What rig do you use to photograph your guns?

[Claven2]

taters: forget Image Stabilization on any non-telephoto lens. It's wasted. Especially if you're going to shoot from tripod.

As an amateur, if you want IS, you're better off to sell the Digital Rebel kit and but one of the brands with in-camera IS like the Olympus 510 or one of the Pentax IS models. They are also better cameras than the digital rebel at that price point with metal lens mounts, better sensors, etc.

 

[Claven2]

For the life of me, I can't seem get the curtain sync on Olympus D-730 to work with my flash slave sensor.
Slave flash is triggered by the slave, but not where it makes a difference to the exposure. Tried slow 1 and slow 2, front and rear curtain syncs.

For most triggered slaves on modern digital SLR's, you need a curtain speed of 1/180s or lower. Often 1/160 or lower. In fact on my old OM-1, it had to be 1/80 or lower!

I find that when triggering slaves on a digital camera, I'm best off to set the camera to manual, 1/160s and F4. Then I adjust from there based on test shots till I get the lighting and exposure right. It's even faster & easier than using my old light meter.

I also never use optical triggering. It's not nearly as reliable as wires or radio. Pocket Wizard radio trancievers are THE way to go, but are too expensive for a home setup. At home, I have just as good luck with inexpensive e-bay radio triggers. Only 4 channels though, so don't use them at a shoot where other photographers are radio triggering too!

As for flash settings on an olympus camera, just set the flash to fire (the single squiggly flash arrow). Slow and fast are special modes for low light shooting to get special effects.