I would like to used my Metz mecablitz 34 AF-3 N on a Nikon F3; is there a compatible Metz TTL hotshoe adaptor that can be fitted onto the F3's peculiar flash mount? I'm trying to look for a cheaper alternative to Nikon's AS-17, which costs around US$ 200. Thanks in advance.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), October 31, 1999

Answers

Hi Hoyin, you may look to http://www.metz.de For my F3 and a Metz 32 CT 7 the SCA 345 is the right adaptor. The hompage showes a list of all modern flashes, except yours. I believe, that you may be able to use the SCA 345 as well. But you can e-mail your question to Metz; just start the English part of the homepage. Maybe it is a little help. Regards and good luck, Ralf.

-- Ralf Grambrock (101.51955@germanynet.de), November 01, 1999.

Thank you, Ralf, for your helpful response. For those out there who have the same question in mind, here's Metz's reply to my e-mail query:

"The mecablitz 34 AF-3 N was generally built for the autofocus cameras of Nikon. This flash cannot be used with the Nikon F3 and we don't have an additional adapter for it."

But I guess I could use the Metz as a manual flash on the F3 with an AS-7 non-TTL hotshoe adaptor.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), November 04, 1999.

Hi Hoyin, I think, you can do so. Maybe, the Metz SCA 345 is allowing TTL metering with you flash? Maybe, you are knowing someone, who owns the SCA 345. Its price may be around 100.-US$, so just for a trial, it is too expensive. Many greetings and good luck, Ralf.

-- Ralf Grambrock (101.51955@germanynet.de), November 04, 1999.

Ralf, thanks again, that's a good suggestion (it actually didn't occur to me that I should borrow a SCA 345 and test it out!). Metz's reply is a little misleading, as it implies that it'll ONLY work on Nikon autofocus cameras. I just re-read my Mecablitz 34 AF-3 N's instruction manual and there's an addendum sheet, which I missed earlier, that says clearly that it'll perform standard TTL flash on the FE2, FA and FG. If that's the case, the flash should work on TTL using the adaptor AS-17 on the F3 camera, as I originally thought. Looks like my last resort is to fork out that US$200 for the AS-17 if the Metz adaptor doesn't work.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), November 05, 1999.