Favorite non-Canon flash units

What's nice about the Sigma's built in diffuser is, if your flash is at 50mm, when you deploy the diffuser, it will automatically zoom the flash head to 28mm and with the diffuser deployed, you have 17mm coverage. You'd have to manually zoom the promaster's to get the "true" wide coverage it's rated at if I'm not wrong. Also, the difference in guide numbers is what? 1½ stops? That's pretty big considering all of the other goodies you get with the Sigma over the promaster which Curtis pointed out. And if you go to sigmaforless.com, you can get the EF-500 DG Super for just over $200.00. I think it's now $203.00 but it was $199.99 a month ago.

GN=138 on the Promaster vs. 165 on the Sigma (zoomed to 105mm). That's a little over 1/3 stop.

With the wide-angle deflector on the Promaster, I don't think it really matters where the zoom is set. It's not a big deal to zoom it manually, but I do like the fact that with the Sigma it will autozoom to 50mm when you aim it up to bounce. The Promaster continues to zoom in and out with the lens even at a bounce angle unless you turn it to manual zoom.

I agree the Sigma seems like a better value.

Motor drive has always been called "Motor drive".
FP designated a bulb with a longer burn time to give the focal plane shutter time to go across the film, primarily used for 4X5" press cameras.
X was for strobe for 35mm & press cameras with in-lens shutters.
"Machine gun mode" is for some pros who need it, & people who don't have a clue as to how to anticipate the shot.

tim wrote:
I guess most or all shutters are FP now. Back in the old days, when I was new to photography... months ago now... things were exactly the same as they are now

Most P&S, whether digital or film, many 2-1/4 SLR, and virtually all large-format cameras still use leaf shutters in one form or another. Aside from 35 mm/derived SLRs and some 2-1/4 SLRs, FP shutters are used by a few interchangeable lens RFs (Leica) and, in a variant, the odd aerial photogrammetric/recona​issance camera.

Do leaf shutter cameras also have a limit in terms of flash sync. speed?

PhotosGuy wrote:
Motor drive has always been called "Motor drive".
FP designated a bulb with a longer burn time to give the focal plane shutter time to go across the film, primarily used for 4X5" press cameras.
X was for 35mm & press cameras with in-lens shutters.
"Machine gun mode" is for some pros who need it, & people who don't have a clue as to how to anticipate the shot.

Frank, I didn't realize that 4x5 press camera used focal plane shutters. I thought they were used only in 35mm cameras. And wasn't X designated for use with electronic flashes?

I would think that the electronic flashes need to be sync'd so that they fire when the shutter is at max opening.

Not in practical terms. If there's a theoretical limit, I'm not aware of it.

Right - "M" was for short-duration flash bulbs.

Edited!

Me either. Maybe with todays ultra fast shutter speeds?

True, as firing earlier or later would result in the shutter opening reducing the effective aperture. However, this doesn't affect the "sync" speed as regardless of the leaf shutter speed, there always is a moment when the shutter's wide open. On focal plane shutters, this isn't so once the shutter speed exceed "X sync speed".

Side note, totally unrelated to flash, but inspired by the leaf shutter issue:
Since a leaf shutter positioned at or near the lens diaphragm (aperture) isn't fully open for the entire exposure, does this affect DoF by acting as a secondary diaphragm of smaller aperture during the course of the exposure?

I don't think leaf shutters have the high speeds that focal plane shutters do, since their functioning requires the blades to reverse travel mid-way through their action. The problems of stopping and reversing them quickly enough would be engineering "challenges". Most of the high shutter speed P&S shutters out now rely on "burst" reading of the sensor, rather than an actual shutter. An electro-optical shutter could be (and probably has been) developed relying on, say, an LCD normally in the "grey" opaque state but turning clear for the duration of the exposure. This would probably need to be coupled with a slower-acting mechanical shutter to help conserve battery life.

Just adapted my Vivitar 285 HV with a SL-2 slave trigger to use with my Canon A95 p&s. Still testing using the manual settings on the camera and matching the f stop on the flash. So far pretty good results. May have to mask the built-in flash a little. Must not have double flash (red-eye reduction) on. I use a L-shaped bracket with the A95 on the horizontal plane and the 285 on vertical part putting the flash above the camera.

I made an error in previous post. Must have red-eye reduction OFF!!!!

there is no limit to a shutter speed when using a leaf shutter