Why does my Nikon D3400 show “Photographs cannot be taken with current settings” when using a manual-aperture lens and wireless flash trigger?

Question

I’m using a Nikon D3400 with a Tokina 100mm f/2.8 Pro-D lens that has a manual aperture ring, plus a Neewer/Godox-style speedlight and wireless trigger/receiver setup off-camera. The camera is in Manual exposure mode, with the transmitter on the hot shoe and the flash mounted on the wireless receiver.

When everything is turned on, the camera displays: “Photographs cannot be taken with current settings. Change flash setting.” If I mount the speedlight directly on the camera hot shoe, the flash will fire, but I get the error when trying to use it wirelessly.

What setting needs to be changed to make this work with the manual-aperture lens and wireless trigger?

user57929 · Accepted Answer

Based on experience with non-identical but similar hardware, I would suspect you have the controller set to TTL.
For a manual lens, you need to be in Manual mode on the controller, on all groups, whether they have a linked flash or not.

I would assume this is because the lens cannot be stopped down to measure the light, though it would be interesting to know why it can't just measure the light with what it can actually see.

For several reasons, I'd suggest setting unused groups to 'Off' anyway [the Mode button will cycle TTL, Manual, Off], which leaves you only ever needing to keep track of active groups.

Why does my Nikon D3400 show “Photographs cannot be taken with current settings” when using a manual-aperture lens and wireless flash trigger?

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