Flash for Olympus E-10

I just bought a used Olympus E-10 to use as a travel camera. I was

wondering if there are any third-party TTL flashes for that camera

besides FL-40. I saw that B&H Photo carries an FL-20, but that

little flash doesn't inspire confidence. Any advice?

If you can accept that auto mode flash is as good as TTL, and in the case of Olympus digitals, especially the E-10, auto is BETTER than TTL, because of the preflash which makes people blink, then you will be psychologically free to use anything. I use a Nikon SB24 with my C4040, and even though I use the Olympus FL40 with my E-10, I connect it with a Nikon SC17 cord so as to disable the TTL. I originally bought the FL40 with the C4040, but stopped using it because of the blinking problem--shot after shot was ruined by one or more people with closed eyes. After seeing a tip on David Weikel's E-10 page about disabling the TTL by putting a "mask" in the hotshoe, I realized I could do the same thing by using the non-dedicated (so to speak) Nikon cord off-camera. Trust me, the AUTO mode is just as accurate. Actually, a nice compromise in size, weight, and price for the E-10 is a Nikon SB22s. You just can't bounce it vertically, though.

Scott<br>

I tried doing what your are suggesting with a Canon dedicated Sunpak PZ5000 with a Canon TTL sync cord, but it didn't work very well in the Auto mode. I had to bracket the exposure compensation for every shot to get one out of 5 to look good. So far, the only thing that worked for me was using a Vivitar 285HV flash on a bracket with a PC cable connected to the camera and using a flash meter to figure out the exposure. That's too much of a pain in the ass for casual shooting. As far as the preflash making people blink, I have the same problem with my 10D. When I shoot weddings, I just sat it on a tripod, take 5 or more shots and then combine them in Photoshop later.

Dmitriy, I also use my old Nikon SB-24 with my Olympus E-10, and I'm very happy with the results. (I didn't get the Olympus FL-20 because I didn't have the money.) I mount it on the hot shoe and set it to Automatic mode. After some testing, I found that the best method for bounce flash (pointed straight up) is to set the SB-24 to 1 stop darker than the camera (again, in Auto mode) -- e.g., if the camera is at ISO 80 and f/8, then I set the flash to ISO 100 and f/11. That's my method with bounce flash.

<p>Are you coming from the film world? You know, one advantage to shooting digital is that you can check how successful the flash was immediately (well, a few seconds later), then adjust the flash if necessary. Good luck! Enjoy the E-10!