Have you used a Leica M6 with a flash unit before?

How did you find the Leica performed with the flash unit and it's results?

I prefer natural light with my M6 but would appreciate hearing about your experience using the M6 with a flash.

Thank you and best wishes,
Nicole

Can't speak about the classic, but the Leica flash on my M6 TTL works pretty good. Better when placed on a Nikon SC-17 cord so the flash is off the camera.

With a 1/50 flash sync, it's not great for fill flash on bright days.

I don't use the Leica flash much with my M6 TTL. Prefer using an ultra fast lens instead with shallow depth-of-field in dark situations.

Good luck.

Flash ? Sacrilege...
-)
G.

flash smash!

I know I shouldn't admit it in public, but I have been known to use a flash on my M6, although I do prefer not too if at all possible. I use a venerable Vivitar 283 on a bracket and usually bounce it off the ceiling with a fill card on the flash. Works quite well.

Richard Wasserman

I use both my Metz flashes, the 44 MZ-2 and 54 MZ-3, on my M6 TTL and my Bessa R3A with both flashes set at either automatic or TTL and get wonderful images! Below is an example obtained with my 54 MZ-3 and my 50mm Summicron lens of our new cat.

Most certainly late response, but I'll drop my 0.02$ anyway...
I did several half-formal family events with my M6 and a simple, cheap but yet reliable Sunpak 383 Super unit.
Once set properly in auto-aperture mode (or as sometimes it is called - auto-thyristor), it did beautifully, every bit as precise as I used to with a contemporary pro SLR systems featured by a sophisticated flash metering.
Just make sure you understand how to work with that combo.
Mind you, I only used that indoors, have yet to try that out for fine fill-in outdoors - this is probably the most tricky scenario for flash exposure, chances the most advanced SLR flash metering may have an edge here, but that have yet to be proven....

...here's my reallllly late response.

back in the good old days -shooting fashion- i used to use a wee tiny peanut of a flash to trip the slave unit on my main flash & umbrella rig. at the distances i was working it added negligible amount of additional fill and freed me from being tied to a **!%***@+!!!! sync cord. on my budget it worked great.

i did have to overcome something of a "flinch reaction" to seeing the flash in the viewfinder. with an slr - except for a either my canon pellix or the (then) newer EOS RT - i never saw the flash as a result of the mirror swing during exposure. funny i never noticed that effect with my oly xa...hmmm.

enjoy the flash and experiment...using mainly cameras with leaf shutters when i do use flash now i miss the effects of leaving the shutter open (lower shutter speeds) and all the neat ambient light you can pick up with a focal plane shutter.

take care,

kenneth
NEVER FORGET BESLAN
www.neverforgetbeslan.org

I've used a Pentax AF280 on my M6 with great results. Well, as great as on camera flash can be...

In my camera bag there is always a Metz flash. I don't use it often, but my M6 without TTL is very happy with it. Indirect flash (ceiling) also works fine, I never missed the costly TTL version.

If I were a busy 2008 press photographer trying to survive competition I would own a digital EOS with a dedicated Speedlight flash, that's a "fire and forget" combo that always creates good results, no matter how and where you use the flashlight, in darkness, as fill flash... good stuff, but that's for WIMPS.

Personally, I think the idea of a flash on my M repulsive....

Yeah I've used it messing around. A new Vivitar 285HV. Works fine. Set the auto flash to the right settings and shoot at away. Also used it on my Canon 1V at really dark concerts. Works exactly the same.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2139/2152538357_779309d8b1.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tgray1/2152538357/)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkIWW6vwrvM

I try to use available light as much as possible but sometmes use the M6 with studio flash...http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3212/2518632671_27125587c7.jpg?v=0

I don't know if it will worth to you but even that I work with a M6 TTL some time and latter a M7 I never used them TTL. I rather work with any flash that have the auto option. The reason is that I personally achived more control in the ratio natural/flash light.
About the common idea that it's a sin to use a flash with a Leica, I like to think as Eugene Smith, I work with "all" the "available" light.

Have you used a Leica M6 with a flash unit before?

How did you find the Leica performed with the flash unit and it's results?

I prefer natural light with my M6 but would appreciate hearing about your experience using the M6 with a flash.

Thank you and best wishes,
Nicole
Yes I use a Sunpack it is fine

Personally, I think the idea of a flash on my M repulsive....

You big snob

Leicas are horrible cameras for flash. You'd be better off with leaf shutters that sync at all speeds, such as a Mamiya 7.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkIWW6vwrvM

This is that Bruce Gilden street video where he shoots street at close range with a Leica, wide lens, and flash. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. You can see a portfolio of his work at--

http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.PhotographerDetail_VPage&l1=0&pid=2K7O3R1482X4&nm=Bruce%20Gilden

If you need to use a flash with a Leica the 1/50th of a second is not a liability since there isn't any light anyway, right? I say go for it. Get a small flash. You usually don't need something as large as a 283. I have many shoe mount flashes but I have found that small flashes work great. I have a Voigtlander flash that is almost as small as a pack of Juicy Fruit gum. Works beautifully out to about 15 ft. Vivitar made many small flashes as well and those are automatic for the most part. You just set your aperture and go.

Don't listen to the naysayers. Do whatever the hell you want. They are your pictures after all and no one that matters will ever ask you why you used a flash on a Leica. I think you get my drift.

Patrick

I use a Leica SF24D with M6 and two M7's for K64 indoors. Problem is no bounce so I switched to a handle mounted Metz, big, cumbersome but bounces. Metz camera mounted unit is huge on top of small M!-Dick