Warning: More of Yours Truly in the Offing

One of the drawbacks of being an amateur photographer is that there never is enough opportunity to hone the old skillz. Now I freely admit that I'm married to a woman whose unbridled joy at being at the business end of a Zuiko 50mm f/2.0 is second only to the pleasure she takes in her 8-hours-of-the-dreamless each night. But even so, having to stand for hours on end while her photog. spouse makes ever-so-slight adjustments wears somewhat thin.

I've often considered practicing portrait lighting on myself of course, but the drill is awful: Press, run, get in position, <click!>, run, gawk at botched picture to figure out what to adjust, press, run... well, you get the idea.

First, the good news...

A fellow strobist reminded me of this little feature that I remember glossing over in the camera's user manual (yes I did RTFM --- just not that carefully): Video-out. Simply put, God's greatest gift to narcissistic photographers.

Most recent LCD monitors have a composite-video input jack, and my E-330's USB output doubles as a video-out line. They've even provided a handy cable for the purpose. Combine that with the its live-view feature (which Olympus was something of a pioneer at with DSLRs) and you've got heaven. Now I can simply connect up the monitor, point the camera at the finely chiseled, and I make composition adjustments right where I sit while viewing them on the 20-incher. This assumes that I've got the lighting parameters (shutter, aperture, flash-power) nailed down of course, but that's getting easier all the time.

All that's lacking now, is to get one of those little IR remotes that I can use to trigger the camera remotely.

Now the bad news... Given my new found freedom, you can probably expect more pictures of yours truly. I know I'm not as easy on the eyes as the beautiful ball-and-c., but hey, you can always volunteer as a guinea-pig, even if it is just to keep me from myself :)