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Anyone used a bulb flash with the M8


wlaidlaw

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I am thinking of getting another Graflex flash gun off eBay. I used to have one of these but I could not find it. My son "fessed up" to having turned it into a light sabre! You can use the enormous PF100E bulbs on these, which is like a small nuclear explosion going off and with the 2500 ISO and Noctilux, should enable some spectacular night shots. Has anyone tried using a bulb flash on the M8 and if so with what success and what settings. It could get a bit expensive experimenting with PF100 bulbs

 

Wilson

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I am trying to remember back to my days in school where for some strange reason this subject was covered. (They were obsolete even in 1970.) To torment us, we had to do a statistical analysis of the variations in the time it took flashbulbs to go from triggered to 1/2 of maximum brightness. And you had to remind me...

 

You'll want to use FP (focal plane) bulbs if you need high shutter speeds. The idea is that the bulbs quicky get up to a certain level of brightness and then stay consistant for the time it takes for the shutter to traverse the sensor. Otherwise M type bulbs will work. I think Ms have a 10 ms delay and FP around twice that.

 

This link looks interesting and explains the delay problems:

 

Digital Photography with Flashbulbs

 

The problem is that with old cameras that had FP and M synch settings, those cameras fired the bulb a little before the shutter opened in order to get the bulb burning to a bright level before the shutter opens. This is why some old press cameras used a solenoid triggered by a switch on the flashgun to delay the opening of the shutter. So you might see if you can find one of these solenoids and then see if you can adapt it to work a cable release. Othewise you can use a tripod, open the shutter and then fire the bulb.

 

I know I have at least one of those flash units somewhere in my house.

 

Or you could just use a powerful electronic flash unit.

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If you sell the light sabre on eBay, you can probably use the gains to buy a million new flash guns. Those light sabres aren't easy to come by! A bit like the Visoflex III and Bellows II :)

 

Carsten,

 

Given that my son is currently close to finishing his engineering degree, the light sabre must have been quite a few years ago. The sabre will have long since, I am afraid, been deposited in the circular low level fling system.

 

Alan,

 

The easy way to work out the correct delay would be to use my red dial IIF, which has variable flash synch on a dial on the top. I do have a few rolls of Kodak TX3200 but my fastest lens for it is the f2 Summitar. Still having found what flash synch worked best, I could then look up on the table in the IIF instructions, what the actual delay was and try to build something for the M8. I think this is getting a bit complicated and leaving the shutter open and firing the flash seems the best idea.

 

Wilson

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I am thinking of getting another Graflex flash gun off eBay. I used to have one of these but I could not find it. My son "fessed up" to having turned it into a light sabre! You can use the enormous PF100E bulbs on these, which is like a small nuclear explosion going off and with the 2500 ISO and Noctilux, should enable some spectacular night shots. Has anyone tried using a bulb flash on the M8 and if so with what success and what settings. It could get a bit expensive experimenting with PF100 bulbs

 

Wilson

 

 

As long as you are sure the thing does not throw too high a current over your sync contact - that would fry the electronics of your M8.

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As long as you are sure the thing does not throw too high a current over your sync contact - that would fry the electronics of your M8.

 

Jaap,

 

Thank you for that warning - I had forgotten that. I think I might leave the whole exercise until I get back to the UK at the end of September. I have full workshop facilities there and a large garage full of bits and pieces including electronics from 40 years of building racing cars. I know I have quite a few high speed, low voltage relays in one of the drawers and that would be safer.

 

Wilson

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