On Aug 6, 2005, at 4:37 PM, Shel Belinkoff wrote:
Flash!?! For a moment let's forget about all else associated with
flash,
wouldn't using it slow things down as the camera computes how much
flash is
needed, and goes through all the mechanical and electronic stuff it
has to
go through before firing?
Some flash systems do a pre-fire for metering purposes, but many
(most?) will meter during the exposure and will cut off the flash
when enough light has been received so there will be no slowdown. It
works basically the same way as the LX's OTF metering, only it takes
about 1/10,000th of a second.
Before TTL flash metering became popular, many flashes came with
their own built-in light sensors so you could either set the power
level manually or just flip it into "auto". Some bodies (eg Z-1p)
can do some very tricky things with flash. I'm not sure what the
MZ-5n is capable of but I'm sure you'll arrive at the relevant
chapter of the user manual eventually :)
I bought some new AA batteries for my flash today, but I'm not sure
if I'll ever use them in it...
Cheers,
- Dave
http://www.digistar.com/~dmann/
