Need For Pre-Flash in Oly 5050?

I am currently using the slave strobe mode for my Oly 5050 to get faster camera strobe cycling and more camera battery life when using my DS 125 strobes in manual mode.

And it works.

But what price am I paying? Or more to the point, since there is no pre-flash in the slave mode, what doesn't the camera do for me that it would do with pre-flash?

The camera uses the pre-flash to set the exposure & white balance by measure the pre-flash light that return from the objects. The camera then set the WB (only at auto mode) & the time for the main flash to fire.

If you use your strobe in manual mode you don't need your camera to tell it the time, and for the WB you can use one of the pre defined modes.

Thanks for the info.

Doesn't look like there should be a problem then in shooting without pre-flash.

And the shots I took today came out fine without pre-flash and with white balance set for cloudy at 60 feet with a strobe shooting wide angle. With macro, I think I'll set wite balance for sunny. But that's for another day.

Again thanks for helping me unravel the mysteries of pre-flash.