Several Questions Re SF 58 Flash

[sanyasi]

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I am completely new to flash photography and have a few questions after reading my SF 58 manual. I have been reading several books on flash photography and they focus on Nikon and Canon speedlights so some of my problem is differing terminology.

 

First, on the M9, is the sync speed 1/180? All the books say that 1/250th is fairly standard. If the sync speed is 1/180th, why did Leica deviate from the standard?

 

Second, the books suggest that there are two modes for TTL. The second is for fill flash. It appears to me that the Leica doesn't have this second mode, but the user manual suggests that in TTL mode, the SF58 will automatically provide fill flash if warranted. That sounds somewhat equivalent to automatic exposure. I assume the better course of action would be use manual and set the flash EV if you want to use fill flash because that will provide much more control. Is that a fair assessment?

 

Thanks

 

Jack Siegel

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[jaapv]

The 1/180 has a background. In order to make the camera as quiet as possible Leica slower the shutter down from 1/8000th on the original M8 (which came with 1/250thsync) to 1/4000th on the M8.2/M9. That automatically resulted in a sync speed of 1/180th.

With M-TTL fill-flash is not set as a separate program. You can play with exposure, preferably on manual, and exposure compensation on the flash.

[sanyasi]

Thanks