Cheap (ebay?) flashgun advice?
Discussion
Hi All.
Budget is tight but I'd really like to start experimenting with a proper flashgun (particularly as I might have a glut of baby photo opportunities in the coming year
) for my Olympus E-300.
The pukka kit is £200+, too much for me at the moment.
Has anyone any advice on what to look for on the 2nd hand or generic market? What features am I likely to lose? (As pretty much a novice, will I even notice!) Presume I'd lose whatever auto flash setup the camera does.
Would something like this work for example? But how much benefit do you get from something in the sub-£50 bracket.
Few of the generic guns actually mention the E300 but are they all much of a muchness in compatibility terms? The hotshoe on the E300 has a single central connector with three small connectors to the rear.
Also,any advice on how to actually make best use of a proper flashgun would be good - how do you decide/configure what power to use for example.
Lots of questions I'm afraid! But thanks for any insight you can pass on.
Cheers - PBF
Budget is tight but I'd really like to start experimenting with a proper flashgun (particularly as I might have a glut of baby photo opportunities in the coming year
) for my Olympus E-300.The pukka kit is £200+, too much for me at the moment.
Has anyone any advice on what to look for on the 2nd hand or generic market? What features am I likely to lose? (As pretty much a novice, will I even notice!) Presume I'd lose whatever auto flash setup the camera does.
Would something like this work for example? But how much benefit do you get from something in the sub-£50 bracket.
Few of the generic guns actually mention the E300 but are they all much of a muchness in compatibility terms? The hotshoe on the E300 has a single central connector with three small connectors to the rear.
Also,any advice on how to actually make best use of a proper flashgun would be good - how do you decide/configure what power to use for example.
Lots of questions I'm afraid! But thanks for any insight you can pass on.
Cheers - PBF
Well I can't help specifically, but essentially the 'pukka' flashgun will be what they call 'dedicated' - ie it talks to the camera and between them they work out what to do to get the right exposure. That's what the other contacts on the hotshoe are for. The central one is the trigger.
If you are going non-pukka, then you have to be careful because different systems use different trigger voltages and I've heard that if they are wildly out you can fry things, or at best simply won't work. If you can find a compatible flash, then chances are it will be manual only - in other words it will fire the full blast every time and you'll have to sort out the camera settings to compensate. Because the camera and flash can't talk with each other, the camera doesn't know there's a flash attached so you'd have to set it to manual exposure and use some educated guessing.
There may be a Metz or Nissin suitable for your camera but I'd be wary of slapping just any old flash on - it's not as simple as you might think. In the long run I'd say it's worth stumping up more to get properly exposed images easily and first time.
If you are going non-pukka, then you have to be careful because different systems use different trigger voltages and I've heard that if they are wildly out you can fry things, or at best simply won't work. If you can find a compatible flash, then chances are it will be manual only - in other words it will fire the full blast every time and you'll have to sort out the camera settings to compensate. Because the camera and flash can't talk with each other, the camera doesn't know there's a flash attached so you'd have to set it to manual exposure and use some educated guessing.
There may be a Metz or Nissin suitable for your camera but I'd be wary of slapping just any old flash on - it's not as simple as you might think. In the long run I'd say it's worth stumping up more to get properly exposed images easily and first time.
Cheers. Good thoughts in there.
As it happens, trying different search terms with the US name for the camera came up with this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TTL-Flash-for-Olympus-Evolt-... that seems to suit my pocket!
It might do the trick to get onto the next step of the learning curve anyhow
As it happens, trying different search terms with the US name for the camera came up with this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TTL-Flash-for-Olympus-Evolt-... that seems to suit my pocket!
It might do the trick to get onto the next step of the learning curve anyhow
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