesn't work reliably either. If I deselect the group and press the Modeling Lamp button, it toggles all of them on or off. Sometimes I can select a specific group and turn that modeling lamp on and off, but other times the button does nothing. It's nice when it works, and pretty cool that I can even adjust the percentage brightness after double-tapping the Modeling Lamp button. However it does not work reliably, and it seems like I shouldn't need to go through these complex button sequences on a trigger with 23 buttons on it.
  
• The battery cover is loose and will probably fall off and get lost. This was a common issue with the 1st gen version, although mine didn't have that problem. I assume some gaffer tape will do the trick.

Overall, it does what I need it to do and it is a nice improvement over the first gen model. I don't think any of these semi- or non-functional features are things I would use anyway, but it's strange having a product that came out 2 years ago that has so many things that don't seem to work. At least it's the same price as the 1st gen model, and is still 1/6 the cost of a Profoto Air remote.

Is anyone else using this trigger with their Godox/Flashpoint lights? Has your experience been the same?

 

[JBPhotog]

I too have this model and all the buttons can make sorting out functions a bit tricky but here's my suggestions regarding the following;

The backlight control can be set in the Menu, Choose STBY (for Standby) and turn it to OFF, this keeps the backlight on indefinitely. Additionally set the LCD LI to ON. Now both the LCD and Button backlights will not shut off. If you want to turn one of these off and not go into the Menu, press the lightbulb button lower right section of the remote to select the LCD or buttons, press and hold shuts the button backlight off or on, double tap shuts the LCD backlight off or on.

The Audio Buzz is channel selectable so you can set the longest recycle head to beep while all the others are silent. Make sure all the channels have the speaker icon showing in the right side of the remotes display. Select the channel you want to silence, say for e.g. channel "C". Press "C" on the remote to highlight it and the actual flash output setting, then press the Speaker button, second down on the left, one press will turn that channel beep off. If you wait several seconds until only "C" is highlighted(not the flash output settings) then pressing the Speaker button will turn all the channel beeps off or on.

I would agree that some buttons are redundant and this is the case for the model light controls. The procedures for the model lamps is as follows, the channel and output setting need to be highlighted to turn this model lamp off or on. Once the remote goes through a waiting period of a few seconds, only the channel with be highlighted and not the flash output setting, then the model lamp button controls all of the heads. Pressing the particular channel button will again highlight it and its settings, then you can selectively control this model lamp.

I shimmed my battery cover with a bit of thin cork using some double sided tape to hold it in place on the cover door. Now it is tight and won't slide off but yeah they need to fix this or at least make it a replaceable part.

I also bought the Godox X2t for Nikon as a back up or when I need to place the camera high since its LCD is facing straight back. It lacks the TCM button which can be useful for TTL to Manual conversion but has the added benefit of mounting a shoe flash or in my case some Pocket Wizards to control non-godox flash units.

 

[adamhiram]

Thanks as always, @JBPhotog, this was very helpful!

The backlight control can be set in the Menu, Choose STBY (for Standby) and turn it to OFF, this keeps the backlight on indefinitely. Additionally set the LCD LI to ON. Now both the LCD and Button backlights will not shut off. If you want to turn one of these off and not go into the Menu, press the lightbulb button lower right section of the remote to select the LCD or buttons, press and hold shuts the button backlight off or on, double tap shuts the LCD backlight off or on.

This did the trick! I left STBY on, as I don't mind it saving a little battery if it sits idle for a while. But having the backlight on when I turn it on saves an extra click every time. It's bizarre that setting the backlight to turn off after 12s also means it doesn't turn on by default, but this new configuration definitely works for me. The long-click and double-click tips are helpful as well; I don't recall seeing those in the manual, but I may have missed it.

The Audio Buzz is channel selectable so you can set the longest recycle head to beep while all the others are silent. Make sure all the channels have the speaker icon showing in the right side of the remotes display. Select the channel you want to silence, say for e.g. channel "C". Press "C" on the remote to highlight it and the actual flash output setting, then press the Speaker button, second down on the left, one press will turn that channel beep off. If you wait several seconds until only "C" is highlighted(not the flash output settings) then pressing the Speaker button will turn all the channel beeps off or on.

It sounds like this works the same as the modeling lamp, where it won't let me turn on individual groups, but I can turn on all groups, then turn off the ones I don't want. It's a strange way of having to do it, but at least I think I understand how to work with them now.

I shimmed my battery cover with a bit of thin cork using some double sided tape to hold it in place on the cover door. Now it is tight and won't slide off but yeah they need to fix this or at least make it a replaceable part.

I used a thin strip of gaffers tape on the back side of the battery cover on either side of the clip. This gave it a nice tight fit with minimal effort and looks pretty clean. I've had to use this trick with a few lens hoods as well.

 

[JBPhotog]

Thanks as always, @JBPhotog, this was very helpful!

This did the trick! I left STBY on, as I don't mind it saving a little battery if it sits idle for a while. But having the backlight on when I turn it on saves an extra click every time. It's bizarre that setting the backlight to turn off after 12s also means it doesn't turn on by default, but this new configuration definitely works for me. The long-click and double-click tips are helpful as well; I don't recall seeing those in the manual, but I may have missed it.

I don't think these settings are in the manual.

My take on the functionality is, what ever shows in the top menu indicates what function is turned on globally. Once you highlight a group(group and flash output), pressing the same function button turns that channels function off or on. However, once the waiting period of @30 seconds expires, the group plus the flash output are no longer highlighted, the function button reverts to global control rather than channel control.

IMO, there isn't a need to have 2 zoom, HS sync and model lamp buttons. Someone in the design department wanted a symmetrical design, LOL.

There is a bug they could fix in a firmware update. The model lamp button stores the channel you have turned off and by globally turning this function off or on does not default to all of the channels turning back on which saves time going into a specific channel and turning it off. Whereas the Audio Beep global control does default to turning on all of the channels Audio Beeps even though you may have selected one channel to not beep, which is annoying if you need more button presses to restore the previous state.

Overall, a firmware update could eliminate some of the redundant LCD functions which are button specific or reset some settings that need the same button twice.