I want to buy a flash but first I have a number of questions I'd like to see answered before. I almost never use a flash, only in some occasions when I use the pop-up on my Minolta 7xi. I'm interested in using flash in backlighting situations or as fill-up etc. but I think of buying a flash with a movable head so I can finally get rid of those red eyes. In my childhood I used a flash on a fully Manual camera and I had to verify on the flash back which lens opening I should take in order to get a good frame exposure. Now I'm wondering how this works on a fully automatic camera, I mean, how does the camera know how much light the frame will get after firing the flash? Is there some communication between flash and body? If so, is it safe to buy a third party flash such as Vivitar? My old flash (mid 80) has a thyristor in it and it measures the ambient light and changes its power accordingly but I'm sure that it does not communicate with my camera body in any way. So how does these new flashes work, or wasn't there any evolution? I've noticed that flashes are also sold (camera's too) with a special connection to connect a wire to the flash. Is this the feedback channel or is it only to use the flash remotely? Recently I bought a medium format (645) and found out that my old flash fits nicely on it (cheers) but I haven't taken any pictures with it yet. On the 645 the light metering works like my old manual 35mm, it meters the light for me and then allows me to take the picture. In order to take pictures with a flash I had to put my old SLR to 1/125 sec. while my 645 has a max. sync speed of 1/60 sec. (whatever that means?) Does this mean I have to put the shutter speed to 1/60 s each time I take a picture with flash? Does this have any effect on the aperture I have to use on the camera? The table in the back of the flash just lists a table of distance versus aperture seetings. Is this table then valid for both my old 35 mm and 645? More info: the 645 is: Mamiya 645e and my old flash is: Topca 325CS.

Thanks!! Tom

-- Tom Bruns (worst101@yahoo.com), December 23, 2001