LX-5 With Off Camera Flash

I was playing around with the new portable camera and I'm really loving having something portable with me at all times. Playing is fun. I got the idea to stick my Radio Poppers on the hot shoe and see what it can do and I learned something really interesting that bears more testing. I started cranking down the shutter speed and I learned that the flash was syncing with the exposure. The power was dropping, but I need to try boosting the flash output. But, I'm finding... that because the LX-5 lacks a physical shutter (much like the micro 4/3rds cameras like the GF-1) that you don't get the half exposed image. Looking forward to playing more with this effect in more situations, but if anyone has experience with this or if I'm completely off base, drop me a comment.

In the meantime, here's a playing around pic.