Re: Stylus 1 and FL40 flash - will they play well with each other?
Bob A L wrote:
Just inherited an FL40 flash that I thought would work with my Stylus 1, but then looked it up in the Stylus 1 manual and the FL40 is not listed. It lists FL14, 36R, 50R, 300R, 600R as being compatible. Also, if it will work, how about connections, I have the bracket with the 5 pin connector besides just the hot shoe. Would prefer to use the bracket and cable arrangement. Anybody with any experience here? Don't want to mess up the Stylus if there is a chance of that. Thanks
No, the FL-40 will not work with the Stylus-1 other than as a generic flash.
You should be able to set the flash to manual mode, where the flash delivers a given amount of light. If you are firing with the flash straight ahead, you figure out the aperture of the camera by dividing the guide number by the distance to the subject. The guide number is based on the ISO used.
There is also the 1970's 'auto' mode. In this mode, you set the camera to a given aperture from the flash settings. The flash has a sensor in it, and it looks for a reflection from the wall behind the subject. It will turn off the lamp when it figures that the subject should be illuminated properly.
However, the TTL mode cannot be used. The FL-40 flash was the flash used for some of the old C-* cameras as well as the E-10, E-20, and maybe E-100RS. Olympus used a different protocol for the FL-40 flash compared to the next generation of flashes (FL-36 and FL-50) that were introduced with the E-1 DSLR.
The E-1 claimed to have support for the FL-40, but all subsequent DSLRs and later micro 4/3rds and Stylus cameras dropped this support. I say claimed to have the support, because I had a FL-40 clone flash that I used with my C-2100UZ, and IIRC, the results were spotty on the E-1 with that flash.