The Godox iT32 is a pocketable, $80 flash. And it essentially sweeps away all the hurdles that stood in the way of me using flash.

I suspect I’m not alone in having found the cost of flash systems off-putting, when I first started photography. I’d scrabbled together enough money for a camera body with a nice kit zoom and immediately turned my attention to additional lenses. Flash was always the next thing on my list. And, two decades later, it still is.

You learn early on that flashes are most effective, creatively when they’re positioned away from the camera, but this invokes all the costs of remote triggers and off-board flashes, or being limited by the length of cables, because I’d bought an entry-level DSLR that couldn’t act as a flash commander, and I didn’t feel confident enough to start with manual, rather than TTL-controlled flash.

Mitchell Clark

The iT32 solves that off-camera problem because it connects to your camera via a small, hotshoe-mounted radio-frequency controller. The cost of this controller? between $20 and $34, depending on which brand of camera you use.

The X5 controller slots into your camera’s hotshoe and the iT32 attaches magnetically to the controller. Or you can disconnect the flash and fire it remotely. The flash itself communicates using Godox’s own communication protocol and can pair with any X5 controller, providing TTL compatibility whatever brand camera you own. It also means that you can buy a single iT32 and make it work even if you have cameras from more than one brand.

Richard Butler

*Godox says Canon cameras with multi-interface hotshoes should use an adapter to mount the X5 C. It makes a “X5 Cm” version for these newer cameras but has limited its sales to China.

The X5 can only control flashes operating in a single group, so you can’t use it as the basis of a complex multi-group setup, but the iT32 itself can operate in different groups, so will still be usable, if you decide to expand your setup, later.

So far, I’ve just been using the X5 and iT32 combination and have found it to be a really low-risk place to start experimenting with flash. It’s a genuinely small unit, that makes it easy to keep with me. It has a guide number of 18m, so it’s not especially powerful, but it’s enough of a step up from any camera’s built-in flash that, especially combined with the ability to use off-camera, is enough to make it worth carrying around.

In-use

Mitchel Clark

For such a small unit, the iT32 has a surprising number of control points. There’s a power/flash test button, a Set button and a Menu button, along with a dial on the side, used for quick control. But the iT32’s small rear screen is also touch-sensitive, so it’s really quick to operate, rather than requiring odd combinations of button pressing and dial turns.

To turn the unit on you hold the power/test button for two seconds then scroll the control dial upwards to confirm that it’s not just pressed against something in your bag.

You can access the menu by pressing the Menu button or swiping down on the screen. In the menu you’ll find options for controlling the modelling lamp on the front of the flash, a control for switching between TTL, Manual and multi-flash (strobe) modes, as well as deciding whether the flash is in on-camera mode, sender or receiver.

Mitchel Clark

The iT32 automatically switches to receiver mode when you detach it from the on-camera X5, so you don’t need to give most of this much thought.

In use you can set exposure compensation by turning the dial on the side of the flash, by swiping left or right on the touchscreen or, when the iT32 is working remotely away from the base, by pressing the small + and – buttons on the back of the X5 controller.

If you have a pair of iT32s you can your their controls to set them to different manual flash values (or flash exposure comp values if in TTL mode). You can still use the X5 to increase and decrease these values remotely, but any increase or decrease will be applied to both flashes, so you can’t remotely adjust them independently, as you would in a proper system of grouped flashes.

Mitchel Clark

When working handheld, I found the touchscreen to be very sensitive and the control dial very easy to jog, so tended to make use of the ‘Lock’ function in the menu, to stop myself accidentally changing the flash settings. Once lock is engaged, you need to hold ‘Set’ for two seconds to re-activate the controls.

The iT32 has its own, built-in battery, so you don’t need to hunt around for a fresh set of AAs all the time. It recharges over its USB-C socket, which is also used for updating firmware for both the flash and the X5. The X5 unit has its own battery, which charges up when connected to the iT32. You can check the battery level on the menu of the flash, when it’s connected, or long-press the – button, where it will communicate its charge level with between zero and four flashes of its tiny red LED.

Richard Butler

Generally, getting started with the iT32 is simplicity itself. The two units pair with one another when physically connected, switching the flash to the correct camera brand’s protocol, and then auto switches between on- and off-camera operation. It’s only two swipes on the touchscreen to manually engage receiver mode, if you power the flash on again later and don’t want to have to physically re-connect them each time.

As you use the setup more, it’s worth scanning through the manual, as there are some differences between camera brands about how to access modes such as high-speed sync and rear curtain flash sync, but there’s nothing that a complete novice should find off-putting at all.

Overall, though, I found the X5 / iT32 pairing to be a remarkably cost-effective way to access the world of flash photography. And, significantly, the realm of off-board flash. This simple, sub-$100 set overcame pretty much all of my previous concerns about cost, about compatibility and around batteries, leaving me with no excuse.

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