I recently bought a mountable flash to go with my olympus evolt 510, but it takes a few minutes between pictures to "get ready"  is this normal?  this is my first mountable flash and I need to master it b/c I'm shooting an indoor reception at night.  any tips?  it came with very little instruction.

J 

What flash did you get? FL30?

Sounds like the FL-36.  Go pick up a pack of Energizer Lithiums.  You'll notice a tremendous difference.  It'll also suck them dry pretty fast...  Gets expensive.  Also, check out Eneloops - hybrid batteries.  :o)

 I got a AF TTL for DSLR. guide #22m?  What about rechargeables,  which are the very best? 

 The Eneloop's are rechargeable...

Oh, and the slow recycle time is almost always one of the trade-offs of a less expensive flash.  Bummer, I know.   

hmmmm  I'm a little confused as to what flash unit you have.  Between me and my daughter we have the F36, F50 and F50R.  I have had the best success with Duracell Batteries CR-V3. I get hundreds of shots off of a fresh Duracell battery or batteries. I would say that at least the first 100 shots are very quick response.  I always change my batteries before important shots needing speed like wedding shots down the aisle.  I use rechargeables but not on important shoots. If it's taking minutes between shots with new batteries on F36 something is wrong.  

Gabe

She's got a 3rd party, non-oly, flash. 

ohhhhh!  I see said the blind man...

Jules,

If you are going to continue to shoot indoor events, I would suggest you at least invest in an Olympus FL36 flash. I believe that you will also notice very soon that your flash is not powerful enough.  I started with an FL36 and I soon learned that I could still use more power so I upgraded to the FL50.  My daughter went through the same routine. So if you shoot a lot of indoor stuff the FL50 is the ticket.  The FL36 and FL50 are specifically made for the Olympus line so no compatibility issues.  Until Olympus came out with their new E3 camera they have had problems shooting at high ISO settings, over iso 400, making low light situations harder to shoot.  This should also be considered in securing a good flash for your 510.  Hope this helps...

Gabe     

Thanks for all the advice.  I'm going to get the high end rechargeables and hope that helps.  I don't plan to use it much I only picked it up b/c I have a reception/party to shoot in May.  Hopefully I'll get the kinks worked out by then.  My camera is not the easiest to learn on, I've had it a year and I'm still learning...

Julie

Julescaroline:

  My camera is not the easiest to learn on, I've had it a year and I'm still learning...

Julie

Julie,

You might try one of these training videos / dvd.   When I first got my e300 several years ago it helped me learn the camera. Check out this link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Olympus-Evolt-E510-E-510-Training-DVDs-Videos-1-2_W0QQitemZ260230951750QQihZ016QQcategoryZ43457QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Here is some free training stuff on utube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4RhgK9GPB0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwCX4cg_KbQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXT9Ot-KVwY&feature=related

Gabe