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Home >> Photography >> Accessories Flashes
Flash is flash isn't it? The major difference with various flash units would seem to be the power rating and the individual features available from each one. Since all flash units are suppose to be a bit of the midday sun (5000 degrees Kelvin) packed into a small portable unit the quality should be equal. If discussing flashes in manual mode or Auto mode I would tend to agree as I see no difference in the quality of output from my various flash units except in power ratings. Where the differences come out beyond the amount of power available are advanced features such as TTL flash readings and how sophisticated such readings are for various lighting conditions. The ¡æsmart flash¡ç as Galen Rowell called it when Nikon came out with the first of its vaunted flash system in the SB24 back in the late 1980s. Skip ahead a few years into 1992 and with the introduction of the original F90 also saw the SB25 and 3D flash readings in which distance information of the subject was calculated along with a series of rapid multi flashes to come up with a flash exposure. The major benefit of the distance data detection (3D) for me has been the ability to lock in an off-centered subject and have proper flash exposure for the subject desired and not of the central background reading.
I generally let the flash and camera body work out the fill or key light based upon my chosen aperture but I have done some shots in standard TTL mode with the flash at 1.7 under and find it to be satisfying also. The minus 1.7 setting is what Galen Rowell has determined to be the most natural mix of fill and ambient light for his use and in my results I have to look very hard to see the presence of flash. Only tiny little reflections off the subject's eyes tell me that flash had been used whereas most other 3D flash exposures though still nicely balanced are noticeable. Again user preferences will determine what is acceptable and what is not. Indoor sessions usually require me to keep track of other things going on around me and because I usually use ISO 400 film I let the flash and camera body do its thing while I take care of getting the shots. The results have been quite good and I've been satisfied with the quality of shots but some bad flash exposures do come through on occasion but I can usually trace those to my mistakes and not the flash/camera. The major one is the under or over exposure of the subject, which I can account for as me relaxing my focus lock on the subject and then trying to get another focus lock but having the subject move at the last second thus having a different 3D Matrix reading. Overall I have to say I'm very happy with Nikon flash technology for providing me greater freedom to take photos and not worrying about flash calculations. But take away the flash intelligence and how do the Nikon flashes compare to others. About the same I'd say. Using my Vivitar and Metz flashes in Auto mode for centered subjects (for proper Auto flash detection by the flash sensor) and within flash power distances and I don't think there would be much difference. Auto flash capability in most modern flashes provide pretty decent results and for my Vivitar it's the only useful mode I have since I don't use it in Manual mode (a pain to wait for the flash to recycle after dumping a full burst). The Metz is usually used in conjunction with my Bronica SQ-Ai and the SCA Adapter to enable TTL-OTF readings but I've used it in Auto mode with my Nikon bodies and again the results are quite good save for the dreadful centered subject syndrome of Auto flash. Of course with the Vivitars and Metz flash I can't do the fancy flash tricks such as rear curtain sync or stroboscopic shots or very, very high speed syncing to 1/4000 as with the SB28. Then again except for slow and rear curtain sync, I've never used the other fancy features of the SB28 so it's not a big deal after all. I had a tough time dealing with manual flash calculations when I tried to tackle the topic. I was too lazy and spoiled by automated TTL flash as available with the Nikon equipment and also by the still automated flash of the Bronica SQ-Ai and SCA interface with the Metz 45CL-4. Why bother learning since the equipment does it all for me. I don't necessarily buy into knowing it as a failsafe incase the equipment fails, that's what capable backups are for but I would agree that learning it is part of understanding photography in general and it's good to know the basics for basics' sake. If my SCA adapter failed for my Bronica, something that I wouldn't actually know about until after the shots were taken and processed, then the Metz can still go with Auto settings via the PC sync socket. If the Metz failed with both the SCA and PC sync socket then I could pull out the Vivitars which are still Auto flashes. I suppose I could be very anal about the equipment and buy doubles of everything but then I'm not a pro with tax credit capabilities. Worse comes to worse my Nikon kit could take over as backup, something I don't care to do for formal shots where some measure of enlargement capability is desired. I'm working on getting a proper backup to fill that void. I don't take having backup equipment lightly as I've seen and experienced equipment failure in the field. A pro working a friend's wedding had his Minolta flash fail on him and he had to finish the night with his Metz flash, not such a bad thing though. For my own experience my SB28 failed in almost exactly the same manner as the pro's flash. Circuit board failures caused both our flashes to keep recycling without ever getting a full charge causing the flash to continue emitting the high pitch recycling sound and the flash to get very warm. I shot off a half dozen shots before realizing the flash was failing on me at my brother-in-law's wedding and changed batteries first thinking that that was the cause of the problem. No dice but I had my lower-powered SB27 available for use the rest of the night. Nowadays I have the SB27, Metz 45CL-4 and two Vivitar 283 flashes to go with should my primary SB28 flash fail with my Nikon bodies. Should the Metz fail with the Bronica then I have the Vivitars to use in Auto mode. I should mention here while I'm discussing flash failure that I've had both my Nikon SBs in for repair to their hotshoe due to continuous unprompted flashing. The SB28 replaced a stolen SB26 and since I was a light flash user back then I wasn't using the new SB28 too much and all seemed well. Then I came across a thread on the 35mm news group about the SB28 self firing. Of course the first thing I did was test out my flash with my bodies and things seemed alright at first but there was one combination of flash, body and lens that started the SB28 firing like crazy and warranted a few curses coming out of my mouth. As much as having a brand new flash misfire is annoying and smacks of poor quality control it wasn't a big deal for me since I wasn't a heavy user at the time and it was under warranty so a drop off at the Nikon office in Richmond saw the flash fly off of to Toronto for repair. When it came back two weeks later all was fine. Then my SB27, which has not had any reputation for self or misfiring also started to fire off but this time I had to send my F70 body back with the flash for a look by Nikon in Toronto. In both cases a spring in the hotshoe had to be replaced but I can't recall if the hotshoe for the F70 also had to be replaced too. No matter all under warranty and since I had backup equipment, I was never left with empty hands photographically. In all four trips to Nikon Canada for servicing, two for the SB28, one for the SB27 and one for my 80-200 f2.8 lens when I ham-handedly pushed the silver autofocus/manual focus button into the lens itself. The lens still worked in the mode that I last selected which I think was AF but AF is useless for landscapes so off to Nikon it went and more curses out of my mouth since the lens was bought used and therefore not under warranty even if the time period was still in effect (bad thing about Nikon warranty is that it's only good for the original owner). It's not a bad track record and it all came when I wasn't a really heavy shooter but for those who are then having backups is key for any job. The
Metz 45CL-4 NICAD
I bought the Metz flash because I saw a few others using the same type of flash for their wedding work and due also to prior name recognition of it for use with medium format cameras. I bought the 45CL-4, which is the TTL capable version that also has a small flash in the handle to allow for the main head to be tilted up for bounce lighting without causing unattractive shadows in the face. Two kits are available, one with the rechargeable NICAD battery pack and charger and one without. I bought the one with the NICAD kit. The big Metz is a fine flash but a bit awkward at times due to its large handle. I have a tough time envisioning myself using it handheld on a flash bracket overhead the lens axis with any camera. This is actually how I have the flash positioned when I use the Bronica for portraits but I generally use it on a tripod so the unwieldy handling is not a concern but imagine the use with a 35mm or a 645 body with a flash rotating bracket. The Metz came with a side mounted flash bracket that facilitates handholding greatly but you never have the flash on the proper lens axis with it though. The flash will always be up and over to a side instead of being straight above the lens. It's perhaps not a big concern since the Metz also came with a wide-angle diffuser to allow for a greater spread of its flash coverage. My particular Metz also had to have its side mount rotated to the other side to allow for proper mating with my Newton N7400 flash bracket. This means that the side mounted flash bracket has to go on the right hand side of the camera body when I want to use it with my 35mm bodies. It would seem awkward but it's not and handles well with the F90x/MB10 combo. It means that I can rotate the F90x properly for vertical shots and still use my side mounted shutter release on the MB10 instead of having to use the main shutter release button in an awkward reverse orientation. My first rolls of film using the Metz through both the Bronica and Nikon bodies gave me flash shots that seemed identical in look. After selecting the desired working aperture I selected a shutter speed to keep hand shake to a minimum and with the use of higher speed 400 and 800 films the background will still register nicely and not as some dark blobs surrounding the correctly flash exposed subject. But then the Metz is more powerful then my other handheld flashes and with the wide-angle diffuser more or less permanently attached I get good coverage. With my Nikon SB28, before learning to keep the wide-angle diffuser down all the time the zooming action of the flash head would narrow in for short telephoto lenses and pronounce the darkness surrounding the subject. Not the type of flash shot I desire for people. I've pigeonholed the Metz to a degree as my Bronica flash unit but since buying the Newton flash bracket I've pigeonholed it even more by only using it when I can bother with attaching the flash bracket. And then after that I have to mount the whole thing onto a tripod for best results and the end result of all that is that I don't use it as much as I should. Far easier to slap on a Nikon SB onto the hotshoe or a Vivitar 283 onto the hotshoe of the Bronica motor drive which is also permanently attached to the SQ-Ai. The Metz is too good to warrant continuous shelf storage and I've resolved to use it more often in situations where I don't need all the features of the SB28. Even fill flash is pretty straightforward with the Metz as you simply need to adjust the aperture setting on the flash to go under the aperture set on the camera. I could also go ahead and purchase the SCA adapter for use with my Nikon bodies and allow it to handle much of the same types of advanced features as available with dedicated Nikon SB's but I find the output in Auto mode to be quite good as is so I haven't felt compelled to buy the adapter. (I have since bought the SCA 346 for Nikon AF bodies and have been satisfied with it) I bought the venerable Vivitar 283 for one main reason, backup. Should either of my main flashes for the Nikon or Bronica fail, I wanted a good and reasonably priced backup to fill the void. I even thought of them as backup to my Multiblitz monolights and bought some adapters to allow for mating to umbrellas and light stands. Although a bit low powered for such use, within a reasonable working distance and wider apertures or faster film the Vivitars should be able to do the job. Not too bad for two flashes that cost me less then what my Nikon SB27 cost and are about similar power wise. The Vivitar 283 is about average size as far as full-sized, hotshoe mount flashes are concerned and quite a bit larger then the SB28 but still quite a bit smaller then some of the older monster-sized Minolta flashes I've seen. Within their power limitations they give nice coverage and again as with the Metz, in certain straightforward conditions the output is pretty much the same as the Nikon SBs. The recycling time in one of the Auto colors (the Vivitar uses colors instead of aperture readings to denote a range of distances with a given aperture and film speed) is okay but as with most flashes using batteries straight on manual the recycling time is brutal. That's with regular alkaline batteries as I have some qualms about using the more efficient lithium batteries in older designed equipment but I have come across a recent reference of the Vivitar flashes working very well with the lithiums so I'll give it a shot soon. (Update - lithium cells work very well in Vivitar flashes and last for a long time) Readers Question:
I don't recall writing about using the Nikon SB28 with the Bronica and I just went over the article in question very quickly to see if I had and nothing obvious popped up. I did mention using the Metz 45 with the Nikon cameras and I have since purchased one of the SCA adapters to allow for TTL with the Nikon cameras. However, to your question at hand, I "believe" you will be okay in using the Nikon SB28 with the ETRS and its hot shoe equipped Speed Grip or motor drive. The concern from days of old was the high voltages found in flashes that could burn out the camera via the hot shoe. This was especially a concern for users of the very high voltage Vivitar 283 flashes from over 20 years ago. Current Vivitar 283 flashes are safe, as I have used them in the past with both Nikon and Bronica cameras. Since the hot shoe of the Bronica Speedgrip or motor drive is exactly that, a hot shoe and nothing more, there should not be any risk to either camera or flash; however, if you wanted to play it safe, I believe there are accessories that you can buy to go in between the flash and camera to ensure no lethal voltages pass from one to the other. You would probably have to buy such an accessory from a very large and well stocked store such as B&H or Adorama. You could also use the SB28 with the ETRS without a hotshoe, but having one would be more convenient. You would do so by using a PC Sync cord from the flash to the camera. The SB28 has a PC Sync socket covered by a rubber flap on the left side of the flash (as you look at it from the back, where the LCD is). The ETRS should have its PC Sync socket on the top left corner of the camera body (as you hold the camera normally to take a photo). The tricky part is whether or not the SB28 can be used in Auto mode while connected via a PC Sync cord. I cannot test this out as I do not have a compatible PC cord to connect the SB28 to the Bronica, but I did try a test with the Vivitar 283 and my F100 connected via a Vivitar PC Sync cord and the 283 works perfectly in Auto mode, so I suspect the SB28 would be fine too with the ETRS. I used my Sekonic flash meter to confirm flash output and compared between the 283 on Manual mode and its four Auto settings. The other tricky part is how to use the flash with the camera without a bracket or other device to mate the flash and camera together. There would be no risk of damaging the flash or camera, but PC cords are notorious for failing in the field due to their delicate connectors. |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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This
essay was to be a report on Nikon flashes but I realized that there
isn't much to say about flashes individually so I decided that I would
report on all the flashes I have on hand from the Nikon SB's to the
Vivitars to the Metz. 
I've
heard of various complaints that Nikon's flash technology is still not
good enough and is often inaccurate but this is more of personal tastes
I think and the Nikon flash system certainly allows for custom user
settings. Mostly the complaints surround what appears to be a set standard
of one stop underexposure for the background in key-flash lighting conditions.
Many users prefer a more equal balance between the flash and ambient
exposure. Other complaints concern the fill-flash ratio as calculated
by the onboard computer. Most advanced and professional users prefer
a standard TTL flash that is between 1-1.7 stops under an equal flash/ambient
exposure. But many users also like what the Nikon flash system provides
them and go auto for most applications. User mileage will vary. 
