I even tried a NIKON flash unit to test the hot shoe and again NOTHING. I tried mounting a PC sync adaptor to the hot shoe (the camera has no PC sync) again NOTHING. BUT when I wanted to use my radio sync on the hot shoe NOTHING. Anyway I got an assignment to shoot some portraits for a film magazine and thought I'd use my GX7 with both strobe kits. Dynalights for studio and Norman portable for exterior flash lighting. I am a now semi-retired pro photographer after a 40 year career and have many other cameras and strobe kits. Replaces my old CONTAX G2 rangefinder film camera. I own a GX7, my first MFT camera and LOVE it as my carry around street photography camera for it's size and image quality. Looks like a great camera that I WOULD want but useless to me in many situations if I can't SYNC FIRST! I think only the GH4 has a PC in the PANA MFT family, so now I must rent that to use if I want to use my strobe units and the 9 lenses in my MFT kit (3 OLYMPUS, 3 PANA and 3 CONTAX G2 lenses w/adaptors) What a shame for a format that touts 'interchangeability' as it's selling point. SO my question is, does the GX8 use this same design (flaw) making it useless for studio use or did they liberate the hotshoe for other uses? It has no PC sync I know. I called PANASONIC and they admitted that the hot shoe only works with their 4 PANASONIC on camera flash units, and maybe Olympus units (which may use the same voltage to restrict third party units) and POSSIBLY some others. So I have no way to sync to my lights other than using the camera flash to sync to an optical slave on the flash units which is impractical because of the camera's slow recycle, the battery drain on the camera, and possible interference with my lighting design. I tried mounting a PC sync adaptor to the hot shoe (the camera has no PC sync) again NOTHING.

Contax g2 with radio trigger