E-300 with FL-36 flash and built-in pop-up

[ditto1958]

I am considering getting an FL-36 flash to use with my E-300. I understand that people have been getting excellent results bouncing the FL-36 but also using the pop-up flash with it for fill. Has anyone here been doing that? If so, are there specific settings you can recommend? Any examples you can post?

[jan56]

Pity no one replied so far I've same ideas for the 300 to be my 2.nd body, but as I bought the 7-14mm lens now it has to wait - but still interested....
Jan

[hartcons]

I find that a little onboard flash goes a long way so I normally dial down the setting for the onboard flash (I think the idea is to use it to get a catch-light in the subject's eyes which I don't think will happen with the bounce flash). The fl-36 makes it very easy to manually dial in the flash amount as well (just turn the wheel) if you don't want to rely on auto-everything. I find flash somewhat fiddly overall and it can take a bit of tinkering to get the right settings. The fl-36 works great (balances well on the e-300 body) but does chew through batteries fairly quickly and as the batteries run down the recycle time gets longer and longer so I recommend a fresh set of batteries for each shoot (and maybe in the middle of a longer shoot as well). I got fed up with rechargers and am just using disposable AAs.

I've been playing around with putting handkerchiefs over the flash heads to help diffuse the light (you can also buy third-party hoods and gizmos). You can also try putting colored gel over the heads (I got some at an art store).

For an outdoor portrait shoot at dusk recently I used my d70 because it can drive the nikon sb-800 flash wirelessly (and because nikon has a cheap 50f1.8 lens) which meant that I could put the flash unit wherever I wanted it and at one point I just had my assistant hold it up in the air. Don't know if olympus has anything comparable.