Olympus FL-700WR Flash — a quick look

Lost in all the hustle over Olympus‘ latest camera body offering (the intriguing yet rather pricey E-M1X), some less-glamorous items were far more interesting to me. Namely, Olympus’ new line of weather-resistant flash gear. The hub of this lineup is the FL-700WR, so I thought it’d be a good thing for me to quickly review (I’ll circle back to the subject in a few months after I’ve had time to put some serious miles on it).

For starters, let’s look at broadly how the new flash fits in the current Olympus line-up:

  FL-600R FL-700WR FL-900R
Dimensions (W x H x D), cm 6.2 x 10.4 x 9.8 7 x 10.6 x 10 8.1 x 12.1 x 12.5
Weight (gm) 255 303 382
Zoom range (mm) 12 – 42 12 – 75 12 – 100
Guide # (meters) @ 100 ISO 36 @ 42 mm 42 @ 75 mm 58 @ 100 mm
Recycle time (sec) 2 – 2.5 1.5 – 2.5 2.5 – 4.5
Current retail price in US $299 $399 $579

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