Nissin i40 compatibility issues and first impressions of CameraSky

It’s been confirmed by a number of people that TTL no longer works with Nissin i40 and the new X-T2. Fuji most definitely changed their ttl protocol and their best TTL flash, a third party offering no longer works. No word yet if the Meike 320 works or not. It was another option available to the Fuji users. A smaller, cheaper flash, which was not as popular as the i40, so no one reported their findings yet.

This is quite disappointing. I liked the idea of a small, but reasonably powerful flash that could go with my new X-T2. The Nissin i40 is less than half the size of their new EN-X500 flash (not available yet) and really, for someone who would use flash in 20% of their wedding images, I don’t need a powerful and bulky unit.

Maybe if enough users get pissed off, Fuji may release a firmware update to allow this popular flash to work again. According to Nissin website, the i40 is firmware upgradable, but not by users. It needs to be send to the manufacturer to have the  new code changed. Very not practical, so I decided to stop the shipment of this flash, and just in time I might add.

That brings me to the CameraSky part of this post. Just finished a chat with one of their reps and he was able to stop the shipment. The warehouse will now remove the flash, repackage the other item and send it tomorrow. The other item being SJCam M10+. I ordered only a couple of things from CameraSky, mainly to test their customer service, speed of delivery, etc. They have a pretty bad reputation on the internet.  A lot of people bitch about their customer service, about their products, returns, etc.

I read some of these reviews and noticed a pattern. Someone orders an item, it doesn’t get delivered in 2 days and they go to google and type “CameraSky reviews”. And to their horror realise that so many others complained. Immediately they offer their own “horror” story. How they spend a few hundred dollars and now dying from anxiety. I followed up some of these stories and found that a lot of them had a happy conclusion. The orders were delivered or in some cases, the refunds were offered. So, nothing really horrific to see there. I am not saying that all had happy endings, but a lot were resolved.

I decided to give them a chance with a small order. Their prices are incredibly competitive and when buying with a credit card, I do have protection. I just wanted to make my own mind up about their service. I pay attention to reviews, but i don’t trust them implicitly. I am a veteran of online shopping; both as a buyer and a seller. We used to run an online store with my wife. It was her hobby, trading in designer hand bags. In my 10 years experience buying and selling things online, I have never been ripped off by a seller. I have, however been scammed numerous times by buyers. Yes, we lost thousands of $ worth of designer bags because the users claimed that they never received a bag, even when they signed a receipt, or that the bags were not authentic, or using a number of excuses not to pay for what they bought from us. Paypal and credit card companies immediately take side of the buyer. Refund their money and it is then up to the seller to prove that they were scammed. We found it useless to pursue; not even the police helped. This was the main reason we sold the business. Could not stand dealing with scammers, liars and thieves.

But coming back to CameraSky. The person on chat was very helpful, promised to change the order and refund the money. It sounds pretty good to me. I will wait a few days to confirm, but I have little doubt that it will happen as he promised. I do have 1 more lens to get, when it’s released, so will most likely use them as the seller.