Dear All,
INTRODUCTORY CONFESSION:
My name is Ray and I am a silly billy!
BACKGROUND:
Last night I was invited to the birthday dinner of a French
restaurateur, together with a bunch of his other friends in Jakarta.
Knowing my fondness of photography, he urged me to bring my camera to
record the event.
MYSTERY:
I started to take a few interior shots of the restaurant, using my
OM-2S in Auto mode, with T32 flash and 28mm/2.8 Zuiko lens. However,
although I saw the (green) flash ready symbol in the viewfinder, it
simply went out each time I took a shot, indicating underexposure. The
flash was obviously giving a full dump each time, since it took ages
before the light came on again. This continued to happen as I tried
close-ups and other test shots in case the flash-to-subject distance
was too great. I checked that the flashgun and camera settings were
correct for TTL flash and all seemed well. I was mystified!
DISCOVERY:
Then it began to dawn on me what was up. I had recently started to set
the camera to the red (mechanical) 60 shutter speed before I put it
away, to avoid accidental activation of the LCD display and consequent
shortening of batter life. Sure enough, I had forgotten to reset the
shutter speed selector to an electronic speed. I would normally have
noticed that there was no display in the viewfinder but the restaurant
was so dim that the display wouldn't have been visible anyway. As a
result, the electronics in the camera were deactivated and, of course,
there was no TTL control of the flash.
SOLUTION:
I changed the shutter speed selector to a normal (non-mechanical)
setting and all was well from then on. Of course, I had to re-take all
the interior shots because most, if not all, of the first set would
have been over-exposed to blazes.
RANT:
If Olympus had equipped the OM-2S with an on/off switch, I wouldn't
have to resort to such round about ways of conserving batteries! By
trying to improve ease of operation, with the camera always ready to
take a shot, which is not a bad goal if they had done it properly with
a non-thirsty circuit as in the OM-4T, Olympus have actually made it
worse! You shouldn't have to do silly things like selecting red 60
(which is very stiff on my camera), remove batteries, etc. One of the
things I like about the OM-2n mode selector is its "off" position.
CONCLUSION:
I have to admit that it was my fault. I MUST get used to checking EVERY
control on the camera before I use it (sigh)!
Regards,
=====
Ray
"The trouble with resisting temptation is
you never know when you'll get another chance!"
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