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[OM] DMC-L1 pre-flash

Subject: [OM] DMC-L1 pre-flash
From: Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2013 16:16:58 -0500
Well, mystery solved. Again, maybe, who knows, old age, etc...

I was getting stuff together last night for a major off-site portrait
shoot. Due to specific issues involved with this portrait shoot, I
decided I needed to shoot with the Panasonic DMC-L1. But, I'm also
using three studio strobes. Typically, my setup is to use a wireless
radio trigger to fire one or more of them and let the others optically
slave. But the DMC-L1 has the built-in flash, so I figure I'd tilt it
up to the bounce position and let it trigger the optical slaves that
way.

I have an eclectic mix of self-contained strobes, including an old
10,000 White Lightning which was tucked away in my $20 box-o-goodies.
I tested it and it worked fine. I chimped the test shot making sure
that it fired and synced OK. Since it did, I was tempted to not do the
others, but I decided to waste my time and do it anyway. Neither of
the other two would sync, even though they fired.  Huh???

The DMC-L1 has a "pre-flash" that fires no matter what. Absolutely no
way that I can find to defeat it. The old White Lightning fired
correctly because it was just blind enough to not see the pre-flash.
The other two were sensitive enough to see the preflash. (I've run
into this problem in the past and wasn't sure exactly what was going
on because it would sometime work and sometimes not. Intermittent
problems are a real pain to diagnose).

So, my workaround is to throw a 285HV on the hotshoe and let it
trigger the slaved strobes. I tested and tested and tested. Oh, and I
even tested. I COULD have used the radio triggers, but was somehow
focused on doing it the hard way. I only need to fire one... Oh, yeah,
now I remember (see first line), the radio triggers don't work well on
the DMC-L1 because of pin alignment.

Why the DMC-L1 for this project? I need to match a 50 year old B&W
wedding photograph by getting the lighting and poses exactly the same.
The DMC-L1 does a very good job with in-camera B&W and with the Eye-Fi
card, I am able to immediately chimp the image on the iPad which will
sit next to the photograph being matched. We're doing other
modern-color shots too, but the money-shot is the B&W.

-- 
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
-- 
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