Manual Flash

[XAos]

Ok, I got a completely meterless camera now (let's leave the focusing out of this 😀 ) and I'm doing ok outdoors with sunny-16, when it actualy IS sunny. I have two manual flashes, the Vivitar 283 has a nice little dial, the other (which we wont name) a chart. I've googled, and seen over and over the same basic thing. The 283 shows for ISO 400 film, a distance of 10 ft and f/22 for aperture. Great so far. However, none of these resources I've found make any mention whatsoever about the shutter speed this is all based on. I know there's enough flash sync variation among cameras to make a difference, unless it doesn't really matter (for the flash itself, obviously it makes an impact on ambient).

I've got a leaf shutter, it'll go up to 1/400th, Aperture down to f/45. It has occured to me that if the flash duration is essentially constant and very very very short relative to the shutter speed, or factored in to the guide number somehow, (Since bulbs have very long burn times relative to electronic flash this could be) - that shutter speed (as long as it's below sync for you focal plane types) could be largely irrelevant until the point where background beings to compete with ambient light. The only thing is I've not seen this in print anywhere. What is the story on shutter speed with flash?

Can anyone <ahem> shed some light on this?

 

[Nick R.]

With leaf shutters, shutter speed doesn't matter with electronic flash. As you surmise, your shutter speed can be set to whatever you think is appropriate for the background or ambient lighting. If you set it too slow, though, you can get ghosting, where you have an crisp image frozen by the flash bordered by a blurry image created by ambient light at a slow shutter speed.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Heresy! Burn the witch! Using flash with rangefinder cameras! Aaargh! Didn't you realize you could be thrown off the forum for this?

Seriously, don't go above 1/250 with powerful studio flash as you may get some 'clipping' (full flash duration may extend to 1/300 sec or so). With on-camera flash, don't worry about it. Retinas and Prominents stayed in professional use into the 1960s and maybe beyond because they could synch at better than the 1/50 of a Leica.

Cheers,

Roger (www.rogerandfrances.com)

 

[XAos]

I told you to leave the focusing out of this, it's not a rangefinder anyway, so there - is that double heresy, the 2nd heresy (flash) doesn't matter because it's not an RF, or it all cancels out like sign errors?

It is however, working my brain something fierce, like it didn't even get with my k1000 clone which did at least have a meter. I did google before posting this ("Would you like to find other 'manual flash meter shutter speed sync' near you?"), after posting, I found a nice little page about manual daylight fill flash with some examples that were inspiring. I think I need a rotary wheel calculator taped to the back of the camera. (Along with a reminder to take out the dark slide.)

Thanks guys.

 

[cralx2000]

XAos, here is the Vivitar 283 manual.

http://dl3.rapidshare.de/files/3463351/2181838/283flash.pdf

 

[Nick R.]

Heresy! Burn the witch! Using flash with rangefinder cameras! Aaargh! Didn't you realize you could be thrown off the forum for this?

Seriously, don't go above 1/250 with powerful studio flash as you may get some 'clipping' (full flash duration may extend to 1/300 sec or so). With on-camera flash, don't worry about it. Retinas and Prominents stayed in professional use into the 1960s and maybe beyond because they could synch at better than the 1/50 of a Leica.

Cheers,

Roger (www.rogerandfrances.com)

Good advice. However, when I tested some of my fixed-lens rangefinders, none reached 1/300th of a second regardless of setting. The fastest was a Konica auto S3 at 1/277.

 

[XAos]

283 says duration is 1/1000th, down to 1/30,000 for some of the automatic modes - so I should be ok even at 1/400th. Now my tiltamite (which actually came with the HiMatic 9 I got for $13) - I've no idea what the bulbs I got with it are - I have a few dozen but not enough to go squandering on science or anything.

Hopefully, even though it's not a rangefinder, it's odd enough that Roger will forgive me.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Nick -- sounds about right, and consistent with my own experience: at least 1/3 stop slow at 1/500, often 2/3, sometimes a whole stop. But if you can't test, and are REALLY paranoid, yeah, avoid 1/500.

Cheers

Roger