fl-20 flash question

Another, hopefully quick, question:

I have a fl-20 for my e-510. Can anyone share with me the difference in flash function auto, manual, and TTL or when i would choose one over the other? I am new to using a flash.

The difference in Olympus flashes is the guide number. The FL-40, FL-36 and FL-50 all have more power. Recycle time will be different for each too. For the other features, Auto, TTL, etc, read the manual. It's probably the best source for info on this discontinued flash.

trevor4455 said:

trevor4455 wrote:

Another, hopefully quick, question:

I have a fl-20 for my e-510. Can anyone share with me the difference in flash function auto, manual, and TTL or when i would choose one over the other? I am new to using a flash.

Click to expand...

Hi Trevor

Just now looked at super control panet for E420 with FL-20 fitted.

One; May not be exact match but, anti-red eye will only work for "TTL AUTO". The camera "strobes" about ten mini flashes and then fires the big one. The camera workes out the correct exposure value.


Two; Auto means you do not need to set any thing, again the camera works out the corect exposure value.


Three; Manual means that the flash fires at full power. Here you need to work out the lens aperture setting. See the guide on the flash. The flash is rated as GN20 @iso100. in metres.


example, distance to target say 3 m. So set apertur to 20/3 which is almost f7.

This works for the E-420.

Hope this helps.

Best

RobbGee

Surprisingly, but the FL-20 eats batteries a lot faster than FL-36. Further more, "dead" batteries in FL-20 still output some power when loaded to FL-36.

I like the FL-20 for the size though.

RobbGee said:

RobbGee wrote:

Two; Auto means you do not need to set any thing, again the camera works out the corect exposure value.

Click to expand...

To pick nits, the camera does not work out the correct exposure value, the flash does for auto mode (in TTL-auto mode, the camera does all of the control, and uses the image sensor to just the amount of light). Auto flashes have a little sensor that looks for reflections from your flash to judge when there has been enough light for a particular ISO/aperture setting.

Auto flashes are made for indoor photography where the back wall is near to the subjects. If the subjects are in a large building away from the walls or outside, the flash won't see that much bounce back from the light, and will dump all of its lights. This often times will over-expose your subjects.

With the DSLRs/Pens/OMDs and the newer flashes starting with the FL-36/FL-50, the camera will communicate with the flash, and tell it the aperture/ISO used. The FL-20 was an older flash released before the modern cameras, so I'm not certain whether the flash communicates with the camera. In older cameras, on auto flashes, you just told the flash what the ISO/aperture was, and then set the camera to manual mode with the same settings. You could increase/decrease the amount of light by using different apertures in the camera than you told the flash you were using.

Auto flash mode is the original camera automation. Many modern flashes these days no longer provide auto mode, just TTL-auto and/or manual.

One note, while modern Olympus cameras still specify that they are still compatible with the FL-20, most Panasonic cameras will not work with the FL-20, except as a generic manual/auto flash.