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Is it possible to use other TTL flashes with Contax

U

utkinpol

Hi,

I`m in thhe middle of Canon -> Contax transition right now and prior to investing a lot of money into dedicated Metz or Sunpak want to ask if where is any way to make Canon flashes to work with Contax 645.

The only one I`ve managed to find out how to use is Sigma EF-500 super - for some misteriuos reason in manual infrared slave mode it reacts on pre-flash lever and reacts at shutter release.

All this confuses me a bit - if it works in this mode why it does not work in others?

Does anybody know if it is possible to make this specific flash to work with Contax somehow?

Or may be there are some other known tricks other than spending several hundred bucks for Contax-dedicated module, cords and new flashes?

If I could use this Sigma as a master and other flashes as manual slaves it probably would solve my problem - but for some reason in manual master mode it does not react at all that seems to be very odd to me.
 
Paul,

I'm actually confused about your question. Do you have Canon dedicated flash or you have Sigma that is made to work with Canon? (they don't use TTL modules, do they?).

Also, there is no such thing as "dedicated" Metz. The whole beauty of Metz is that you can have the same flash and use it on different systems by simply switching TTL hotshoe modules. You spend few hundred greenbacks on flash and about $40 per TTL module. For instance, I have Metz 54 MZ-3 with SCA3802 module (for Contax). I also have module for Pentax, which allows me to use the flash on both systems in full TTL mode.

I think in your case, you can probably use Sigma as slave, but it's very unlikely you will be able to use it as master. You can most likely use with RTS III though, in fully manual mode, but I believe that's not much of use to you if you're planning on getting Contax 645.

Why you don't want to sell the flash? Should be pretty easy to get rid of it.


Mike.
 
Is, it is Canon dedicated flash.
I just tried to tell that flash itself consist of 2 parts insede - upper part woth bulb, capacitor and other high voltage stuff and lower part with camera-dependent circuit.

And yes, I already found out that there is no chance to ake it work with contax, I will have to buy Metz stuff.
 
Paul, there's an additional advantage to the Metz. If you use the flash off camera, the 3802 system retains full functionality, e.g. the flash adjusts for the lens focal length automatically. For some reason I can't fathom, Contax does not have a five conductor off flash cable, only a three conductor, so you lose some of the functionality of dedicated Contax flash, although TTL still works.
 
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