Re: [Leica] Studio Flash Photography with M6 TTL

["Joe Codispoti" <joecodi@thegrid.net>]

Bob,
If the light for your portraits is provided entirely by the strobes, the
shutter speed is irrelevant (provided that it be within the synch limits of
the camera).
whether you use 1/50, 1/60, or 1/250 sec. the exposure is the same since the
duration of your flash is far shorter than these speeds. The only adjustment
you need to make is the lens opening.
The same goes for auto flash. The TTL sensor will determine the amount of
flash needed according to the lens opening chosen, irrespective of shutter
speed.

Keep in mind that with flash the exposure is made by the combination of
flash intensity and lens opening. The shutter speed is merely a "gate" to
allow the light to reach the film.

Joseph Codispoti


- ----- Original Message -----
From: The Adler Family <badler@nanospace.com>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 1999 8:06 PM
Subject: [Leica] Studio Flash Photography with M6 TTL


> Dear LUGers,
>
> I have recently bought a M6 TTL, Summicron 35 and Elmarit 90, all new. As
> this was a *somewhat* impulsive purchase, I must now sell my Nikon and
> Contax systems. The Contax sale poses no problem, but I do use the Nikon
> system to generate some income from portrait studio work. I use 3 Nikon
> flashes with umbrellas and backdrop for this paying work.
>
> My dilema is this; I would like to continue to do an occasional portrait
> shoot using my Nikon flashes in conjunction with the M6. I use a Sekonic
> meter to measure incident flash and then manually adjust flash output. The
> Sekonic measures incident light from the flashes either at 1/30sec or
> 1/60sec shutter speed. I consider 1/30sec too slow for portraits (people
> tend to blink, twitch, not to mention my espresso shakes) and the M6 has a
> synch speed of 1/50 (frankly, I think this is a rather unusual synch
speed,
> but that's another thread). The Sekonic meter will show me incident light
in
> increments of 1/10 of a stop (e.g., f8, f8 & 1/10, f8 &2/10).
>
> My theory as to how to adjust flash output using the Sekonic to correlate
to
> the 1/50 synch speed of the M6 is as follows. Let's take this example: I
> want to take the shot at 1/50 f4. Because 1/50 is 1.2 times the amount of
> exposure achieved with 1/60, I want the Sekonic to show, at a speed of
1/60,
> an f-stop that is 0.2 times wider open than the f-stop of the camera: that
> would be f2.8 + 8/10 stop. Assuming that the 1/10 stop indicators on the
> Sekonic represent increments of light flow (not diameter), is my theory
> correct?
>
> Of course, I'll be shooting some rolls to test this out, but I thought I'd
> run it past the experts to see if I was making a material blunder.
>
> Thanks in advance for any help you can give.
>
> Bob Adler
>
>