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Path: utzoo!watmath!watcgl!dmmartindale
From: dmmartindale@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Martindale)
Newsgroups: net.rec.photo
Subject: Re: RE: Dedicated Flash
Message-ID: <2129@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 16-Feb-84 03:06:31 EST
Article-I.D.: watcgl.2129
Posted: Thu Feb 16 03:06:31 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Feb-84 04:39:00 EST
References: <330@hogpc.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 23

When shopping for "dedicated" flashes, read the data sheets very carefully
to see which "dedicated" features are actually supported.
For example, I recently bought a Minolta X-570 and, shortly thereafter,
a Minolta 360PX flash.  When the camera is set at "A" and the flash at "TTL",
then when the flash is charged:
	1) the shutter speed is set to 1/60 automatically
	2) the "60" LED in the finder blinks to indicate flash ready
When the shutter is released:
	3) the flash duration (and thus light output) is controlled
	   by a photocell in the camera reading light off the film
	4) If there was sufficient light for the shot, the "60" LED
	   in the finder flashes rapidly for 1 second to indicate this.

Now, any flash which implements any one of these features could probably
claim to be "dedicated".  In fact, Vivitar and Sunpak units implement
features 1-3 - a respectable showing.  But only Minolta flashes, of all
those available, provide the sufficient-light indication in the finder.
I considered this important enough to pay the extra money for the Minolta
flash.  (The fact that the Minolta had manual power output settable
in 1/2 stop increments, and the simplest calculator dial I'd seen, didn't
hurt any either.)

So compare features very carefully.