Learning flash with a film camera

[alaios]

What the heck! Yes I am doing it like the old times. I have a minolta x-700 and a sb 80. I have a flash bracket. How should I do with the manual settings of my flash..?
Regards
Alex

[Attila]

fastest method use same time a digital camera in manual mode with manual flash, once you get proper values on digital camera , you should do same with film , experience with digital camera helps a lot and cost free, vs waste frames with film . Once you have enough experience you able to use film camera alone quiet successfully.

[alaios]

my biggest problem currently is
when I use my minolta x-700 and my nikon sd-80dx flash. The flash is triggered correctly (I am at sync speed) the shutter opens...and it remains there..... until I literally remove the flash from the hotshoe....
I guess that means that these two are incompatible... so what I do now?

Regards
A

[Excalibur]

[philslizzy]

Your Nikon seems extraordinarily complicated for a flash gun. I suspect the auto pin on your Minolta is confusing it. A cheap 1970's/1980's flash is what you need, something something about as old as your camera. I can't recommend the Vivitar 283 enough but any Vivitar or Sunpak will give good results.

Dont worry about trigger voltage, your camera is capable of handling any voltage - there were no low voltage flashes back in the old days 240v- 600v was normal! Be aware though, do not use an old gun such as this on a digital camera as voltage is very important. Modern cameras need 5v-20v maximum.

An old fashioned auto flash will calculate the exposure for you. One such as this on ebay is unlikely to sell for more then 10 euros and was an extremely capable unit in its day



You have 3 settings, red, blue and M. With the switch on one of the colours you look on the back and find your film ASA/ISO, and set the aperture on the camera to the f number in the colour you have chosen. One of the colours has a wider aperture for distance and the other a smaller aperture for closer shots. The Vivitar 283 has a choice of 4 apertures.

The flash shown here has a tilting head, this fires the flash at the ceiling to achieve more natural lighting. The built-in computer calculates the exposure needed. The lead allows you to use it off camera for more creative work.

[Excalibur]

Well Phil I don't mind bowing down to your experience, but the trigger volt on my Minolta flash is about 2V which is even lower than my Canon flashguns at 4-5v.....I always think why do the non all manual film cameras have this low voltage esp as they didn't know about more complicated digital camera electronics which might need low volts.
If you used any Canon flashgun you are safe and the Canon 277T has the the same pin arrangement as the Minolta X-700.....but it would take about a month to prove it works with film (at the rate I use film) properly as it does on a Canon camera The reason I mentioned it as these older Canon flashguns are common and go for as little as £5 at times.
So I'd check this link for a ROUGH guide on any flashgun or play safe and get a Minolta one. http://www.botzilla.com/photo/strobeVolts.html
If Alex hunted down the Minolta 360px for a cheap price it's a competent flash gun, mind you it's old generation compared to a Canon 300TL.

[philslizzy]

The full electronic cameras such as the Canon/Minolta/Nikon/Pentax AF models always use low voltage. The X700 was introduced in 1981, the crucial difference between it and say the X7000 was that it has a purely mechanical flash contact. The trigger voltage didn't go into the camera at all. AF models used a more sophisticated TTL system where the flash had to 'talk' to the camera and effectively became part of it, hence the need for low volts - they were triggered electronically. Many flashguns in the 80's had low voltage but my Vivitar 283 has about 270V and is absolutely fine on my X700. Well it hasn't burned it out yet. *

A Killer combo!


The Canon flash does have the same pin arrangement as the Minolta camera but may be arranged differently. I tried the same combo and the ready light doesn't come on nor does the camera switch to flash sync speed. Which is what the pins are for. The flash will work but won't communicate with the camera.

*EDIT: The camera was on the market between 1981 and 1999 there may be differences in later models. This model was on the market a staggering 18 years, one more than the erstwhile Olympus Trip!

[Excalibur]

Well if the Vivitar 283 will work with the Minolta it's a much better flash than the Canon 277T....I was lucky and picked up the 283 at a bootie for £2, but dunno where I picked up the matching remote lead, probably amongst a job lot of stuff I bought at the bootie years before.
AAMOI the more advanced Canon 360TL that is for the T90 has 5 pins and might work on EOS film and digital

[alaios]

Hi,
there. Thanks a lot for your feedback.
I do not see the reason to have an auto flash.. I think I should go full manual to see what I do not understand. Hello everyone,

This is what I found so far.


My nikon flash has a distance scale, so it can help me somehow find where my subject can be.

What I found is that when I want to bounce it I have to power it up two stops, since the walls will eat two stops.

I do not have a modifier but I can still use the flash gun direct on my the face I am shooting, as fill light. For that -1 would be the setting for fill light.



I also have a light meter and I will write the model tomorrow (Sekonic something), perhaps it can be used too for flash metering.



Regards

Alex

[philslizzy]

All auto flashes have a manual setting. The Nikon flash is designed to work closely with a Nikon camera. An old fashioned auto flash does the work for you. A bounce head flash like the 283 automatically takes the bounce into account as the sensor faces the subject at all times. Its that round thing on the front. It can also be used off flash via a lead and the flash bounced into a brolly or softbox. Try that one with your Nikon. Cheaply. With the 283 you have a choice of 4 apertures and if my memory serves me right you can get as far as 16 metres at f2.8 with ISO200 film. Thats good.

You don't need TTL for flash use, it has advantages I suppose when there are a number of them used together but that set up would cost a mint.

To meter flash you must have a flash meter. A light meter will not do the job.

Why meter? I thought you want to do it the old fashioned way with no metering and reliant on the scale printed on the back of the flash.

You're complicating it again.

Excalibur I suspect your flash will be ok. The T90 is backward compatible with the EOS flashes, the TTL system used for the T90 was carried on and used in the EOS range.

[Excalibur]

Just to add:- learning about flash in the studio and fill in flash in daylight and so on is ok if you have the time...but there are times when you want a quick snap and I set my Canon 300TL to measure ambient and flash light, and that combined with TTL metering on the T90 and it does a good job of exposing the background and subject correctly to get a good result.
A flash meter in the studio is handy when you can control the lighting, but for outdoor fill in flash it would need some experience if for example you have a model facing you and the sun is behind lighting her hair, if you can't set the flash on half power or whatever then a dodge would be to use a white handkerchief over the gun, this type of experience helps if you don't have sophisticated gear.

A quick snap using the T90 with 300TL combo set to take into consideration light from all sources...sigma 24mm lens.

[philslizzy]

A great well balanced shot. Not impossible to do without TTL flash but much more complicated, when you don't need it!

[Excalibur]

[alaios]

Hi guys. Indeed you made it more confusing for me. I do not want auto mode. I need full manual.. the old tough way to get it. I need to exercise the fundamentals which I lack quite a lot I guess. I guess the easier would be to have a digital camera that currently I do not have.

My nikon sd-80dx has a scale at the back side which help me calculate the power it has to send for a given subject distance. This is the easy part. I give at the beginning the iso and then changing the zoom setting and the power I would know at which distance my subject should be. I guess this is all I need for manual flash.

What I have learned is that for bouncing flash I would need to increase output +2 but a fine tuning would be needed... for fill flash firing the gun directly at the face with a -1 setting at flash is needed (or increase aperture by 1).

What bothers me still is that once I turn my flash in bounce mode, my nikon hides the distance scale which is a pain.. for changing subjects..meaning I need to turn the head to normal position see the scale... then turn the flash again looking upwards..

Regards
Alex

[Excalibur]

A flash meter would help, in fact I have to dig my one out again as I want to use two flash guns over Xmas, one flashgun on the camera and the 2nd a pro one at half power using a slave flash trigger, and I want to use some film up in my 35mm camera.....well the initial problem was both of my Canon flashguns (on the camera) sent out a signal out (before flashing) by just slightly depressing the shutter button (which you would do to get exposure readings in the viewfinder) and set the second flash unit firing So am using my older Nisisin 360TW that doesn't send out a signal, now both flashes go off together.
To work out the correct exposure with two flashguns working would be a waste of film, unless you had a camera with a Polaroid back so a flash meter is useful.

My flash meter is very old and have no idea how it compares with modern ones for accuracy, but if you get to know it for any inaccuracies over time then you just adjust the f stop on the lens to compensate......and I have seen them go cheap on the bay it's this one:-

http://www.ephotozine.com/forums/topic/massodax-fm-1-flash-meter-help--84095

[philslizzy]

Alex I can't find a Nikon SD-80DX flash online. I find a SB 80 DX which has an LCD panel on the back. Complicated for manual flash. Why not get an old one. This can be got for £5 or less on ebay.

The scale on the back gives the aperture required at a given distance/ASA(ISO) so with 100ASA film aperture of f8 is needed for 2 metres the yellow numbers are if it is set on auto. The flash will adjust its power.



Of course as always you must calculate how much light is lost when it is bounced. There is no standard way to do this it depends on many factors including angle of bounce, distance between flash, reflector and subject and reflective properties of the reflecting surface. This is why auto flash took off.