You might remember that, at the beginning of February, FR-reader Sascha told us in the comments to the “Wild Rumors post“, how to force HSS on your Nissin i40. The tirck spread also on wimarys‘ website.
The trick works, you can enable HSS… but without TTL metering.
Well, wimarys had a conversation with a Nissin rep, who told him that Nissin is “waiting for the HSS firmware update to be released by Fujifilm”. This update will allow you to use HSS with TTL metering!
thanks for the link, vadim.
And what about the long expected (and rumored) Fujifilm Flash?
I was a bit worried when, a few days ago, I shared the news that the mecablitz 26 AF-1 digital release has been pushed back to April. As FR-reader Just a Thought commented: “The delay might well be due to the insolvency that Metz went through.”
You might wonder why this should affect the release of the Fuji flash.
As you can read in this rumor, a source told us that the Fujifilm Flash will be made by Metz. And back in November 2014 a tursted source told us that it was expected to come in spring 2015. Well, I hope the insolvency of Metz won’t affect the release of this (really needed!) flash… or that the anonymous source was not right and the flash is not made by Metz.
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32 Responses
If rumours of going with Metz are true, not too impressed. Given how popular Fuji is among strobists, I’d expect a better effort.
– radio trigger system, power adjustment from camera position, battery free receivers (built in or similar to Godox solution)
– Li-ion battery system. Carrying 3 flashes 12 batteries + 12 backup – not nice. No more battery management overhead.
– Remote TTL, rear curtain sync (this is a camera side problem)
– HSS for those who think they need it.
Fuji became popular among strobists because of X100, which incidentally had a leaf shutter. Considering that all other X bodies more or less suck when it comes to flash, I think that X100(s,t) was pretty much an incident, an exception from the rule. So frankly, I don’t expect good news in this department.
Oh, and speaking of Lion/Lipo battery system… With AA batteries we have an extremely wide spectrum to choose from. Not only the batteries, but chargers too. Do you really think that using yet another proprietary battery/charger combo would be a good idea?…
I have three of those Godox 850V flashes, and I love them to bits. Sure, it’s yet another proprietary battery but one that lasts forever and a day, will not weaken the light output as it diminishes and makes the flash have an amazing recycle time. I take proprietary batteries any day if they can accomplish that.
Do you use them with your Fuji ?
Absolutely.
Yes, I do. I would take carrying say 2 Li-Ions that are guaranteed to last long enough instead of 8-16 AA’s that can only be charged 4 at a time.
I understand that there is a certain level of peace of mind with AA’s in that you can get them anywhere, but I would just buy and extra Li-Ion battery for backup or if I was REALLY concerned a backup AA flash. But for day-to-day, I would welcome a rechargeable Li-Ion. (I currently use AA eneloops as a half way solution)
Yes, one of the reasons the x100t is my first Fuji. Wish the other parts of the system were better (sync speed, rear-curtain).
As to your battery question – yes. Li-Ion batteries last a long time, the Godox ones pack the punch of 16 AA batteries. This makes life so much easier man! For me, 4+4backup is usually enough, but that’s still 24 batteries to carry around.
With li-ion, I don’t have to carry extra charges/batteries at all, just the ones in the flash. If I happen to travel, 1 charger is enough. No worries about depleting the batteries before charging, can top them off any time. And no need to label them up. And overall, I end up with a smaller package, which fits in nicely with the smaller size of Fuji (compared to my Nikon setup).
Csaba, yes all of that. I was worried the second Metz was mentioned. They really need to take this flash thing seriously. They need a very nicely built (perhaps even metal skin) X-system matching flash with all of the modern conveniences (and yes, please include Li-Ion batteries.) Another rebranded flash is not a good start. If they were going to rebrand something, at least pick a good/interesting brand/flash to begin with!
Fuji is in the unique position of building a truly modern and interesting flash from the ground up with no legacy problems. They have a great opportunity to set themselves apart from even the good flash systems of Nikon/Canon and they seem to be (according to the rumors) totally missing the boat.
I think metal is heavy, and Li-ion batteries means you could not use easily acquired AA batteries. External battery packs would be helpful. But I hope AA remains standard configuration. As for weight.. Metz 64 seems to be around 0.89 lbs, which is… remarkable. I could not image how it will look like if it has a metal body.
But how can the Nissin read TTL from a remote Fuji body? Is Fuji sending out TTL info somehow?
TTL is a series of pre-flashes to measure exposure and set power levels on flash. It can be transmitted the usual ways: via wire, optically or radio. Radio’s improbable here, and the other two have limits.
Just like HSS, this is not a very useful feature, except perhaps for headshots. But for headshots/portraiture, you don’t really need TTL. TTL could be useful for lit up events, when you don’t have time to manipulate power levels (I had that situation when photographing a hip-hop dancers in a faceoff). However, in those situations optical triggering or wires are nearly useless.
So it would use the same pre-flashes from the built-in flash, easy after all. I used to like Nikon CLS once but now, as you say, many times experience tells me how to manually set the intensity manually for more consistent results. Thank you
Please notice that in the rumor there is nothing about remote TTL. Whole rumor is about HSS TTL (HSS = High Speed Synchronization).
Correct, but what do they mean exactly by “wireless slave TTL”?
Wireless slave ttl is via preflash.
The preflash then sends the ttl signal code to another (fuji) flash so they both know how much power is needed for correct lighting.
TTL-info transferred by flash-pulses.
Great thanks. Hopefully it won’t be too imprecise compared to true TTL
Interesting and good news.
But, I was under a couple of impressions about cameras and flashes.
1) a flash may have hss capabilities, but to use it the camera it will be mounted and used in must also have hss capability in order to use hss flash feature.
2) related to comment 1 above I just wrote, if you mount a flash on a Fuji X camera body, doesn’t the camera automatically detect there is an active flash attached (when powered on) and automatically limit the shutter speed to max flash sync of 1/180? Regardless if you set flash to 1/1200, 1/4000, or anything above the factory max flash sync speed of 1/180? That’s been my ppersonal experience with cameras and flashes.
1) No, only in TTL-Mode. But that is mostly firmware related.
2) No, only in TTL-Mode.
How could we force Fuji to dismiss some veeery stupid flash-features of their own?
– already mentioned here: if I put a flash on any other camera with a hotshoe, that flash is triggered when I expose. Either manually or appropriate TTL. Fuji: nope, first it has to be set to external flash (X100s: press “right” four times!).
– any Fuji-compatible TTL flash on any recent Fuji body will not autofocus until the flash announces it is already charged. (I could understand this limitation for a built-in flash that uses the same power source as the whole AF-machinery, but why the ### they left this limit in my X100s?)
– technically no flash-compensation (practical range is near the TTL/measuring error level)
The AF-blocking is still preventing me from buying the i40. (EF-20 already sold, now using 580EX2 and Oly FL36R and thinking about LX100/D-Lux109)
Yeah that’s why I sold my EF-X20. Annoying. It’s the weak point of the otherwise well thought out X system.
GN is too small.
Isn’t HSS flash sync only possible with global electronic shutters and leaf shutters?
As I understand it exposures faster than the max sync speed in a focal plane shutter would cause shadow banding since the sensor is not fully exposed but exposed trough a slit.
If this is right what is the utility of HSS on all Fuji bodies but the X100 series?
Global electronic shutters and leaf shutters don’t need HSS. It is a technology developed specifically for focal plane shutters.
But then how is the problem of exposure trough a slit addressed?
With HSS. Either multiple short flashes or a constant flash pulse for as long as the curtains are running.
That’s remarkable. That Fuji is enabling a 3rd party flash accessory. Awesome.
I hope a better flash will come out. For now I just use YN560III on Fuji.
Metz makes good flashes i think, with a logo like a rockstar it must be good!
Some interesting Units:
https://www.metz.de/en/flash-units/product-ranges/system-flash-units.html
I came across several reviews. I think their flagship is definitely superb. The only thing is, Metz 64 seems super heavy.
Not bothered, I have the EF-X20, all bar a complete waste of time, ok on the X100 as it is a bit more power than built in. For serious work I have at my disposal 4 x Oly’ FL50R units all coupled to my X-E1 with Yongnuo 620 triggers.
5 months later version 4.0 and no HSS.