What kind of flash?

[audreylynn3]

I have an Olympus E300, and I'd like to get a flash for it. I've only had the camera for a couple of months (inherited it from my photographer father, who upgraded), and I'm still learning the ins and outs of it, so any tips are much appreciated! Thanks in advance.

[inkista]

This is just my opinion, so ignore it freely, but if you're just starting out with a first SLR, I'd say that you want to wait until you've got the exposure basics down. You should be comfortable and happy to shoot in Manual mode and able to swap stops among the iso, aperture, and shutter speed before you head into flash photography. Simply because flash photography throws another two elements into the exposure mix: flash power and flash distance; and because your iso, shutter speed, and aperture will interact differently with the flash than it does with the ambient.

This means you often want to be shooting with the camera in Manual mode to balance the flash and ambient components of your lighting the way you want.

Also, which flash unit you want is going to depend in part on what type of lighting you want to do with your flash. If you plan on using it on-camera primarily for event shooting with bounce (i.e., a run'n'gun situation where you won't have an opportunity to retake the shot), you probably want an on-brand speedlight with all the bells'n'whistles of TTL, swivel, and tilt. And the more powerful the better (i.e., FL-50R if you can afford it, FL-36R if you can't.)

If, however, you're only going to do the Strobist thing, then a bunch of other possibilities open up for you in terms of cheap manual flashes and radio triggers.

If you want to do both, then an on-brand flash is going to be the best bet, because it can do both.

[Raigoki]

i agree with inkista.
i'm doing photography for about a year now, and i still find it difficult to use external flash (strobe) in creating almost natural look. for olympus, FL-36 and FL-50 should be fine. (notice without "r" in the flash model). i think "r" is for remote... (which E-520 and later versions of olympus DSLR have these mechanism to control the flash off-cam) but i use vivitar flash... (non-TTL, purely manual, for me to get used to it)

[audreylynn3]

Thanks to both of you, I appreciate your honesty. I've started checing out the Strobist website, wow! What a great place to learn! I'm going to take your advice, and just do as much learning as possible first.