Welcome to our ultimate Godox X1N review that we have decided to publish after seeing a sudden uptick in the number of people reaching out for advice on the various wireless flash trigger products on the market. Although we usually stick to reviewing the actual flash units, with so many people requesting advice we decided to publish this dedicated article.
Our hope is that our review of the Godox X1N will help any of our regular readers or anyone who finds us via Google who is considering adding the Godox X1N to their collection of camera accessories. It is a very popular wireless flash trigger in the Nikon camera body owning community and has managed to earn itself a solid reputation with the community over the years.
This is addition to its excellent performance, great build quality, and low price tag make it the obvious choice for anyone wanting to get their hands on a wireless flash trigger. Just keep in mind that there are various versions of the product available for different camera bodies so be sure to get the one with the “N” suffix that denotes the Nikon camera variant.
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User Interface And Control System
Thankfully, Godox has taken all the constructive feedback onboard that they have received for previous generations of their wireless flash trigger line and directly implemented most of them in the Godox X1N. The majority of these features were based around helping to make the system as easy to use as possible and thankfully, the X1N is extremely easy to use.
The photograph above does a decent job of giving the basic idea of how a wireless flash trigger system will work and help improve your photography rig. We know that many of our readers are relatively new to photography or videography and are often picking up their first camera accessories. Essentially though, the transmitter component of the X1N mounts directly to your Nikon camera body and the receiver component is then plugged into your lighting system as shown in the image above.
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You then go about your photography session as required and when you trigger the transmission unit, it sends a wireless signal to the receiver component to remotely trigger your studio lighting and flash units that are off camera. As many people use multiple lighting units in their set up, additional Godox X1N receivers (Click here to check for product prices and availability) are available so you can mount them on all of your the lighting units you own.
Now that we have gone over the basics of how the wireless flash trigger system works, let’s get down to some specifics of the Godox X1N. As you would expect from a Godox product, especially after taking their customers feedback onboard from their previous trigger system, the X1N is extremely easy to use.
The system is based around the LCD display and button control system shown in the image above that lets you quickly and easily set the system up as required. The backlit LCD display clearly shows the data you need and allows you to tweak the performance of the set up in low light conditions without having to waste your time.
Once you have set the transmitter and receiver units up as required, you simply mount them to your camera body or flash units/lighting systems via their standard hot shoe mounts. The system uses a traditional hot shoe so will mount directly to the majority of camera bodies out there without issue.
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One of the main things we see people new to using wireless trigger units worry about is how much time they will have to spend learning how to use it. We honestly think that if you are able to work your way around a modern smartphone then you will be able to get the X1N to work without having to look at its user manual.
That said, if you are planning on heavily customizing the performance of the X1N to your needs, you may have to read a few pages of the manual but for the average user, it is very straight forward. We feel that Godox has done a great job on the control system for this generation of their wireless trigger systems and we feel that this is one of the reasons they are so popular within the community over the competing products.
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Performance And Functionality
One thing that really helps to set this wireless flash trigger from Godox apart from the ones from the competing brands at this price point in the market is its excellent performance. It can easily stand its own against triggers at higher price points in the market while dominating those with similar price tags.
The system is based around 2.4 G wireless transmission technology that allows you to use it up to distances of over 100 meters without any degradation of performance. Additionally, the multi-channel technology on the X1N can support up to 32 channels, exactly double what some competing systems at this price point in the market support. In addition to this, the X1N also supports up to 5 group sets too.
The wireless transmission system has been specifically designed to have a stable transmission signal too. This allows you to have multiple receivers set up in a studio with a ton of obstacles that can be in the path of the signal but all of your receiving units will trigger at the exact same time. The system is also fully compatible with both i-TTL and E-TTL II protocols ensuring that it will work with almost any system on the market at the time of writing.
The unit requires 2 x AA batteries to work but the battery life each set of fully charged batteries can provide depends on a number of factors. The main two are the quality of the batteries you choose to use with your Godox X1N as well as the settings you are using on the system. For the best possible battery life, we would recommend you always use a set of high-quality rechargeable AA batteries (Click here to check for product prices and availability).
The Godox X1N can also support various wireless shutter release setups too helping to make your life as easy as possible. One thing that we would like to point out is that the grouping mode setting is was a little confusing on early versions of the firmware for the Godox X1N but this has been streamlined in later versions so always make sure that you are running the latest firmware build.
As we touched on earlier in the article, considering the price tag, the Godox X1N offers an absolute ton of functionality in such a small package. It is not surprising that it has managed to earn the excellent reputation it enjoys or that the X1N has such a large user base either.
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Build Quality And Design
Although at this price tag, you may have expected Godox to have held back on the build quality of the unit but thankfully they haven’t. The plastic is solid, lightweight, and very robust helping to prevnt any damage from the inevitable bumps the system will take during use. It also a “complete” feel to it rather than the “cheap” feel some of the plastics used in completing flash triggers have too.
The sections of the plastic casing are well put together and will prevent any dirt or dust from getting into your electronics and causing havoc too. The hot shoe mount and receivers are made from metal rather than plastics as shown in the image below so they hold their shape well and will not warp and end up causing mounting or unmounting issues either.
The battery housing on the Godox X1N has also been totally overhauled to ensure that once the door is closed shut, it will stay closed rather than randomly opening like in older generations sending your batteries to the floor and turning the unit off. In fact, when it comes to the build quality and design of the X1N, we really can’t see any negatives and feel that Godox has done a great job with the system, especially when you take into account how cheap it is.
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FAQs
Question – Does the Godox X1N work with the Godox smartphone app?
Answer – At the time of writing, it does not although we have seen a number of people requesting the feature so it may be added in the future. As Godox do a great job of adding features that their community request, it is probably a good idea to download their app and check if the latest version supports the Godox X1N or not.
Question – Does the Godox X1N support a synchronization delay setting?
Answer – Yes but keep in mind that when in the synchronization delay menu, the numbers are in 100us rather than 100ms units.
Question – Does the Godox X1N really have issues with its transmission distance?
Answer – We also saw a number of people saying they were having issues with the transmission distance when doing our research for the section below. If you read those reports though, some of the people having transmission distance issues comment saying that it was actually down to battery issues rather than issues on the X1N. If this was a widespread fault with the actual X1N we would expect the reputation of the trigger to reflect such a problem but it doesn’t so we suspect it is down to a small number of people using poor quality batteries or batteries that are almost empty in their trigger systems.
Our Verdict
That brings our Godox X1N review to an end and we absolutely love this wireless flash trigger system. In our opinion, it definatley dominates the competition and does a great job without you having to break the bank. We have no doubt that it can help improve the image quality of your flash photography, especially when used in conjunction with a multi-rig studio flash set up and fell the X1N would be a great addition to your camera accessories.
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Image Licensing
Shared under Creative Commons – https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
Kah Wai Sin – Bella Again – https://flic.kr/p/8Yhdzj
dallashangerphoto – Bekah Timm – https://flic.kr/p/8rXMCh
Igor Menezes Fotógrafo – 15 Anos – Daniele Dias – https://flic.kr/p/jCG2E8
