Minolta 16 II Flash Sync - Confused about sync speeds suggested vs Sylvania's specs

[NicholasW]

So I'm trying to learn how this works. I have a Minolta 16 II and the manual says:

F Class Bulbs - 1/30 - 1/125
M Class Bulbs - 1/30
Electronic Flash 1/30 - 1/500

That's great. But when I look at bulb specs for an AG-1, Sylvania says:

X or F up to 1/60
M at all shutter speeds

So if Minolta says 1/30 for M, Sylvania says "All Speeds" for M, what's going on here?
Minolta says 1/30 - 1/125 for F, Sylvania says "Up to 1/60".

Very confused, any help is appreciated. I really just need to understand what my shutter speed options are with AG-1 bulbs.

I think I understand the aperture based on guide number / distance, but the shutter speed confusion is killing me.

 

[wiltw]

Ordinarily, a leaf shutter equipped camera with M synch delays opening of the shutter until a small amount of time after the flash bulb itself is triggered, so that light output can reach its maximum output (after the brief delay) while the shutter opens and closes. It is this delay time, and the design of the leaf shutter, which ordinarily permits M-synch to be across all speeds which the leaf shutter is capable.

In the case of th Minolta M16II, IIRC (I owned one about 5 decades ago!) the shutter is a moving blind which is more similar to a focal plane shutter, and the camera does not have an M-synch specific delay, so the shutter opening has to be long enough the the light output to build and the light is captured by the open shutter. Set a slow shutter speed and watch the shutter open and close, to verify my memory of its shutter action.

 

[xkaes]

Your memory serves you well. The Minola 16 and 16II have a simple, metal, horizontal shutter. I'd follow Minolta's advise.

 

[ic-racer]

The Minolta manual refers to "M" as the flash bulb type. The Sylvania recommendation refers to "M" as the camera synch type. Understandably, I see that the Minolta 16II manual does not exactly specify the synch type, you need to infer this from the chart, but it indeed is X as others have mentioned. Since the Minolta synch is "X," you don't want to close the shutter too soon firing the bulb from the X synch point.
In fact, the Minox LX is clever enough to measure the reflected light from the flash bulb and close the shutter at the correct time; providing auto exposure with flash bulbs!

This graph from Wikipedia shows the bulb triggering off the M synch (20mSec before shutter opening). So if you trigger at X (when the shutter is fully open) you can cut off some of the light output at higher speeds as the curve would be shifted to the right by 20mSec.

 

[NicholasW]

Thank you everyone!

What I'm understanding:

- Sync type and bulb class are NOT the same
- With X sync and a non-leaf shutter (Minolta 16 II) I can use M-class AG-1 bulbs up to 1/30 and F-class up to 1/125 (within the shutter speed limitation of the bulb specified by manufacturer), since X sync is intended to be for electronic flash sync (not delayed by 20ms).
- M sync would have allowed me to use the bulbs at any speed (within the shutter speed limitation of the bulb specified by manufacturer) since M is delayed 20ms, allowing for the light to be captured.

 

[wiltw]

Your understanding correct.