Upgrade to a Metz 40 MZ-3i ?

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Deaer All,

I have the opportunity to trade in my Metz 32 Z-2 flashgun for a 40 MZ-3i, for use with my M6 TTL. In this trade, I will recover all but $20 of the price I paid for the 32 Z-2 a year ago. My reasons for thinking of doing this are that:

(a) I use bounce flash a lot and am sick of getting shadows under the subjects' eye-sockets, chins and noses. The 40 Mz-3i has a small secondary flash that provides frontal fill-light to help eliminate these shadows.

(b) The extra power of the 40 over the 32 will extend the flash range, which will be useful in large rooms.

(c) The extra power will, I believe, be useful for fill-flash out of doors, when I will need to use a small lens aperture and/or an ND filter.

The only thing about which I'm uncertain is whether the flash-head zoom on the 40 MZ-3i can be used manually, as on the 32 Z-2(obviously, the auto-zoom on the 40 will be redundant, as it won't work with the M6 TTL). Does this upgrade seem like a good idea?

-- Ray Moth (ray_moth@yahoo.com), January 15, 2002

Answers

I have the 40 MZ-3i and have mixed feelings about it. On the good side, it is very versatile. It can be zoomed manually with control buttons on the back. It is fairly powerful. It is easy to understand the complex functions even without the manual, since the buttons are very logical. On the down side, it is awkward on the camera, heavy and unbalanced because of its odd shape, but you may be used to that with the other Metz. I prefer the small Leica SF20, even though it has far fewer features, because its much lighter. But I rarely use bounce flash. Flash is really a last resort for me rather than a tool I use to create nice photos.

-- Masatoshi Yamamoto (masa@nifty.co.jp), January 15, 2002.

Hi Masatoshi,

Thank you for replying so quickly to my post. You've answered my question about being able to zoom the flash head manually, so I will now proceed with the 40 MZ-3i.

The Metz units are, indeed, quite big and unwieldy but, as you guessed, I am already used to that problem. I also know that the 40 is quite a lot heavier than the 32. I've even heard that it can distort the top plate of the M6 TTL and cause vertical misalignment of the rangefinder. No doubt some other respondent will mention this.

I understand that the Leica SF 20 flash unit has many happy users but bounce flash is important to me and the SF 20 can only do that if you use it off-camera. The reason I use flash quite often is that I live in Jakarta, Indonesia, where the daylight lasts only 12 hours and, by the time I get home from the office, it's dark.

Regards,

Ray Moth

-- Ray Moth (ray_moth@yahoo.com), January 15, 2002.


Ray, if it's not too late, get a 54 instead (around gn45 at 50 zoom pos). It's far more sophisticated and gives excellent results in auto mode, also slim profile = easier to store in camera bag. That's my recommendation. And more power is always good. I don't use mine much, but when I do it delivers.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), January 15, 2002.

Ray, I second the vote for the 54. I've got 40MZ2 and 3, they're great on a bracket, or maybe on an R8 or F5, but on an M6 you've got a really top-heavy setup and the flash really needs to be farther up from the lens' axis.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), January 15, 2002.

Ray

The 54 is a bigger flash, but its cobra design at least helps eliminate red eye. I don't have one but have considered it for a long time as a replacement for my Vivitar 285. One day I might get one. If you intend to use the flash always on a bracket then the red eye issue is less important a consideration. I picked up a s/h 40MZ and the SCA unit was not working. In fact I tried 3 SCA Leica units and none were functioning. Returned the lot. Rather gave me cold feet. The 54 and the 40MZ are the pretty well the same power as far as I can remember.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), January 16, 2002.



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