Field Testing the Godox V1 MID
The Godox V1 MID mounted to my Sony A7IV Full-Frame Mirrorless camera body.
If you’ve followed my work for any length of time, you probably know that I’m almost exclusively a natural-light shooter. Whether I'm travelling or documenting everyday moments at home, I’ve always preferred working with ambient light rather than hauling extra lighting gear around.
That said, contemporary direct-flash photography has had a massive resurgence lately, and I’ve been curious to see how a modern, compact round-head flash could fit into my everyday workflow.
The team at Eachshot kindly sent over the new Godox V1 MID for my Sony setup to put through its paces. While they provided the flash free of charge for testing, this review is completely unbiased - just my honest, real-world thoughts after taking it out into the field.
First Impressions & Build Quality
The Godox V1 MID S is Godox’s mid-tier, compact round-head speedlight designed specifically for Sony mirrorless cameras (the "S" denotes Sony TTL/hotshoe compatibility, while "C" is Canon, "N" is Nikon, etc.).
Right out of the box, the V1 MID feels smooth and well built. Traditional rectangular speedlights have always looked a bit utilitarian and imposing to me, while full-sized studio round-heads look cumbersome to carry around all day.
At around 413 grams, the V1 MID balances really comfortably on my Sony A7IV mirrorless body without making the setup front-heavy. The 2-inch colour touchscreen is crisp and intuitive to navigate, USB-C charging on the battery is a massive quality-of-life upgrade (no more old-school AA batteries to pack), and the optical round head produces a noticeably smoother, more natural circular light falloff than a standard speedlight.
The only other real experience I’ve had with a flash is the Neewer NW400S, which I bought specifically to shoot an old work friend’s Jago (a vibrant Punjabi and Sikh pre-wedding celebration, literally meaning "wake up"). If I’m honest, after photographing that event, the Neewer didn’t get an awful lot of use, but as my only real benchmark, it’ll have to do for a comparison. In terms of style and build, these two represent completely different eras of speedlight design. The Neewer NW400S is a traditional, utilitarian plastic workhorse - basic clicky buttons, a retro rectangular head, and a AA battery door that feels purely functional and budget-focused (the reliance on AA batteries alone is quite telling of how different they are). The Godox V1 MID S, by contrast, feels sleek, modern, and far more deliberate on a Sony body, stepping up to a responsive colour touchscreen, a seamless USB-C rechargeable lithium pack, and an optical round head. While the Neewer is a bare-bones tool you toss into a bag just in case, the V1 MID S is built like a piece of kit you actually want to keep mounted on your camera.
Pictured above, my Neewer NW400S bought especially for one event, never to be used again…
Out (Literally) in the Field: Millets Farm & Dahlia Picking
I caught a picture of a busy Bee on a single-flowered Dahlia.
To give it a proper test run, I brought the V1 MID along on a weekend trip back to my childhood home in Oxfordshire. We headed over to Millets Farm to celebrate my sister’s birthday with some flower picking in the dahlia fields.
Outdoor floral fields under shifting daylight can be tricky, but using the flash directly on-camera gave the dahlias a punchy, high-contrast, editorial feel that made the petals and deep saturated tones pop right out of the frame. The circular head helped avoid harsh hot-spots in the centre of the flowers, keeping the light feathered and clean.
Back home, I kept the flash mounted to capture some quiet daily-life moments and textures around the house. Bouncing the round head off adjacent walls and low ceilings turned small rooms into soft, directional light sources that felt cozy rather than artificial.
A Minor Glitch (and the Fix)
When shooting in the automatic “TTL” mode, I experienced some issues with the auto-zoom feature not changing.
Overall the shooting experience was seamless, but I did run into one strange communication hiccup while out in the dahlia fields.
Midway through shooting, the flash’s auto-zoom feature locked onto 50mm and refused to track along as I zoomed my lens in and out. Simply turning the flash off and back on didn't clear the lock.
After a bit of troubleshooting, here is the sequence that resolved it:
Turn both the camera and the flash completely off.
Turn the camera on first and give it a couple of seconds to fully boot up.
Turn the flash on second.
Once powered up in that order, the hot-shoe handshake reset properly and the flash tracked the focal length smoothly for the rest of the day. It’s a minor quirk, but worth keeping in mind if you ever notice the focal length readout freezing up in the field.
Other Criticisms
My only other criticism is the flash’s 24–105mm zoom range and the absence of a built-in wide-angle diffuser panel to disperse the light any wider (105mm is a perfectly reasonable upper limit - I’d be surprised if you were standing much further from your subject with an on-camera flash anyway). However, bottoming out at 24mm restricts you from shooting with ultra-wide or fisheye lenses unless you’re comfortable with heavy, sharp vignetting around the frame. Direct flash with something like the V1 MID lends itself so naturally to fisheyes for that gritty, 90s skater-documentary aesthetic, so it’s a bit of a shame it doesn't spread wider out of the box.
That being said, I mostly shoot with a Sony 24-105mm F4 G lens, and the flash paired seamlessly with that focal range - consistently tracking my focal length and keeping the TTL coverage accurately in step (aside from that minor, fixable glitch).
Final Thoughts
As someone who usually leaves artificial lighting at home, the Godox V1 MID won me over much faster than I expected. The build quality is solid, the menu system is fast to navigate, and the quality of light from the circular head gives photos a modern, editorial edge without requiring heavy modifiers. Easily one of my favourite features was the really straightforward exposure compensation adjustment when in TTL on the flash, which made tuning in the brightness that much easier.
If you shoot Sony mirrorless and want a travel-friendly round-head flash that delivers great light without weighing down your bag, the V1 MID is well worth a look and comes highly recommended.
The team over at Eachshot have kindly given me an exclusive 10% discount code to pass on to my lovely readers for the V1 MID (Model S and Model C), with UK stock available on Amazon.
Code: SU9BVOHO
Valid: 28 August - 30 September
If you have any questions about my experience with the Godox V1 MID S, feel free to drop me a DM over on Instagram (@mineshpatelphoto) or send an email to mineshpatelphoto@gmail.com.
For a more hands-on look at the Godox, you can watch my short reel below.
I’m also curious - do you use flash often in your work, or do you lean heavily into natural light like I usually do? I think I might be a convert; I’ve genuinely loved the aesthetic of these direct-flash shots!
