E-PM1 and External Flash Unit

Welcome to the forum!

I'm afraid you have to be more specific with your question. Do you mean using the on-camera little flash to command the external Fl-600 wirelessly?

Thanks!

Yes, I am trying to use the off camera flash without the on camera flash going off. I notice when I take a picture, both flash units are going off. My concern is the on camera flash throwing things off.

Is this possible?

avoster said:

avoster wrote:

Hello,

I was hoping someone could help me solve an issue. I am a bit of a newbie.

I have the Olympus E-PM1 and just got the FL600R flash unit. I am trying to trigger the external flash, but not the on camera. Is this possible?

Thanks for any guidance.

Click to expand...

You can trigger the FL600R with that flash off-camera. To do this, you would need to use the small flip-up flash that came with your camera.

1) set the FL600R to RC mode. Set it to a group--just use group A.

2) turn the RC mode on via the menu on the E-PM1

3) from the flash menu (hit OK button on camera, then you may have to toggle through the different menu screens by hitting INFO button), turn on group A.

4) plug in the small flip-up flash into the accessory port/ hot shoe of the E-PM1. Flip the flash up.

This is called wireless TTL flash triggering, whereby the camera controls the off-camera flash. The camera uses the flash strobes (through a coded sequence) from the small on camera flash to control and trigger the external flash. Note that you can also set the small on camera flash to also fire during exposure (in addition to triggering the off camera flash); you can do this through the menu mentioned in step 3 above.

If all this is new to you, you need to play with the camera a little and read the manual.

avoster said:

avoster wrote:

Thanks!

Yes, I am trying to use the off camera flash without the on camera flash going off. I notice when I take a picture, both flash units are going off. My concern is the on camera flash throwing things off.

Is this possible?

Click to expand...

The camera is automatically adjusting the exposure of both flashes, when both are fired. You can also set the on camera flash to fire or not during exposure. Either way, it will always appear as if it is going off all the time. This is because--regardless if it fires DURING exposure or not--it will fire off a rapid sequence flash code to control the off-camera flash prior to exposure.

For Olympus cameras, many people set the flash compensation to +0.7EV to +1EV because Olympus appears to underexposes during flash exposures otherewise.

Thanks! Ill mess around with it and learn more as I go. Thanks for clearing that up.

Thanks a lot! Great instructions. Ill mess about and learn as i go.

Thanks again!

avoster said:

avoster wrote:

Hello,

I was hoping someone could help me solve an issue. I am a bit of a newbie.

I have the Olympus E-PM1 and just got the FL600R flash unit. I am trying to trigger the external flash, but not the on camera. Is this possible?

Thanks for any guidance.

Click to expand...

Yes, using the camera in RC control mode with body flash and the slave in RC mode can do with full control from the camera for TTL/auto/manual/FP modes.

Or camera flash in manual mode with selected power setting down to 1/64 or 1/128 (depends on camera model) and the remote flash in dumb slave mode (auto or manual) where it triggers off the single flash from the body.

In both cases the body flash has to send one flash during the exposure to trigger the actual slave exposure flash. For RC mode that is a low power pulse but may have a small effect on the subject if large aperture/high ISO/close to subject. If so then diffuse the body flash with some paper or deflect it with some cooking foil. In film days we used to use a scrap of the black film at the end of a developed E-6 slide film as that blocks most visible light but lets IR through to do the flash triggering.

Page 93 of the E-PM1 user manual gives some clues on RC control. Manuals found from here . The line of sight thing is not so critical inside a room as stray signal bounce gets around corners to trigger the slave quite reliably.

Note that one of the replies is in error, the E-PM1 cannot get the body to do both RC signals and provide exposure flash, that came on later bodies. The E-PM1 in RC control mode can only do the pre-exposure weak control signals plus the one weak trigger signal during the exposure.

To get the body to provide significant exposure and the slave as well then the flash manual mode needs to be used at some selected power setting (need to experiment) and the slave would need to be in dumb slave mode and use auto or manual power setting.

Regards...... Guy

Guy Parsons said:

Guy Parsons wrote:

Guy Parsons said:

avoster wrote:

Hello,

I was hoping someone could help me solve an issue. I am a bit of a newbie.

I have the Olympus E-PM1 and just got the FL600R flash unit. I am trying to trigger the external flash, but not the on camera. Is this possible?

Thanks for any guidance.

Click to expand...

-SNIP
Note that one of the replies is in error, the E-PM1 cannot get the body to do both RC signals and provide exposure flash, that came on later bodies. The E-PM1 in RC control mode can only do the pre-exposure weak control signals plus the one weak trigger signal during the exposure.
-SNIP

Click to expand...

Guy,

This is not true. The E-PM1 can do both RC signals and provide exposure flash. The last line of the menu screen, shown in Step 3 on page 93 of the E-PM1 manual cited by you, provides the control option for the on-camera flash during the exposure: you can turn it on in TTL mode, manual mode, or turn it off.

I've confirmed this with my E-PM1. Also, interestingly, I have found that even the older E-PL1 allows for the on-camera flash to be fired at the same time as the external, wirelessly-triggered flash. The only thing, the E-PL1 does not have an option to turn OFF the on-camera flash during exposure. So in the case of the older E-PL1, the on-camera flash always fires during exposure when it is used in RC mode.



The photo above shows the E-PL1 with a handheld FL-300R flash. Note that both flashes fired during the exposure although the FL-300R's flash may not be seen as clearly as it was being bounced to the ceiling.

Philly said:

Philly wrote:

Guy,

This is not true. The E-PM1 can do both RC signals and provide exposure flash.

Click to expand...

On different computer now but a fresh download of the manual shows exactly what you say, it can do RC plus flash at TTL etc.

Sorry about that, when I get back to the other computer I'll see if I was actually reading the correct manual or an old version? I'm confused now. (easy at my age).

Definitely older cameras like the E-PL1 could not do both, the feature must have been added at the E-P3/E-PL3/E-PM1 version level.

Be aware that not all attached flashes allow that trick. The FL-LM1/2 and FL-600R can do it but my FL-300R and FL-36R when in the hot-shoe can't do the RC plus TTL trick.

Regards....... Guy

Set the camera flash mode to always on (not auto). Now attach your external flash, and of course turn it on. You should see the flash symbol on your LCD screen. Even though the flash setting in-camera is set to always on, it can't fire until you attach and turn on the flash.