When I decided to get a second strobe to supplement my less than stellar Oly FL-20, one of my questions was whether I would be able to use the Oly in ttl-auto mode and slave the second strobe off of it. There was some debate here, and several opinions that my photos would be overexposed because the camera wouldn't factor the second strobe into the settings. With only one weekend before my original Sunpak failed, I didn't get an adequate chance to find out, but now it's back.
This weekend I went out and shot under about the most hideous circumstances in terms of photography-dark green pea soup water with lots of green goo in it. I shot all of my shots with both strobes, and the Oly in ttl-auto setting. As I had no hope of wide shots, I used a low setting on the Sunpak, and set the strobes as far apart as possible to avoid backscatter. Several positives to report. No backscatter-Halleluja!
No burn-outs-with lighting available from both sides I didn't have to put the strobe right on top of the subject, so non of my shots was overexposed and only a couple where the subjects were in holes or under rocks had shadow issues. The slave strobe fired beautifully even between 3 and 4 feet away. I set the slave in regular rather than preflash mode, and it fired twice as did the ttl strobe. I think this allowed the camera to set for the extra strobe, and avoid overexposures. All in all, the best macro lighting I've had since I stopped using the built in flash, but without the backscatter. On wide shots I'm not worried about using the ttl setting as I'll need all the light I can get, so I'll just set both strobes on manual settings.
This weekend I went out and shot under about the most hideous circumstances in terms of photography-dark green pea soup water with lots of green goo in it. I shot all of my shots with both strobes, and the Oly in ttl-auto setting. As I had no hope of wide shots, I used a low setting on the Sunpak, and set the strobes as far apart as possible to avoid backscatter. Several positives to report. No backscatter-Halleluja!
No burn-outs-with lighting available from both sides I didn't have to put the strobe right on top of the subject, so non of my shots was overexposed and only a couple where the subjects were in holes or under rocks had shadow issues. The slave strobe fired beautifully even between 3 and 4 feet away. I set the slave in regular rather than preflash mode, and it fired twice as did the ttl strobe. I think this allowed the camera to set for the extra strobe, and avoid overexposures. All in all, the best macro lighting I've had since I stopped using the built in flash, but without the backscatter. On wide shots I'm not worried about using the ttl setting as I'll need all the light I can get, so I'll just set both strobes on manual settings.
