Playing with the FL50R-.....

[Raist3d]

I decided to go for it... it was pricey but hey, you only live once and I needed to see for myself what a remote flash would do for me. Olympus designed two new flash models to go with the new E-3 that allow "remote command" type flash control. You control the flash intensity from the camera, up to 3-4 flashes in three different groups (that's 9-12 flashes total). They sell the FL36R and the FL50R. The FL36R is pretty much the "remote flash version" of the small cute but takes a bit of time to recharge FL36 that I already have, and so with the FL50R respectively.

So after some serious thought, asking here and there decided to go for the FL50R. I am photographing a wedding this year, and I want to make sure I don't have to wait for the flash to recharge + I want the extra flash power.

It all works pretty good. Inside a house/studio it's easy to have the flash fire. Outside is a bit of a different story but you can get creative to achieve the same. Basically the flash needs to "see" the flash burts from the built in E-3 flash... which apparently has an encoded signal for the flash settings, as I have never seen the camera communicate optically with the flash when you set it (the link is purely optical, not wireless radio etc.). If you are outside you could bounce off some light from some paper so it reaches the flash, but onless you need to put the flash behind the subject outside, it will probably just work fine anyway.

Allright, some experiments... all are shots out of the camera. One is a self portrait-over exposed- on purpose.. I want to see if I can look smooth-pencil-drawn for a moment.... and as young and cute as a baby.

Decided to try the flash in a couple of situations tonight. It's all experimentation. The self portrait is over exposed, with the intent of doing so.

Comments/questions/critique welcome.



Yes, that's me as of a couple of hours ago! Now let's look at some nuclear blue berries in B&W:



And some "ratyraced" blue berries:





It's cool what you can do with overpowering the scene with light.

One caveat on the Olympus remote command system:

- I have had many situations inside though where the flash of the E-3 does affect the shot... trying to figure out under which situations it will kick in, in the shot and which it won't. Of course, if the main flash is set with a lot of power, it will over power the E-3's flash. Probably time to read that manual.

For the blue berry close shots this was an issue, and I ended up covering the built in E-3 flash with my hand.. which worked... !?! I am surprised now that I think about it that the "intensity command" still got through...

All shots are 100% out the camera jpegs except for the obvious resize. The color shots were done using MUTED mode, the other (first two) in B/W mode.

[Paul Shields]

Looks like you're having fun Raist . How many flashes can it control? Can the pop-up flash work as well?

[Raist3d]

The pop up flash can't count.. but as I mentioned sometimes it does want to count when it shouldn't. The pop up flash is used to send the flash signal to activate the flashes remotely (and send the data of how bright they should flash or what mode/etc).

You can have with the E-3 up to 3 groups of flashes. Each group will share the same settings and can be up to three flashes (the manual states that there is no limit to the number of flashes per group but that up to 3 is recommended to avoid mutual interference). So that means at least 9 flashes. and probably 12.

The controls from the E-3 are fairly complete- manual, TTL, auto, FP high speed settings.. exposure compensation (when used in TTL). The only thing you can't control is the zoom.

You can also use it with other Olympus cameras and other cameras in flash mode (tried this with the e-330 successfully), but you have to set the flash settings manually and if you did this with more than one flash, it's like having only one group.. but you have to go back to each of them to set them.

The Olympus 560Z ultra zoom just got a firmware update to be able to do a 1-group remote command control. This means you can set one group of flashes remotely. I hope Olympus upgrades the e-410 and e-510 to do this at least.

- Raist

[jan56]

Hej Raist, you really convinced me now to get one of these xxR flashes myself - seems like a pocket studio, well enough for some nice product shots
not to mention when outdoors and you wanna do a portrait and just to fill in the shadows of the face - what you cant'd do on a partly sunlit face - now you can use it very specifically on the shadows!! Great options!! Have lots ideas already
Jan

[Raist3d]

Originally Posted by jan56

Hej Raist, you really convinced me now to get one of these xxR flashes myself - seems like a pocket studio, well enough for some nice product shots
not to mention when outdoors and you wanna do a portrait and just to fill in the shadows of the face - what you cant'd do on a partly sunlit face - now you can use it very specifically on the shadows!! Great options!! Have lots ideas already
Jan

Yes, it's a pocket studio indeed. BTW if you only care about product shots and they are not going to be something huge like a car, you may very well do fine with two FL36R's instead of one (or two) FL50R's. Basically if you don't need super duper power or fast recharge, I think there's more flexiblity in having two FL36R's (and they are quite quite smaller) than two FL50R's.

If you are doing events or a wedding, the FL50R is better though.

- Raist

[jan56]

Originally Posted by Raist3d

Yes, it's a pocket studio indeed. BTW if you only care about product shots and they are not going to be something huge like a car, you may very well do fine with two FL36R's instead of one (or two) FL50R's. Basically if you don't need super duper power or fast recharge, I think there's more flexiblity in having two FL36R's (and they are quite quite smaller) than two FL50R's.

If you are doing events or a wedding, the FL50R is better though.

- Raist

Sounds very great!
I thought more of softening shadows for portraits at the beach or outdoor wedding shots. When a part of the face is sunlit and shadows on the other side, it's only possible so far to work with a big sun reflector. With a independent flash ( think the fl-36R would do) than somebody could just fill in from the side necessary - fantastic possibilities opening !!!

For the function, wedding and events indoors I use the FL-50 already. There the "-R" is not that important, I guess

Jan

[Paul A]

Hi,
Have you figured out, generally, how much and under what circumstances the pop-up will throw fill?
Paul

[Raist3d]

No... but I think it's either constant to a max, and goes downhill in some situations (it seems from there) or I could be wrong and I am seeing variations due to the fstop I am using and the subject-FL50R relation/FL50R shoot strength. You can basically make it "go away" if pay attention but I think there's a range where it will "show up" in a way that you can see it.

But yeah, haven't figured out. Haven't played much with the flashes to be honest, but I should, particularly now that I have two.

- Raist