Posted by Les on December 27, 2000 at 16:01:01:
In Reply to: flash advice posted by Jon W. on December 27, 2000 at 12:52:42:
Jon,
Anything you get will work with the lens, however because you've
moved up to 4x5, to get good depth of field and sharpness, you need
to shoot around f11 to f16 for interiors, f8 for headshots and the
like. This means the little flash off of your 35mm
doesn't have enough umph.
The two flashes I use with my Crown Special (which is what you have) is a Metz 60 CT1 and a Norman 400B.
The Metz is thyristor controled and its helpful. The Norman is straight manual but has one stop more output than the Metz.
The Guide numbers for the Metz is 197 with 100 speed film. To give you a comparason, a No 5 flash bulb has a guide number of 320 for 100 speed film.
Both of these have a shoulder pack to contend with and the Norman pack is quite heavy. Norman also makes a 200C which has the same output as the Metz and is still all manual and much lighter.
When I was researching Norman, most of the repair and used equipment guys said to pay the extra money and get the 200C, not the 200B. Another caveat is if you are buying used, particularly the Metz, get the serial number and check with Bogen about repair. A lot are grey market and you'll have to send them to Germany if they need repair.
I paid $200 for the Metz, 4 times that for the Norman. Sunpak also makes large flash units but I've never used them.