Hi all,
Here is one of my rare admissions of being thick.
My old FL50 flash has never seemed to be 100%, ever since I bought
it years ago, with periods of going through alkaline batterys after only
5-10 shots at the beginning of its life with me. The FL50 seemed to
work much better after a couple of months so I never sent it back.
I was planning on going to a wedding in the far future, and decided to do
some equipment checking well in advance and notice I was having problems
focusing, further investigation later lead me to conclude that THE red LEDs
(Focus beam) at the front of the flash didnt work, yet the ones on my FL36
worked fine in low light.
So I swapped flashs between the E1, E330, and E450, the FL36 worked
great but I cant use it on the FP1 flash bracket (which I bought to overcome
the FL50 chewing up the battery's). The FL50 refused to light up the LED's
on anything, I was limited to the red LED on the E1 for low light stuff,
not that it bothered me as I rarely use my gear in situations that are that
dark, and I like my F2.8 len's BUT I new there would be dark times at
the wedding, I also new that there would be much white lacy stuff on
the ceiling so I wanted a flash to light it up, as well as something to
make sure I was focusing quickly with the E450 and FL50+bracket
combo in very low light.
Now, I figured I'd just open the flash up and give it the once over,
especially as its now well out of warranty. Well bugger me, after
much struggling, even asking JohnH if he had any ideas, I just couldn't
get the flash foot off, it wouldn't budge.
I was at the point of giving up (tried attacking it several times with no
luck) and sending it to Olympus Australia but I then saw the price for a
FL50R is 1/2 of what the FL50 originally cost me.
So I bought a new FL50R for AU$411 from HK and waited for it to arrive,
which it did, 2 days after the wedding :o)
Anyway, it wasnt that important now if I fractured the FL50 case in gaining
entry so I decided to have another attempt at cracking it, finally I managed
to get the flash foot off, it was suppost to be just as easy as getting the foot
of a FL36 but as I eventually discovered, this one was fortified with glue,
the sort you use in a hot glue gun. All very odd but I did manage to get the
foot off without damaging the case, instead I cracked the seal around the
glue which was pure luck.
Now it was happening, the foot was off, the case was open, no need to
access the head but I made sure there was no stray voltage on the boards.
I spied two leads to the focus beam had been crushed BUT checking
with a multimeter they appeared fine, I replaced them anyway, I couldnt
see any damage to the PCB's, components, or other leads so put the flash
back together but the focus beam still wouldnt work.
Oh well, I'll leave it as a rainy day job and keep it as my spare.
Well today I decided to read the manual, and noticed there is a setting
for the FL50R for off camera usage. Stuffed if I could see what difference
this would make, surely the time it takes for electrons to travel up and back
in the lead couldnt make a difference, maybe it was something to do with
the communications system ? Still didn't make sense but I changed the
setting to off camera anyway as it was going to live on the bracket
anyway.
Hmm hmm, to cut this long story short, that setting turns the auto focus
beam off ! Thats all it does, so once I recovered from the flash of light
above my head I checked the FL50 settings, yep, it was set for off camera.
All these years and I dont think I ever noticed the FL50's focus beam
wasnt working. I changed the setting to 'on camera', and the focus beam
works fine !
I really should read manuals more often..
The mystery of the shoe being fortified with hot glue remains but now
there is nothing wrong with my old FL50 at all.
Cheers
Ian Manners
I'm easy to please as long as I get my way.
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