HVL-F43AM

albnok wrote: trainerKEN: Uh, where did I say that? On the contrary, the F43 ON the A900 can trigger an off-camera F42.

Awesome. It looks like a great bit of kit. When I've some cash I may invest.

Thanks, Albert, for your summary.

On the HVL-F58AM the flash power can be throttled in manual mode only, that is, in TTL mode, it is impossible to dial in a maximum guide number, as it was possible with the HVL-F56AM / 5600HS(D), 4000AF and other Minolta flashes as well.

Does the HVL-F43AM implement this rather sub-optimal behaviour of the HVL-F58AM as well, or does it again allow to set a maximum guide number also in TTL mode?

Can you specify, which flash / camera combinations you have actually tried yourself? Which other combinations are educated guesses based on the known behaviour of other flashes? Does the HVL-F43AM manual list compatible and incompatible combinations by name, or does it remain rather vague ("supported models", "cameras without built-in flash" etc.) most of the time as the HVL-F58AM manual does? If the manual explicitely lists certain combinations, which?

Since you didn't mention it, have you tested the HVL-F43AM on the Konica Minolta 7D and 5D / Sweet-D already? And can you test the HVL-F43AM on Minolta film bodies?
We know, that Sony removed support of the first generation of the wireless protocol from the HVL-F58AM (which was still supported by its predecessor, the HVL-F56AM), therefore the HVL-F58AM can be used only as a remote flash triggered by film bodies supporting wireless HSS (Minolta 5, 7, 7 Limited, 7 CNM, 60, 70) with shutter speeds shorter than 1/60s. With other shutter speeds or on other film bodies it cannot be used wirelessly at all, but at least it still works when mounted on the camera or used in the TTL cable system. (Personally I have not tried the HVL-F58AM with film bodies before the 9, so far, but, of course, it may be interesting to test it down to the 9000/7000/5000.)
Given all these similaries, most probably the HVL-F43AM will behave same as the HVL-F58AM, but we don't know for sure unless someone has actually tested this. (Perhaps they even reimplemented support for the wireless protocol generation 1 - wishful thinking on my party ;-)
Or, on the other hand, they could have removed TTL-OTF support altogether, so that the HVL-F43AM could not be used as a (wired) on-camera-flash on film bodies at all. Or there may be new compatibility constraints in conjunction with Konica Minolta DSLRs. We simply do not know, unless there's something in the manual detailing on this or someone gets a chance to test.

It would be interesting to learn about your findings.

Greetings,

Matthias

matthiaspaul wrote: On the HVL-F58AM the flash power can be throttled in manual mode only, that is, in TTL mode, it is impossible to dial in a maximum guide number, as it was possible with the HVL-F56AM / 5600HS(D), 4000AF and other Minolta flashes as well. Matthias

Do you mean to adjust the power in other camera modes than M or to chang level in TTL?
The first one is possible but have to be enabled in custom function (on 58AM and 42AM).
The second one would mean using manual settings instead of TTL meassured and so M-Flash or not?

Edited by Sick - 30 May 2011 at 16:54

Amazon just matched the price on my orders (which haven't shipped yet) to the lowest price offered, which wasn't even Amazon's, so now I am getting them for $273 ea.

The F58 at 1/2 power on the left; the F43 at 1/1 power on the right. 24mm F8 1/4000s ISO100 with HSS on, on the A55. As you can see, the F58 is indeed 1 stop more powerful than the F43, and also that they have not fixed the A55 underexposing when in HSS (by perhaps putting a patch on the F43?)


About dust and splashes.


The only obvious difference is in the battery door, where there is rubber sealing. You can't tell if the rest is sealed better, or not.

IanL wrote: I have to admit I cannot understand why one would wish to use the former in TTL control, so unless someone can explain how it could be useful, I would suggest the setting should only be used in manual control.

Reduce the power of the flash and the camera will compensate by opening up the aperture. If the aperture can be opened up enough to compensate for the power loss the advantage will be that the flash recharge time will be shorter, therefore allowing the camera body to take more images per time unit, perhaps even a sequence at three images per second.

Can someone confirm this happening in reality? It contradicts my longtime understanding, which is that our autoflash system chooses aperture based on ambient lighting only. It doesn't appear to have any way of knowing how powerful the flash is until the shutter button is pressed and the pre-flashes begin. At that point, the lens is already stopped down.

In fact, I just tested this again with my A55 in both P and S modes under fairly low indoor ambient light. With a 5600HS(D) mounted in TTL mode, I took shots at both 1/1 power and 1/32 power, and also took the same shots with just the pop-up flash. The camera chose the same aperture (and shutter speed) in all three scenarios, exactly as I would expect.

Göran Larsson wrote: Reduce the power of the flash and the camera will compensate by opening up the aperture.

IanL wrote: I have to admit I cannot understand why one would wish to use the former in TTL control, so unless someone can explain how it could be useful, I would suggest the setting should only be used in manual control.