I want to go ahead and inform you all of a bug I found in the E-M1 mkII. I have spoken with Olympus over the last couple days and Senior tech tested in the same way that I discovered this and have confirmed the bug and it is being documented and reported on. They said hopefully this will be corrected soon via firmware. Sooner the better I hope!
The E-M1 mkII has a flash bug. If you are in HIGH RES mode or FOCUS STACKING / BRACKETING mode the hotshoe and the flash sync port deactivate for everything except Olympus hotshoe flashes.
This means you cannot fire a strobe via sync cable, third party hotshoe flashes, third party triggers, or other gear that needs a hotshoe or sync port signal while in these two modes. Even with flash regeneration time on…the camera takes the extra time…but nothing fires.
The sync port and hotshoe function with all equipment in every other mode just fine, including electronic shutter.
Temporary workaround:
Use the included FL-LM3 hotshoe flash that was included with the camera (you know…the little dinky one we usually toss in the closet…) as an optical trigger. This flash works, and luckily it swivels and tilts. I set the flash to manual and 1/64 power. This generally does not interfere with the scene. I swivel and point it to one of my strobes or flashes and it works fine. Set your regeneration to the time of your slowest strobe recycle and it will still trigger them with recycle time. I have not tested taking the LM3 of camera with a cable yet…but generally my studio setups that require this have been within 15 feet so I have been fine.
So far this is the only camera affected. The Pen F, E-M1, E-M5mkII, etc… all behave correctly. This seems limited to the E-M1 mkII only and is most likely just a firmware bug. Again, lets hope this gets corrected soon! I actually discovered this on a client shoot. I tested in normal mode and we set lighting, tested colors, etc… everything was fine. We switched to high res and nothing. Swapped triggers, nothing. Swapped cables, nothing. Sweating bullets here. Can you believe that small little voice inside that morning told me to bring the LM3 flash with me? Ok I have NEVER used an included flash for anything ever. I don’t even know where most of them are. All my work is off camera flash, and the included strobes are always too weak for anything serious right? Well thank goodness I listened that morning and threw it in my bag. Using it as an optical trigger allowed the shoot to continue without issue. Wow, that was a close one!
My name is Tony. When I'm not writing for this site, i'm often creating images for clients, recording music, or out in nature. You can always bet I have my E-M1 next to me...
I also discovered that the silent mode needs to be switched off if you want to use a macro flash using the hotshoe this is the same for the Pen F
Thank you for the workaround I’ll try it!
A question, I haven’t tried yet but how is the High res or focus stacking using the flashes?
Intensity of light is little bit different every time, is it visible in the final picture?
These modes work great with flashes. Just make sure to set the recycle time long enough for the flashes to truly recycle. Since it is electronic shutter you need to be mindful of the lower sync speed. Light so far seems even in every frame. I have used this when shooting products and art and the results are excellent. In fact I ended up choosing high res mode over a medium format sensor based on my testing when shooting art.