I noticed that on some of the pics that I've taken, with flash, there is a dark spot on the bottom. It is consistently in the same area, sometimes it's not as large. Initially I thought it was a shadow, but when it started happening in other pics, I thought maybe I messed up the CCD somehow. Here's a sample of what I am talking about. You'll notice the dark blotch, and as Imentioned above, it happens once in awhile.

I took this shot with the kit lens 14-45mm, no lens hood on.

MOG_22 wrote: Without knowing more about your situation, I would say you were right in guessing that it's a shadow cast by your lens. It's most likely to happen at the wide side (14mm) . Try taking several pictures in a row, one at 14mm, one at 20mm, and so on, and see if it doesn't disappear somewhere along the way. Try also with the lens hood on and see if it isn't worse. It doesn't look like a sensor problem to me.

Assuming that's the bottom of the image you posted, and considering you shot it at 14mm (according to the Exif info), it is definately an issue of lens shadow (the lens blocks part of the light eminated from the flash).

If it was a CCD issue, it would show in EVERY image whether the flash was used or not.

Here's a more severe case of lens shadow caused by my C-700 (with lens tube):
http://www.pbase.com/oly_c700/image/6328789

Anyway, this is a very common issue with internal flashes and using wide angle lenses.

Thanks for the response guys. I am surprised to see that this is a common problem.

MOG_22 wrote: That's why the pros even use their external flash OFF the camera on a flash bracket way above the camera, rather than using the camera's hot shoe to mount the flash like this image shows:

http://bermangraphics.com/images/stroboframe-ani.gif

Also the light from this arrangement isn't as harsh as a straight on flash.

Is this shadow effect only on olympus cameras? How about Nikon or Canon?

Mikefellh wrote:
That's a pretty large setup, must be a load to handle.

Itwas probably caused by the Lens hood at wide angle (14mm). When taking flash pictures, try it without the lens hood or zoom in a bit ...(like 25mm or more)

MOG_22 wrote:ANY camera with an internal flash, Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Panasonic, Sony, Olympus, Yashica, Contax, Kodak, Casio, Agfa, Fuji, HP, Epson, Konica, Minolta, etc. etc. etc.

And not just digital cameras, but film cameras as well.

And not just SLR cameras, but compact digitals where you can add a filter adapter tube like the C-700 I used as an example above.

Some cameras try to compensate by having the internal flash pivot higher like the E-300 (rather than having it fixed in a low position), but this doesn't always work as we see in the original example.

97zoomzoom wrote: Sadly enough, I did not have the lens hood on.