I'm considering buying a Minolta CLE. After buying one from the used dept. of a very large NY company and discovering that it would not fire a flash at all (returned it and they said it would be too expensive to fix.), I'm paranoid about getting one in working condition. The particular one I'm considering only seems to fire the flash (it's the Minolta CLE flash) when set to the sync speed. This makes sense, but it won't fire the flash on the A setting. Is that correct? Any other advice/suggestions on what to look out for in a CLE? Thanks.

-- Randy Jackson (randy.jackson@mayads.com), May 06, 2002

Answers

You might want to try Cameraquest's site at: « http://www.cameraquest.com/cle.htm » They say something about TTL flash with the CLE, but I don't know if that's waht you're looking for. Good luck. BTW, great buy, the CLE. I hope you have the 40 mm Rokkor M/CLE mount. A gem.

-- Olivier Reichenbach (olreiche@videotron.ca), May 06, 2002.

The CLE won't fire the flash on the A setting if the shutter speed picked for the ambient light exposure is greater than 1/60 second. Also, you really need to have film in the camera to check whether the the TTL "off the film" flash exposures are operating correctly (set to a smaller f stop and you should see a noticeable increase in the flash output.)

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), May 06, 2002.

You can get a manual for the CLE from John Craig at www.craigcamera.com

I would suggest buying the CLE from a reputable person or dealer with a return policy, and then having it checked by a good camera tech to make sure all functions are working correctly. It should take him/her ten minutes.

-- Steve Rosenblum (stevierose@yahoo.com), May 06, 2002.

There is a little button on the bottom of the hotshoe. If it is depressed the flash will fire. If it isn't, say because you are pushing the test button but the flash is off camera, it won't. I found this out after finding 4 "non-working" flashguns in a row....

-- Mark Eban (markeban@compuserve.com), May 07, 2002.