Pics just no good unless close up

[MMM]

Hi all. I am pretty untutored about photography geek talk. I have 2 Olympus cameras: a 5050 and a Stylus 1010. I'm pretty good at shooting things but have been frustrated by colour loss unless the thing is about 6 inches away from me. I bought a Olympus UFL1 strobe but that didn't seem to do the trick. It just doesn't seem to have enough juice. Any suggestions? I feel like I just need to go and buy some big honking stobes on a big honking tray but don't know how to make that work with my housing/camera. So maybe that's not the solution. Suggestions? Thanks.

 

[oly5050user]

use a wide angle lens and get as close as you can to fill the lcd screen.Even a big honking strobe will not work very well more than 4-5' from subject..big strobes afford a wider angle coverage,not necessarily more power.Shoot camera on manual..Use a ttl strobe for more reliable exposures.

 

[under water]

Marg,
Are you sure your strobe is firing at the right time.
Try shooting into a mirror with the settings you usually use.
Do you see the bright flash from the strobe?

You should be getting decent results at least a few feet away with the strobe.
Do you have any recent pix we can look at?

 

[slowhands]

It does sound like your strobe is not firing at the right time, or possibly your camera is set wrong. Does your camera shoot OK without the external flash, using only the internal flash? I found it OK for close subjects, like the thumbnail below.

For a simple test, put your camera in manual mode M, set the shutter to say 1/100 and the lens to f1.8. You should be able to take a photo into a mirror, and see the external flash fire too, in addition to your internal flash. I suggested M mode because then you won't have a pre-flash, which sometimes confuses external flashes.

This flash is weak, guide number 14, so it's really not great for anything but close-ups anyway. But it should help a little over the internal flash, using the external flash as a slave to your internal flash. The C5005 has several flash settings. The one you want is internal plus slave, as I recall, do check that. I used a C5050 a lot, and it's really a gem, but syncing with a flash does require the settings to be correct.

You might also want to do a search for the 5050 here on the board, and also try some settings from this article, which is a great tutorial:
Splashdown Divers - Boynton Beach, Florida - Underwater Digital Photography - 5050 Settings - 5060 Settings

 

[MMM]

Hi there. I tried the photo in the mirror thing. While my strobe fired, it's not seen in the photo. But I can see the internal flash in the pic. So I think you are right about the timing issue. I'll mess around a bit with that and see what happens. I DO use the TTL setting on the strobe.

Here are a couple of pictures from yesterday....good and bad...I was shooting with the Oly1010 which doesn't have an M setting.







Any other advice will be appreciaated.

 

[under water]

You have found your problem if you can't see the strobe flash in the mirror. I am not familiar with your particular camera's settings, but coordinating those with the strobe is the key.
Basically, it needs to be set to ignore the correct # of pre-flashes.
Some cameras do not create pre-flashes in M mode, so you might try that (if you later use a camera that has one), but that may not be how you want to shoot.
Initially I suggest setting the camera up in the mode that you like. and adjust the strobe until you see the flash in the mirror. Remember that setting. Then play around with the camera in the M mode and remember that setting in case you want to use it later.
M mode will allow you more flexibility to adjust the background relative to the foreground (think really cool dark backgrounds or rich blue open water)

 

[oly5050user]

camera not in sync with strobe..if you are using a fiber optic cable set camera on manual and try the mirror trick again.Avoid backscatter by blocking internal strobe from lighting area in front of camera. Also check for a switch that the strobe may have to ignore the preflash,it may have one.
If using a sync cord set via hot shoe on camera set on external strobe.Advange of using sync cord is cameras strobe will not fire,only ext strobe and battery on camera will last longer ..

 

[MMM]

That seems to be the trick. Having found the problem, I've fiddled around with flash options (on the 5050 in M with settings slowhands suggested I only get 2 flash options: no flash or slow) but can't seem to get external strobe to fire regardless. I wish there was someone down here who could give me a photography class! Well, I'm not diving today so will see what I can find from past posts on this board. Thanks.

 

[MMM]

camera not in sync with strobe..if you are using a fiber optic cable set camera on manual and try the mirror trick again.Avoid backscatter by blocking internal strobe from lighting area in front of camera. Also check for a switch that the strobe may have to ignore the preflash,it may have one.
If using a sync cord set via hot shoe on camera set on external strobe.Advange of using sync cord is cameras strobe will not fire,only ext strobe and battery on camera will last longer ..

The big selling feature by Olympus was that this particular strobe is supposed to sync to the camera's internal flash. It doesn't have a lot of switches: only TTY and M on one switch and 1/2 and full on another.

Olympus - UFL-1

So in short, I don't have either a fiber optic cable or a sync cord (assuming they are not one and the same thing). Maybe I'm missing a needed piece of equipment?

 

[under water]

Make sure the camera flash is set to "FILL" (the lightning bolt), not auto or red-eye.
If you are not using a fiber optic cable to channel the internal flash to the strobe, it may not fire every time and may not be able to interpret the TTL signals from the camera.