e510 with fl36 flash

[sandancer]

hi guys --best wishes for the holidays from the u.k.

i have only had my new e510 for a couple of weeks now so am still finding my feet,but seem to have a problem with one of my lenses and hoped someone could comment.

with my 14/42mm. lens on the camera together with the fl36 flash,when i zoom in/out the lcd readout also zooms in/out as expected and you can hear the flash unit motors operating ----but if i do the same operatiom with the 40/150mm lens the readout stays static at 42mm and silence from the flash gun head.

i have tried in all modes with no difference,i cant think this is correct

cheers !!!

[Mikefellh]

There's no problem, other than the user not reading manual. :G

The zoom range of the flash is 8mm-42mm...if you are using a lens above 42mm the flash will stay at 42mm as it can't go any higher.

You can see this for yourself by tapping the zoom button on the flash and it will manually step through the zoom positions of the flash:
12-14-17-25-35-42-back to 12mm (if your flash is on the camera at the time it will also stop at the automatic position, the zoom position of your attached lens)

If you have the wide-angle panel pulled you then you can only access 8mm & 10mm. Note it's VERY important that you are careful with the wide-angle panel as it activates a switch to let the flash know the panel has been deployed. If this switch gets broken you are stuck with only 8 & 10mm!

[sandancer]

thanks for the response and the useful info on the wide panel.

excellent kit for a starter dslr.image quality and ease of use exceeded my hopes.

took about seventy shots on xmas day at a family gathering, 95% came out well,that seems a good return

[Hotoru]

Yep, I agree. I picked up the 510 kit for Christmas. I have been really pleased so far with picture quality. It does tend to slightly underexpose. I was cranking up the exposure to 0.3 to 1.0 but I am wondering if it would just be better to take the shots and correct exposure post processing.

[Hotoru]

How do you like the 36 Flash? I am deciding on getting the 36 flash or the pancake lens for my next purchase :-) I probably take more indoor shots just by availability of subjects.

[zig-123]

FWIW: There is ausedFL36 flash available at KEH.com

http://www.keh.com/OnLineStore/Produ...p;GBC=&GCC=

Another site to look for Olympus equipment is http://fourthirdsphoto.com/

They have a buy/sell section in their discussion forum and you can pick up items at pretty fair pricing.


In the interest of full disclosure,I have personally bought camera equip. from KEH. They seem to be a good company and my transaction went without a hitch. I bought a 50-200mm ZD F2.8 lens from them. It came in as described, which was in excellent condition. Shipping was good and they responded to my e-mails.

I've not bought anything from anyone at fourthirds but have been a long time reade and the people there seem to be on the level.

Zig

[Mikefellh]

Hotoru wrote:

How do you like the 36 Flash? I am deciding on getting the 36 flash or the pancake lens for my next purchase :-) I probably take more indoor shots just by availability of subjects.

The way I see it is unless you want such a small lens the kit lens already gives you 25mm.

While the camera already has a flash built-in an external flash really expands what you can do.

Mr. Wrotniak has a writeup on the FL-36:
http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/43/fl-36.html

One thing you have to know before buying this flash it is slow on recycling between flashes. Also it (and the FL-50 for that matter) aren't meant for high duty use (a lot of flashes in a short period); they will overhead and melt the case or fry the tube.

[Hotoru]

Mikefellh wrote:

The way I see it is unless you want such a small lens the kit lens already gives you 25mm.

While the camera already has a flash built-in an external flash really expands what you can do.

One thing you have to know before buying this flash it is slow on recycling between flashes. Also it (and the FL-50 for that matter) aren't meant for high duty use (a lot of flashes in a short period); they will overhead and melt the case or fry the tube.

You have a point about 25mm with my kit lens.. But the Pancake is f/2.8 But, I suspect my photographic skills have not yet exceeded the kit lenses.


Hmm.. Overheating and melting does not sound good The 10sec recharge far exceeds the built in flash as does the function. I think some of my flash problems could be solved with a diffuser. I really hate having "hot spots" on my subjects. Any recommendations for diffuser with built in flash?

Gary Fong
http://tinyurl.com/72jtmh

Another one:
http://tinyurl.com/8wg6gz

[sandancer]

Hotoru wrote:

How do you like the 36 Flash? I am deciding on getting the 36 flash or the pancake lens for my next purchase :-) I probably take more indoor shots just by availability of subjects.

I am really glad i bought the fl36 flash unit,it adds a new dimension to the camera setup and also goes a long way towards combating the slow focus problems indoors.I did try ordinary alkaline batteries but found they lost power very quickly so i invested in high power rechargables which are much better.
The slow power recharge times on the fl36 i think could be a potential problem if you are possibly photographing children or other situation where you need quick responce.At the moment i am quite happy with the two kit lenses supplied,maybe in the future i may upgrade.

the one main problem i have at the moment is printing------photos on the camera back and also on my monitor look very good for exposure,clarity etc. but they print out very dark,so it takes about 3 or 4 prints to get a good adjusted photo.

[Greg Chappell]

Hotoru wrote:

Yep, I agree. I picked up the 510 kit for Christmas. I have been really pleased so far with picture quality. It does tend to slightly underexpose. I was cranking up the exposure to 0.3 to 1.0 but I am wondering if it would just be better to take the shots and correct exposure post processing.

The things I have noticed in using my E510 for several months now are, you cannot really, especially outdoors, trust the brightness ofthe image on the LCD to know howgood the exposure you used is. I always review with the histogram overlaid on the screen. If I like the looks of the histogram, I know I'll be able to get it right in post processing.

I know for sure if I shot my E510using +.3 to +1 exposure compensationI'd wind up with a lot of blown highlights in bright and/or contrasty conditions. Using multi-segment metering not tied to the AF point (there's a menu option to set that), I often will have highlights JUST starting to be clipped, but I know if I shoot RAW those are areas I can retrieve.

I also have an E1 and I'll say the multi-segment metering of the E510 isn't nearly as foolproof as the E1. Especially under harsher conditions I wind up with a higher percentage of E1 images that need less processing corrections than with the E510, but shooting RAW the E510 does fine.Typical examplesare thesewhere the E1 exposed these scenes with no clipped areas and I was able to bring the shadows up to a level that worked for what I wanted..














I can almost guarantee the E510 would have clipped the highlights in theupper values of these filesusing multi-segment metering....probably not so bad I couldn't have retrieved it, but it would have taken a little more work than these images shot with the E1 took. Outdoors in bright light, combinedwith deep shadows, the E510 can sometimes be frustrating to shoot with.