Is it possible to overide flash sync + white balance in Oly e620

[Brookieman10]

I have a new e-620 with an Inon D2000 strobe and would like to try and increase my shutter speed - 1/250 to 1/500 but the e-620 has a max shutter speed of 1/180 with a flash. I'm using optical cable to control the Inon so I'm forced to camera's flash.

I've notice that at 50+ feet the custom white balance doesn't work and gives me a NG message so I'm forced to use a strobe or fix the white balance in photoshop

Any ideas or work arounds ?

 

[PHIL RUDIN]

The 1/180th second sync can not be exceeded with Olympus land strobes but you can use your Inon strobe with fiber sync cables to about 1 320th sec. Set the camera in manual and shutter speed to 1/250th make an exposure and you will see that the camera syncs. At 1/500th second you will begin to see a dark line across the bottom of the image where the shutter did not sync with the strobe. The higher you go from there the wider the dark line will get. I shoot macro with the E-620 and twin Inon strobes at 1/250th set in manual all the time.

For the above to work the cameras on board strobe need to be set to manual mode, other wise it reverts to 1/180th second. In manual the on board strobe just acts as a trigger for the Inon strobes. I set the onboard strobe in the menu to 1/16th second for reduce battery drain and increase recycle times. The Inon strobes also need to be set to manual. For macro I set the strobes around F-11 and adjust from that point with the camera set at ISO 200 and F-16 to F-22. Once you have tried this a few times, manual becomes as easy as shooting in TTL.

You can set the white balance at 5300K or use auto white balance but the results will be about the same as shooting with a pre set white balance.

Phil Rudin

 

[AndyT]

Hi Phil

Have you tried setting the on board camera flash to a lower power setting (1/64)? Reason for asking is that I am going to give the manual strobe thing a go for the reasons you state.

 

[PHIL RUDIN]

Hello Andy,

Yes I set the on-board strobe power to 1/64th all the time for both macro, with the Athena ring flash which is manual and for the Inon Z-240's/S-2000's in macro or wide angle. The external strobes work just as well with 1/64th of a flash as they do with a full flash in my SeaTool E-3 housing. I have done the same with the Olympus housings for E-620 and E-410 black or clear plexi does not seem to make a difference, also with your housing. Recycle times and battery life both improve as a result. Remember that you will need to go into the main menu (camera icon 2) and turn off the R/C mode to get shutter speed to shift to 1/64th.

Phil