Mamiya 645 Pro and portable flash

[Praline]

Hi,

I have been shooting with my Mamiya 645 pro for a year in day light and would like to experiment with a portable flash, I was considering getting a Godox AD100 but I am not sure if it's compatible with my Mamiya? Do you have other portable flash recommendations?
I couldn't find the answer on this forum or others.

Thanks you for your answers!

 

[AgX]

Welcome to Apug!

Consider buying any used on-camera/hammer-head flash of the period of the 645 Pro.

As your 645 Pro may offer TTL flash-control, consider buying a flash that can be TTL controlled. Here consider the german manufacturers' SCA-adapter system. You would need adapter SCA 396. Here manufacturer Metz had the largest choice of flashes that take an SCA adapter.

 

[wiltw]

The Mamiya 645 existed in the times when 'flash dedication' was not common, particularly in medium format SLRs. there might only be one connector for flash ready signal, whose position varied by brand, but as only an indicator in viewfinder, it had no affect on general functionaliy.
The Mamiya 645 Pro-TL , manufactured from 1997 to 2006, is functionally similar to the 645 Pro but adds TTL flash metering.

So unless you own specifically the 645 Pro-TL (Pro TL shown only one the SIDE of the camera and there is a special TTL connector at the far front bottom of the left side panel), the front says 645 Pro'), you have no inherent flash compatibility issues...the hotshoe only has generic ground pin in the shoe, and trigger pin centrally located, so you can trigger any manual flash or any photosensor flash (commonly mistakenly called 'thyristor flash' as it does not read the scene brightness)
If you attempted to trigger a Mamiya-compatible TTL flash, the lack of 'quench' signal from the body to the flash would simply have full power output for all shots.

Today it seems difficult to find a new flash unit which is NOT DEDICATED to a specific brand of camera...a couple do exist, but most speedlight units today are brand-dedicated.
If a dedicated nTTL flash is used on a non-nTTL body, the flash would not get any pre-flash command from the body, and the camera would NOT send a nTLL power command to the flash a moment before shutter opens and trigger occurs...IOW, it should work fine on your 645 Pro.. No guarantee it would.

It may be better to find a not-camera-brand flash which was contemporary to 1980-1990, before there was as much dedication. A flash like Metz would be perfect.

 

[Praline]

Welcome to Apug!

Consider buying any used on-camera/hammer-head flash of the period of the 645 Pro.

As your 645 Pro may offer TTL flash-control, consider buying a flash that can be TTL controlled. Here consider the german manufacturers' SCA-adapter system. You would need adapter SCA 396. Here manufacturer Metz had the largest choice of flashes that take an SCA adapter.

Thanks you for your answer!

 

[Praline]

The Mamiya 645 existed in the times when 'flash dedication' was not common, particularly in medium format SLRs.
The Mamiya 645 Pro-TL , manufactured from 1997 to 2006, is functionally similar to the 645 Pro but adds TTL flash metering.

So unless you own specifically the 645 Pro-TL, you have no inherent flash compatibility issues...the hotshoe only has generic ground pin in the shoe, and trigger pin centrally located, so you can trigger any manual flash or any photosensor flash (commonly mistakenly called 'thyristor flash' as it does not read the scene brightness)
If you attempted to trigger a Mamiya-compatible TTL flash, the lack of 'quench' signal from the body to the flash would simply have full power output for all shots.

Today it seems difficult to find a new flash unit which is NOT DEDICATED to a specific brand of camera...a couple do exist, but most speedlight units today are brand-dedicated.
If a dedicated nTTL flash is used on a non-nTTL body, the flash would not get any pre-flash command from the body, and the camera would NOT send a nTLL power command to the flash a moment before shutter opens and trigger occurs...IOW, it should work fine on your 645 Pro.. No guarantee it would.

It may be better to find a not-camera-brand flash which was contemporary to 1980-1990, before there was as much dedication. A flash like Metz would be perfect.

Thanks you so much for this very complete answer. I do own a pro TL , and realised I used the wrong term I meant, I'm looking to invest in a monolight not a speedlight. What i need to check is if the monolight is TTL compatible?

 

[wiltw]

Thanks you so much for this very complete answer. I do own a pro TL , and realised I used the wrong term I meant, I'm looking to invest in a monolight not a speedlight. What i need to check is if the monolight is TTL compatible?

It is highly UNlikely that a monolight made today would be Mamiya film-TTL compatible! (For the same reason that Canon film-TTL is totally different from Canon dSLR eTTL.
If Mamiya made a digital body with digital nTTL , monolights might exist for that compatability (but not so likely due to low unit volume of medium format digital).
And NO studio flash had ANY dedication to any camera back 30 years ago, all using only the 2-connector sync capable.
You could trigger a Godox flash with a Godox trigger transmitter.

 

[MattKing]

The flashes that worked with the TTl capabilities of the 645 Pro-Tl tended to use either proprietary adapters or the SCA system to ensure compatibility, and that system hasn't been used for a while.
If you are going to use a monolight instead, modern equipment that can be used in a non-dedicated mode should be fine.
Be careful with older monolights, as some of them have very high trigger voltages. I have an ancient Bowens location kit (which is older than a 645 Pro-Tl) and its trigger voltage approaches 600 volts - that will damage the electronic synch circuit in my 645 Pro.
You can isolate the older monolights from the synch circuitry in your camera by using a radio or IR trigger, or something like a Wein Safe-Synch adapter. Just be aware that some of the receivers in the trigger systems may also be damaged by high trigger voltages.

 

[wiltw]

The flashes that worked with the TTl capabilities of the 645 Pro-Tl tended to use either proprietary adapters or the SCA system to ensure compatibility, and that system hasn't been used for a while.
If you are going to use a monolight instead, modern equipment that can be used in a non-dedicated mode should be fine.
Be careful with older monolights, as some of them have very high trigger voltages. I have an ancient Bowens location kit (which is older than a 645 Pro-Tl) and its trigger voltage approaches 600 volts - that will damage the electronic synch circuit in my 645 Pro.
You can isolate the older monolights from the synch circuitry in your camera by using a radio or IR trigger, or something like a Wein Safe-Synch adapter. Just be aware that some of the receivers in the trigger systems may also be damaged by high trigger voltages.

Did Mamiya redesign the sync circuit in the Pro-TL to electronic from mechanical? I looked at user manual and saw no cautions about sync voltage.

 

[MattKing]

Did Mamiya redesign the sync circuit in the Pro-TL to electronic from mechanical? I looked at user manual and saw no cautions about sync voltage.

All I know is that a couple of factory authorized repair people warned me that they had repaired a large number of film cameras of that vintage due to synch voltage issues.
The TTl circuits on the Pro-Tl are definitely at least partially electronic, and I can't see the Pro being substantially different

 

[wiltw]

All I know is that a couple of factory authorized repair people warned me that they had repaired a large number of film cameras of that vintage due to synch voltage issues.
The TTl circuits on the Pro-Tl are definitely at least partially electronic, and I can't see the Pro being substantially different

Well, the Canon EOS film line was one example of new line with electronic flash firing circuit, with a 6V max and a lot of flash units engineered when Voltage did not really matter. So 'a lot of Canon EOS owners' could easily account for your repair folks experiences. Other brands of 135 SLRs jumped on the same electronic trigger bandwagon about the same time.

The TTL back then was merely a usual trigger voltage, followed by the Quench command on a different input pit. The SCA module effectively could be a buffer between camera and SCA flash (Metz), althoough Metz brough their voltage down during the 45CT1 days, and the TTL Metx was the 45CT4

 

[AgX]

The SCA module effectively could be a buffer between camera and SCA flash (Metz), althoough Metz brough their voltage down during the 45CT1 days, and the TTL Metz was the 45CT4

-) The adapters could be circuited as voltage reducer (which means draining the trigger-circuit a bit for feeding the reducer circuit), but they also just could let the trigger-voltage go through as is.
-) The flashes of the SCA systems already could have got low trigger-voltages themselves.

Best to check in each case...


There were various TTL flash models, both from Metz and other german manufacturers sharing the SCA-system.