Third party flash gun recommendations

I have olympus OM-1n and looking for third party flash gun recommendations. Preferably, bounce flash...

On camera, handle mount, or pack and head style?

Bounce with flash is dependant on the height of the ceiling/proximity of the rear or side wall. This will determine the power needs of the flash. Doubling the distance seems trivial, but doubling the power of light coming out of a flash to light a scene with a slow film, or desire to shoot the scene stopped down for more depth of field is not.

Most people think of flash in terms of guide number for the smaller fixed reflector units.

Most 4 aa cell powered units are about GN 35 max (100iso film, GN in metres).

Handle mount flash, of the Metz, Sunpack, etc line use 6-8 AA's and have GN up to 45.

Shoulder hung accumulator and battery pack and light camera mount head units usually have beefier batteries yet again, and can deliver up to 60 or a bit more.

After than you are heading into the realm of monoblock or pack and head studio flash units.

I would not get hung up about whether the flash can electronically integrate with the model of camera you have.

Use the flash's own light sensor for your first flash when used on camera or even off camera when you think about what the flash sensor sees versus what your camera is seeing.

When you move on to lighting a scene with more than one flash you can spend the moon for electronic wireless exposure control, or save your money by buying simpler flash units, and spend the savings on a flash meter. Money spent on a functional, but not necessarily the 'flashiest' flash meter is in my mind always fund well spent.

If you dont have the "shoe 4" accessory, then a bracket or handle mount is the way to go. Olympus T-45 set-up works beautifully. I prefer not to mount a flash on top of the shoe 4, as they are prone to cracking.

Mike Wilde said:

On camera, handle mount, or pack and head style?

Bounce with flash is dependant on the height of the ceiling/proximity of the rear or side wall. This will determine the power needs of the flash. Doubling the distance seems trivial, but doubling the power of light coming out of a flash to light a scene with a slow film, or desire to shoot the scene stopped down for more depth of field is not.

Most people think of flash in terms of guide number for the smaller fixed reflector units.

Most 4 aa cell powered units are about GN 35 max (100iso film, GN in metres).

Handle mount flash, of the Metz, Sunpack, etc line use 6-8 AA's and have GN up to 45.

Shoulder hung accumulator and battery pack and light camera mount head units usually have beefier batteries yet again, and can deliver up to 60 or a bit more.

After than you are heading into the realm of monoblock or pack and head studio flash units.

I would not get hung up about whether the flash can electronically integrate with the model of camera you have.

Use the flash's own light sensor for your first flash when used on camera or even off camera when you think about what the flash sensor sees versus what your camera is seeing.

Click to expand...

Good overview indeed.

I am thinking to have Vivitar 285HV, but I have no idea whether this unit has own light sensor.

Mike Wilde said:

When you move on to lighting a scene with more than one flash you can spend the moon for electronic wireless exposure control, or save your money by buying simpler flash units, and spend the savings on a flash meter. Money spent on a functional, but not necessarily the 'flashiest' flash meter is in my mind always fund well spent.

Click to expand...

I'm not up on the latest 285. I know original 285's have a light sensor that has three auto settings (yellow, blue and purple I seem to remember) as well as manual settings of full, half, quarter, and maybe even eights and sixteenths. (Or is that Metz with the Mecamat I am remembering?)

The sensor can be unplugged from the front of the flash. There is an extension cord accessory about 1m long that allows the sensor to stay on the camera while the flash body is firing into an umbrella or soft box, or is held closer to the ceiling to bounce with more punch. These extensions can be daisy chained, to a modest degree.

I don't have mine any more, but it was quite nice. I moved on to a Viviatr 4600, and 5400 which could take off the film sesnor for auto flash shut off. In the end that was a waste of energy, as I started to use them together as main and fill for portraits. I quickly learned that multple flashes on auto do not work well, unless you want to spend mondo dollars today for e-ttl, or whatever wireless system is being flogged. I did learn what guide numbers and light ratios were, and could juggle quite bit in my head foor a while using just them. Then I bought a flash meter, and all the math could be used on tax forms, and not photo shoots.

When I did stil have the 285 and was using it a lot, it was before NiMH batteries, and Ni-Cad's with always guarding against memory effect were a pain in the butt. I grew tired of doing a whack of portraits, etc in a row, with the flash recycling slower, and slower as I was firing it full manual into a 24x36" softbox.

So I took an early PC computer that someone was tossing, and salvaged the power supply. I whittled a piece of pine with screw nails in the right place to inject positive and negative terminals and fed it 5V from the PC supply with lamp cord. The supply was fitted into an old tin that once held Christmas cookies, and operated with the lid removed for the fan to breath.

The PC supply could supply up to 22A, and the single flash only sucked 6A, so the thing certainly got the reaady light on in a hurry. When I moved to two flashes, it fed them both. I am actually selling at a swap met over this weekned, and that old unit is one of the things I am tryiing to virtually give away to create more space in the house.

A 285HV does have its own sensor. It is, however, fairly large, so you have to be careful if you mount it to the hot shoe (to protect the shoe).

I like the Olympus T32, which does offer bounce, but not swivel. If you ever add an OM2 or OM4, you will like the dedicated TTl capabilities that the combination offers.

MattKing said:

A 285HV does have its own sensor. It is, however, fairly large, so you have to be careful if you mount it to the hot shoe (to protect the shoe).

I like the Olympus T32, which does offer bounce, but not swivel. If you ever add an OM2 or OM4, you will like the dedicated TTl capabilities that the combination offers.

Click to expand...

How do you evaluate T32's bounce in terms of effect it produce when shooting black-and-white portraits?

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I have canon's speedlite 430ex II: Can my crazy idea work when I trigger this flash(430ex II) with wireless transmitter installed on OM-1n?

baachitraka said:

How do you evaluate T32's bounce in terms of effect it produce when shooting black-and-white portraits?

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I have canon's speedlite 430ex II: Can my crazy idea work when I trigger this flash(430ex II) with wireless transmitter installed on OM-1n?

Click to expand...

As for the T32's bounce capabilities, the auto exposure function built into the flash works well on an OM-1n. The only real issue is whether or not the flash has sufficient power to give you enough light to compensate for light loss inherent in using flash bounced off of a ceiling or other flat surface.

As the T32 doesn't swivel, you need to use the T32 on a separate bracket if you want to do side bounce and use the auto flash function.

As for the 430 ex II, it appears to me that it has no built in auto flash functions. You could use it as a manual flash and a flash meter, but for auto flash I believe you need to use it on a Canon EOS camera.

Happy camper with 283's, 285's (GN110 ft)the same power but 285 has variable power settings and a variable coverage lens on the head. Used with an "L" bracket or grip gives no strain on the acc.shoe of the camera. All accessories are interchangeable between the two except the high power module for the 285. Several aftermarket bounce cards and diffusers were made for these flashes.
They're excellent units to start with.

A Guide Number is always going to be an approximation, a starting point for your system. If GN110 is used and your exposures are a little off don't worry, use your own #
FWIW a GN is arrived at by testing the flash at a distance of 10'/3.5m and determining the correct exposure using a flash meter or film.
So, f11 @ 10' =GN110 with ISO 100 film.
Using the calculator dial on the flash you can determine different GN's for different film.