Using a flash unit with an Electro 35 GSN

[kellymjones]

I recently acquired a Yashica Electro 35 GSN. It's the one with the hot shoe. I'm not sure how to properly use a flash unit with it. I have an old Vivitar Thyristor 2500 set to the blue auto mode. It works fine when I use it with my Nikon FM. The manual for the GSN says that it syncs at all shutter speeds and that you set the camera to its special flash sync mode only when using a very old fashioned flash bulb; otherwise you can keep it set to autoexposure mode. That leads me to wondering how the flash system could work properly when the camera is in its normal autoexposure mode. The flash unit has a meter to know how much light to emit, but how does the camera know how long to keep the shutter open? For example, I want to take a photo of my cat who is sleeping in a very dimly lit chair. The meter in the camera in auto mode would normally keep the shutter open a long time for proper exposure in dim light. This is not desireable when using a flash because I don't want the shutter open that long and it would caused blurred pictures with such a slow shutter speed. Could anybody explain this to me?

Thanks,
-Kelly

 

[sbart]

The manual seems to be leading you a bit astray. Setting the camera to flash mode pins the shutter to 1/30sec. Setting it to Auto lets the shutter speed be determined by the meter. Period. Irrespective of what a flash unit would be doing. So, the flash mode isn't just for old style flash bulbs. So for your cat picture, use the camera's flash mode, and set the flash to auto.

The reason to have the camera set at Auto and still be using a flash is in situations where the ambient light detected by the camera meter would still result in a proper exposure, for example when taking daylight pictures and using fill-flash. In this case, the GSN will trigger the flash at all shutter speeds, and you're using the flash only to fill in shadows. You'd set the flash to auto mode too.

To get a pleasing fill-flash effect, you'd typically reduce the flash's output by one f-stop or so. Set the flash's aperture dial to one stop bigger (smaller f number) than what you set the camera to. This way the flash unit will emit less light than it normally would.

 

[kellymjones]

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for the reply. You are absolutely right. I've got it figured out now. I was just confused as to the use of syncing the flash at all shutter speeds. Cool stuff. I can't wait for some sunny days here in the NW to try out daylight fill flash. I've been learning a lot.