Advice please on purchasing a flash for a Panasonic Compact System Camera Lumix DMC- G5

susiejb

susiejb

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Just wondering if anyone can help me please ....I've mentioned in the macro thread that I need to purchase a flash for my Panasonic Lumix DMC G5.

This one
http://www.amazon.co.uk/YONGNUO-YN560-III-INT-YongNuo-YN-560-Flashgun/dp/B00BXA7N6A has been suggested by @TimmyG .

Teamed with a

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vktech-Yongnuo-YN560-TX-Wireless-Controller/dp/B00LWZCWIA.

But he recommended that I put a post on here just to see if anyone has any other suggestions. It would need to fit a standard hotshoe and I'd like to be able to use it away from the camera at times.

Any help would be very much appreciated.
 
Just bumping this one :)

Anyone able to confirm if the suggested combo will work with the panasonic, or anyone able to offer alternatives?

thanks
 
I have the Lumix G5 and it is quite limited regarding flash capabilities. The main issues are:
1. It does not support the Olympus optical TTL (Through the Lens metering) capability, the GH3, G6 and later bodies do.
2. The camera cannot use cheap wireless triggers for TTL remote flashes set in TTL mode.
3. The built in flash is TTL metering only, it does not have a manual mode.
4. The camera produces a pre-flash signal to the hot shoe that cannot be turned off. This means that using a normal wireless single pin trigger (non TTL) results in the flash firing during the pre-flash and not on the main exposure.

I suggest that the options for TTL metering are:

Olympus/Panasonic or compatible flash mounted on the hotshoe. Not good for close macro work due to the lens partially obscuring the subject and needs a flash that has a downward angle capability in landscape mode.
Hot shoe extension cable. These allow the flash to be handheld or mounted on a small tripod limited only by the length of the cable. Genuine Oly/Pany cables are overpriced, Canon cables are cheaper and will work. Plenty of cheap third party cables of very variable quality.

The options for manual flash off camera are:

Use a wireless trigger and receiver that can be set to ignore pre-flash signals (if one exists) and any manual flash gun that does not exceed the safe trigger voltage of the wireless receiver.
Use a normal cheap trigger and receiver connected to a flash that can be set to ignore pre-flash, typically called something like slave digital.

My flash guns are 2 x Metz 48 AF-1 for Olympus/Panasonic, which can only be set to TTL slave mode and used with cameras that support this like my humble olympus pen . The Yongnuo flash listed above is specified as being capable of ignoring pre-flash, so should provide an ideal manual only solution although I personally have no experience of this flash at all.
 
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Although Harvey has given advice.

It may also help if you change the heading of thread. I thought the G5 was a CSC and not a bridge camera, perhaps people won't look at the thread as it's titled as a bridge and people may have less experience with them?
 
Thanks for that very helpful info HarveyM .... my main interest is in macro so it has to be suitable for that. I find the on camera flash pretty useless as it never fires in situations when I want it to.

Simon I've changed the thread title ...thank you for that advice.
 
The flash should fire whenever you want unless there is a lot of ambient light and the shutter speed exceeds the maximum sync speed of the camera, which is 1/160. If it is, then an ND filter would be a possibility to slow the speed down, or, in my case, I use a Metz 48 AF-1 which supports High Speed Sync (HSS) when mounted on the camera or extension cable, this allows much higher shutter speeds but at reduced effective flash power. The YN 560 does not support HSS which might be a deal breaker for your purposes. The Yongnuo YN 565 does support HSS.
 
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