Yongnuo RF-603 + Olympus OM-D: Reloaded

Do you remember my RF-603 modification post? In that post I was able to modify my Canon version of the Yongnuou RF-603 trigger to make it work with my Olympus camera to trigger external flashes.

Now thanks to member Earlack and his post in this dpreview thread, I was able to further modify the camera cable of the triggers so that they can also wirelessly trigger my camera. Full details after the jump.

Below is a typical YN RF-603 kit, except that there is another transceiver. I have bought two kits, so I have four transceivers in total. With these, I can trigger up to three external flashes, and I can even trigger the camera (from one of the other triggers) using the supplied cable, however, this cable has only a Canon connector, and Yongnuo doesn't sell cables with the Olympus USB connector.

This brings us to the modification, thanks to dpreview member mentioned above, I did exactly what he did, and instead of buying a USB connector and connecting it, I bought the cheapest wired trigger for Olympus I could find, the one shown in the opening picture.

Here's the Olympus USB connector, this is what I bought the intervalometer for, to salvage the USB connector (don't feel sad for the intervalometer, I have a much better one, with an on-off switch, not fully-on-until-the-battery-runs-out like this one).

Operation begins by cutting the two ends of the RF-603 cable, and the intervalometer. Thankfully, they both have the same color code.

I connected both whites together, red with yellow and yellow with red, the picture below is not the final one, just roughly made for demonstration.

 

 

 Once done and tested, I insulated each of the wires separately.

 

And because I didn't have a good black sealing tape, I used Gaffer's tape to hold both ends of the cable together. I will be removing the ugly looking tape and using a more elegant solution.

And it works, however not fully as expected, the half-press doesn't do anything, and only a full press initiates the focus and triggers the shutter, but I don't mind since most probably, when remotely triggering the camera as such, I will use fixed focus. In case you're wondering, it doesn't matter if the RF-603 is mounted to the camera hot-shoe or not, and I also tried connecting the reds and yellows together, but when I tested it, the camera had the shutter "half-pressed" all the time.

This modification will give me two important uses:

1. I can trigger the camera wirelessly, useful for group photos, self photos, camera positioned far away (on a pole for example with a fisheye for a unique perspective).
2. I can trigger both the camera and flash together, for example if I'm light painting a large area with flash, I can leave the camera on the tripod, and take the flash with me and point it at different areas of the photo, and every time I trigger the flash, the camera will snap a picture. How cool is that?

Finally, all these pictures were shot handheld with the OM-D and the 12-50 lens in macro mode, ISO 3200, shutter speeds ~ 1/10 to 1/20 seconds, ACR standard noise reduction.


RELATED POSTS

Yongnuo RF-603 + Olympus OM-D

Read More

Yongnuo RF-603 + Olympus OM-D

OM-D + RF-603 working happily, excuse the quality, picture taken with my phone

During my DSLR sale, I kept all of my lighting equipment, one of my recent purchases were a couple of YN RF-603 wireless triggering kits (Canon 5D version), I never had a chance to use them on a real shoot with the 5D, however I tested them and they worked as advertised. I bought 2 kits, so I had 4 transceivers, they can trigger 3 flashes from the 5D, and they could be used to trigger the camera wirelessly as well.

 

Anyway, that's not the point, when I bought the OMD, I ordered an FL600R flash as my TTL, on-camera bounce flash, and I had a couple of YN-560 II powerful manual flashes to be used in lighting setups. I kept the RF-603 kit when I wanted to trigger all three flashes for setup shots, I know the YN-560 II flashes have optical triggers, and the Olympus FL600R can can be controlled remotely from the OMD, but I wanted the reliability of wireless triggers, especially if there are line of sight issues. When I tested the RF-603 triggers, I discovered they don't work with Olympus, I had totally forgot that I bought the Canon version, hmm, I thought, that's a bummer, let's see what I can find on the interwebz. Hit the jump to find out.

 

First thing, I went to Amazon and checked if Yongnuo made a version of the triggers for Olympus, nope, they don't, so, let's search for "Olympus OM-D and YN RF-603", I found a few results, and it took me a while to stumble on this trigger-saving thread on dpreview.

 

DISCLAIMER: All the coming methodology and modifications are done under the guidance of The Ginger Avenger's post on dpreview, full credit on this discovery is his, what I want to show is how it worked out on the Olympus OM-D specifically.

 

I checked his method and found it fairly simple that I didn't worry about breaking my trigger, I followed the instructions on his post, but kept all the pins on my trigger, and put a sticker on it to differentiate it from the others.

 

Trigger taken apart, I thought first of connecting a wire between the springs of the two concerned pins

 

Then I decided against it, as it might move around and cause a short or something

 

Soldering done in 10 seconds

 

Then a little bit of filing to lower the height, since the pins would be pushing against it

 

Assembly was very easy, and it worked very well from the first try as you can see below, see that red light? The OMD triggered the flash while taking this picture, that's why you can see the red light, otherwise it would be green during standby.

 

 

I found a few replies on the original post stating various sync speed issues, I was worried, the OMD has a maximum sync speed of 1/250, and I am happy to report it worked absolutely well up to 1/200, not too bad, that's the same as my 5D sync speed.

 

Sync speed, starting from 1/200 on the left, up to 1/500 on the right

 

Now I can trigger any 3 flashes reliably (my brother & friends have Canon flashes, so I can trigger those with the RF-603 and trigger the YN-560II via the built-in optical slave, for 5 light setups). One more benefit, the modified trigger can be used as a receiver on other flashes, in case I need to use all 4 transceivers on a Canon system.

 

Finally, I did a burst rate test, the flash recycling time would be a bottle neck, but I wanted to see how fast the triggers could go, so I turned the flash power down to 1/64, and fired away with the OMD at 9 fps, then I did another test at 1/16 power. Here are the results, I was using Sanyo Eneloops on the flash:

 

• 1/64 Power: first frame ok, second frame black, then the next 14 frames were ok. An amazing result, didn't think the flash and the trigger can keep up with 9 fps, could be very useful for water drops photography.
• 1/16 Power: first frame ok, second frame black, 6 frames ok, 4 black frames, then the last one was ok. Respectable, but I wonder about the regular black second frame.

All the close-up shots were taken hand-held with the incredibly versatile 12-50 lens, used in macro mode.

Posted with Blogsy

Read More

Testing the DIY Spinlight

Recently, we posted about a DIY alternative to the Black Foamie Thing and Spinlight 360 using a Flashright Pro.  What you see above is yet another such DIY alternative.  This one was posted on the Strobist Flickr forum by photographer David Huy.

Hit the jump to see how I assembled mine, and how it performs against the modified Flashright.

COMPONENTS
The "DIY Spinlight 360" uses the following parts:

• Flex mount flash gun adapter.  Variously branded as K-8, Interfit, and Strobies.  There is a specific adapter for the most common flashes.  For example, for the SB-800, the K-8 branded flex-mount adapter is the CA-1 model.  Available on ebay.  Some are white, some are black.  As low as $9.99
• Honeycomb grid.  This is the matching grid for the flex mount above.  To my knowledge, the grid is the same for all types of flex mount.  Available on ebay (a bit harder to search for because of the variety of names used, including honeycomb, honey-comb, and grid).  As low as $11.99.
• Optional: dome diffuser.  This is similar to the type of dome used for Gary Fong's lightsphere.  Available on ebay.  As low as $1.99.  I didn't attach a diffuser to mine.
• black foamie thing (BFT).

I removed the grid on the honeycomb grid accessory, leaving just the outer frame.  Strictly speaking, you don't have to do this, but if you leave the grid on, the grid will eat up a lot of the light.

Removing the grid is not easy.  The grid's frame is held together by three clips, equally spaced apart:

In addition, there are three tabs that fit into three corresponding holes on the other part of the frame.

To disassemble the frame, I held the lip of the frame and pushed against the edges of the honeycomb until the frame started to separate.  Before disassembling the grid, I didn't know about the tabs so I tried to pry one side open, which broke two of the tabs.

Once the frame is separated, you can remove the grid and reassemble the grid's frame.  The frame attaches to the flex mount and rotates.  All you need to do is attach the BFT to the grid, and if you wish, a dome diffuser.

The flex mount itself is mounted to the flash head just by pressure and friction.  It's reasonably secure though I wouldn't dangle my flash by holding on to the flex mount.

IMAGE QUALITY

How does the DIY Spinlight 360 compare to the Flashright modification?  To me, they have almost identical performance in terms of light pattern and efficiency.  (The DIY Spinlight 360 seems to have a slight edge in efficiency.)

One subtle difference is that when aiming the flash to the rear corner, the Flashright mod may have a slightly lower lighting ratio (i.e. shadows are a bit brighter), possibly because a portion of the dome may not be entirely blocked by the BFT.  In the Flashright shot below, note the thin hard shadow below the jaw line - meaning that a second light source (in addition to the bounce) was illuminating the subject.

OTHER DIFFERENCES

Although I haven't tested them in the field, both the DIY Spinlight 360 and the Flashright Mod appear to work very well as replacements for the BFT and Spinlight 360.  If you are choosing between the two, here are some factors to consider:

• Cost: the DIY Spinlight 360 can be had for about $21.99.  The Flashright Mod costs whatever the Flashright Pro costs (currently around $27 + shipping and handling with the 74PLEASE discount code).  I'm not sure though if the Flashright Pro discount will last.
• Versatility: the Flashright Mod can be rotated to allow the dome to contribute to the exposure.  I suspect the same is true for the DIY Spinlight if you attach the dome diffuser, but I haven't tested it, and there may be a decrease in efficiency from the diffusion effect of the dome diffuser.   On the other hand, one benefit of the DIY Spinlight is that the flex mount can be used with other accessories that are produced for the flex mount, such as a globe, mini beauty dish, mini softbox, snoot, or barn doors.
• Compatibility: the Flashright Mod can work with almost any speedlight.  The DIY Spinlight requires you to have the specific flex mount for your flash.  If you have another flash or are borrowing someone else's the flex mount might not fit.
• Weight: the DIY Spinlight (part of which is made of a dense plastic/rubber) is much heavier than the Flashright Mod.  When the DIY Spinlight is mounted, it will make the flash a bit top heavy.  Sometimes, with a little movement, the flash head might not maintain a tilted angle.
• Durability: I haven't tested the durability of either the DIY Spinlight or the Flashright Mod, but I think the DIY Spinlight would be more durable because it has a simpler design, and much of the flex mount is made of a plastic/synthetic rubber material.  It is not indestructible though -- its weakest part is likely to be the 4 small plastic clips that hold the grid frame.
• Portability: the DIY Spinlight is larger than the Flashright Mod and will take up more space in your bag.
• Speed: the DIY Spinlight is faster to attach and remove compared to the Flashright Mod.  All you need to do is push it on the flash head .  With the Flashright Mod, you need to use a velcro strap.
• Stability: the DIY Spinlight is a snug fit on my flash but can be knocked off with moderate force.  By contrast, it is hard to remove the Flashright from the speedlight without undoing the velcro strap.
• Ease of use: both the DIY Spinlight and Flashright Mod are easy to rotate, though I find the Flashright Mod slightly easier to rotate because you're turning a smallish dome compared to a wide ring with the DIY Spinlight 360.
• Ease of construction:  FWIW, I think the Flashright Mod is easier to make because pulling apart the honeycomb grid for the DIY Spinlight is not easy.  Make sure no kids are around to hear you cussing.
• Aesthetics: this is totally subjective but I think the Flashright Mod looks more sleek, elegant and high-tech than the DIY Spinlight though the rubber band (if you use one) can detract a bit from its appearance (maybe i'll use a black one).  I imagine the DIY Spinlight could look pretty cool too in black.

I will be switching between the DIY Spinlight and modified Flashright to test them both in the field, and will be updating these posts with my observations. (Note: the product shots for this post were taken with the Flashright mod.)

Read More