I still like plain old "Automatic" flash

[ben_hutcherson]

I had a family engagement last night, one of those things where I've become the de facto "official" photographer.

It wasn't exactly a new to me location-rather it was a very familiar one in my parents-in-laws house. I know this house well. I've done all kinds of different lighting in their living room, from strictly ambient all the way up to a Norman strobe tucked into the corner(I'll be doing that one again in a few months, but will figure out a way to get a second strobe...). I pretty much know optimum bounce angles from anywhere in their living room.

I have a love-hate relationship with Nikon's iTTL system. Most of the time I can get what I want out of it, especially with TTL-BL. Given the typical mix of residential lighting these days between LEDs of various color temps, some CFLs still hanging around, and even a few tungsten lights here and there for now(although new sales of most "normal" residential incandescents were banned this past summer, including old exceptions like 3-ways and rough service), it can be almost impossible to gel your flash to match ambient. Sometimes the only real hope is to just hope you have enough flash and a good enough ceiling/wall to make your own ambient light.

I have been "playing" a lot lately with handle mount Metz units. I know some people love these and some hate them, but I fall into the love camp. I do have a 76 MZ5, or rather two of them now, that give me full iTTL, but sometimes simple is nice.

My first "real" flash was a Vivitar 283, and even its relatively limited "Auto Thyristor" system would consistently give me perfect exposure on slide film. Provided that you've properly set up everything and matched the aperture setting on the camera to the flash, the big thing that can trip this system up is using a filter, and I'm not likely to use something with a high filter factor indoors. Even if you do use one, you just need to know the filter factor and appropriately compensate it between the camera and flash. Lately I've been grabbing my SB-800(or Metz 58 AF-2) a lot and setting it to "A" rather than TTL just since it works better.

I decided last night to do something different, though, and figured I'd pull out one of the Metz handles. As much as I like the 60 series, I ruled using one out since I didn't want to deal with an external power pack.

I should mention also that I've recently discovered another Metz accessory, the Mecamat. I was actually quite excited when I found out these existed. On an auto flash, ideally your light sensor should be as close to the camera/lens as possible. Vivitar solved this really nicely, if a bit clunky, but allowing you to remove the Thyristor unit from the front, plug a cable into its place, then mount the other end of the cable in your hot shoe with the Thyristor plugged into it. In practice, I've found handle mount flashes to be "close enough" to give good exposure, but still they are off-axis from the camera. In typical Metz/German fashion, though, the Mecamat lets you stick the auto sensor in the hot shoe but gives you a LOT more options. You can adjust it side-to-side to point at a specific area of the frame, tilt it to correct for parallax errors at close range, and they even give you a simple frame type "sports" finder to see where the sensor is pointed. Along with all of that, you get flash controls on the unit that generally give you a lot more range(both for auto and manual modes) than are on the flash itself.

I have two different types of these Mecamat units-the 60-30 that works with 60 series flashes, and the 45-20 that works with the 45 CT-1 and CT-5. I don't have a 45 CT-5, and the 45 CT-1 does lack the small front facing flash tube, but I just figured I'd go with it. Ideally I'd have used a 45 CL-4, but the 45-46 Mecamat that works with it is not the easiest to find or least expensive of the range. So, the 45 CT-1 it was, complete with a genuine and still perfectly working Metz Ni-Cd pack(I have cells ready to rebuild these, but have yet to actually find a bad one). You are supposed to be able to tell whether or not a CT-1 has low voltage or high voltage sync from the serial number, but it was a lot faster for me to use a voltmeter. I know Rodeo_Joe will tell me that's not an accurate way of doing it, but still if my voltmeter says 220V(and I feel a "buzz" from a PC termin), I think I can say it's a high voltage unit. So, with that in mind, I rigged all of this up to my D850 with a Wein Safe Sync between the Mecamat and the hot shoe.

I came home with a nice pile of perfectly exposed, lovely illuminated complete with nice background illumination flash photos. I settled on leaving the D850 at ISO 200, which let me hover between f/4 and f/5.6 on the two lowest power settings on the flash. Provided I was smart about bounce head placement, I was able to do this with power to spare for every shot(which made recycle pleasantly fast).

I know this is a lot of rambling just to say that despite how good iTTL and other advanced TTL systems can be, at the end of the day 1970s era flash technology works just fine for me. I can still manually do a slow sync if I want to try and pick up more ambient(setting the camera to manual, as I do in a situation like this, puts it just under my right thumb). I know things like second curtain sync usually are tied to TTL systems, but that's not a feature I personally have ever found a use for in the types of real world scenarios where I'd use flash.

[AJG]

5 hours ago, ben_hutcherson said:

I had a family engagement last night, one of those things where I've become the de facto "official" photographer.

It wasn't exactly a new to me location-rather it was a very familiar one in my parents-in-laws house. I know this house well. I've done all kinds of different lighting in their living room, from strictly ambient all the way up to a Norman strobe tucked into the corner(I'll be doing that one again in a few months, but will figure out a way to get a second strobe...). I pretty much know optimum bounce angles from anywhere in their living room.

I have a love-hate relationship with Nikon's iTTL system. Most of the time I can get what I want out of it, especially with TTL-BL. Given the typical mix of residential lighting these days between LEDs of various color temps, some CFLs still hanging around, and even a few tungsten lights here and there for now(although new sales of most "normal" residential incandescents were banned this past summer, including old exceptions like 3-ways and rough service), it can be almost impossible to gel your flash to match ambient. Sometimes the only real hope is to just hope you have enough flash and a good enough ceiling/wall to make your own ambient light.

I have been "playing" a lot lately with handle mount Metz units. I know some people love these and some hate them, but I fall into the love camp. I do have a 76 MZ5, or rather two of them now, that give me full iTTL, but sometimes simple is nice.

My first "real" flash was a Vivitar 283, and even its relatively limited "Auto Thyristor" system would consistently give me perfect exposure on slide film. Provided that you've properly set up everything and matched the aperture setting on the camera to the flash, the big thing that can trip this system up is using a filter, and I'm not likely to use something with a high filter factor indoors. Even if you do use one, you just need to know the filter factor and appropriately compensate it between the camera and flash. Lately I've been grabbing my SB-800(or Metz 58 AF-2) a lot and setting it to "A" rather than TTL just since it works better.

I decided last night to do something different, though, and figured I'd pull out one of the Metz handles. As much as I like the 60 series, I ruled using one out since I didn't want to deal with an external power pack.

I should mention also that I've recently discovered another Metz accessory, the Mecamat. I was actually quite excited when I found out these existed. On an auto flash, ideally your light sensor should be as close to the camera/lens as possible. Vivitar solved this really nicely, if a bit clunky, but allowing you to remove the Thyristor unit from the front, plug a cable into its place, then mount the other end of the cable in your hot shoe with the Thyristor plugged into it. In practice, I've found handle mount flashes to be "close enough" to give good exposure, but still they are off-axis from the camera. In typical Metz/German fashion, though, the Mecamat lets you stick the auto sensor in the hot shoe but gives you a LOT more options. You can adjust it side-to-side to point at a specific area of the frame, tilt it to correct for parallax errors at close range, and they even give you a simple frame type "sports" finder to see where the sensor is pointed. Along with all of that, you get flash controls on the unit that generally give you a lot more range(both for auto and manual modes) than are on the flash itself.

I have two different types of these Mecamat units-the 60-30 that works with 60 series flashes, and the 45-20 that works with the 45 CT-1 and CT-5. I don't have a 45 CT-5, and the 45 CT-1 does lack the small front facing flash tube, but I just figured I'd go with it. Ideally I'd have used a 45 CL-4, but the 45-46 Mecamat that works with it is not the easiest to find or least expensive of the range. So, the 45 CT-1 it was, complete with a genuine and still perfectly working Metz Ni-Cd pack(I have cells ready to rebuild these, but have yet to actually find a bad one). You are supposed to be able to tell whether or not a CT-1 has low voltage or high voltage sync from the serial number, but it was a lot faster for me to use a voltmeter. I know Rodeo_Joe will tell me that's not an accurate way of doing it, but still if my voltmeter says 220V(and I feel a "buzz" from a PC termin), I think I can say it's a high voltage unit. So, with that in mind, I rigged all of this up to my D850 with a Wein Safe Sync between the Mecamat and the hot shoe.

I came home with a nice pile of perfectly exposed, lovely illuminated complete with nice background illumination flash photos. I settled on leaving the D850 at ISO 200, which let me hover between f/4 and f/5.6 on the two lowest power settings on the flash. Provided I was smart about bounce head placement, I was able to do this with power to spare for every shot(which made recycle pleasantly fast).

I know this is a lot of rambling just to say that despite how good iTTL and other advanced TTL systems can be, at the end of the day 1970s era flash technology works just fine for me. I can still manually do a slow sync if I want to try and pick up more ambient(setting the camera to manual, as I do in a situation like this, puts it just under my right thumb). I know things like second curtain sync usually are tied to TTL systems, but that's not a feature I personally have ever found a use for in the types of real world scenarios where I'd use flash.

I also have had really good results with the primitive Vivitar flashes, 285 HV model in my case.  My Pentax dedicated AF540FGZ II flashes are sometimes fine with TTL flash but often over or under expose by a lot (1-2 stops), seemingly arbitrarily.  I like their manual control (power from full to 1/256), quick recycling and good build quality, but the Pentax TTL exposure system leaves a lot to be desired.  So I'm not surprised that your ancient Metz flashes are working well for you.

[ben_hutcherson]

Just thought I'd mention as an add-on to this that I do still love Metz flashes, regardless of the mode 🙂

After a bit of hunting, I did get my hands on a 45CL4 Digital. Actually I ended up with two of them(as these things sometimes go...)-one that works fine but is ugly, and another that looks really pretty but for whatever reason seems to have a dead short across the battery contacts if my bench PSU is to be believed(weirdly enough it works fine when I bypass the low voltage stuff and hook a Metz P76 to the HV input.

For those unaware, the CL4 Digital, despite the seeming similarity to the CL4, is actually a different model. It's the same size and shape as a regular 45CL4 and can use the same faithful NiCd pack or AA basket, although I was just yesterday made aware of an NiMH pack for it. Presumably it should be backward compatible all the way to the 45CT1, especially since NiCd and NiMH are both 1.2V/cell so both packs will be a(nominal) 7.2V.

That aside, I THINK as best as I can tell that the 45CL4 digital should work with all SCA 300 series adapters with the apropriate cable(not tested this). It's not mentioned in the manual, but I'd not be surprised if it handles some of the more advanced film era TTL flash metering with the standard SCA3000 adapter, and of course an appropriate SCA300/3000 shoe for both.

Where the CL4 Digital differs, though, is that it's compatible with the SCA 3045 "Digital" adapter. I had actually bought one of these a while back, not realizing that there was a difference beyond branding between the CL4 and CL4 Digital, and it actually will not physically connect to anything but the CL-4 Digital. Internally, like the 76 MZ-5(which is a great flash too, but with a lot more going on than the classic 45 series flashes) what makes this different is that it's capable of supporting pre-flash as used for iTTL, D-TTL, ETTL, and I'm sure other systems.

So, with a CL4 Digital , SCA-3045, and for Nikon an SCA 3402 M3 or later(I personally have tested and used M6 and M9 revision adapters), you can use iTTL flash, Nikon's current digital protocol. iTTL uses a low power pre-flash and reads the scene with the cameras "regular" meter at least per my understanding(and if you watch carefully you can see the pre-flash through the viewfinder, something that doesn't happen with auto flash, manual flash, film TTL, or even Nikon's D-TTL which uses a preflash reflection off the shutter). As a side note too, I'm pretty sure SCA 3402 M2 and later support DTTL-it wasn't deprecated to my knowledge with newer revisions of the adapter.

The 76 MZ-5, which I've had and used for a while, depends on a hotshoe mounted control unit with an LCD display. This is used basically for all the flash functions-to toggle between the various flash modes(A, M, TTL, TTL BL), set things like the manual power level, dial in flash exposure compensation, toggle auto-zoom or set the manual zoom range, and I think even set features like slow speed/second curtain sync or high speed sync. Metz documentation is pretty universally considered terrible 🙂 (at least in English-the original German may be better) , but I think the 76 MZ-5 is even CLS compatible(with the right M revision adapter) in some capacities. I've just never checked it. I've always considered the 75 MZ-5 more or less a functional equivalent of the SB-800, with a few features in the SB-800s favor(including Auto-GN if you want to use it) and a few in the 75s favor(like the secondary small front tube, something that older Nikon flashes had).

The 45 CL-4 Digital has a pretty minimal UI. The major settings, just like other 45 series flashes, are handled by the calculator dial. If it's set to the "TTL" position, you can toggle it between TTL-BL(via the "Mode" button, not present on any 45 flash I've seen). Apparently too the 45 has a coupled Automatic Mode, where it bases its automatic(auto thyristor) setting on settings transmitted from the camera. 80s Canon flashes did this-including my favorite the 299T-as well as the SB-800. I'd assume the 76 MZ-5 can but I've not stumbled across that feature/setting. This is really nice if you want to use Auto flash but not have to deal with transferring the data.

For the lack of UI on the 45 CL4 Digital, though, I did find that I can set most of the options from my D850 flash menu. That lets you dial in flash exposure compensation, second curtain, HSS, and some of the other things you might want to set. I actually hadn't realized that somehow or another my D850 had been set to -1.00 stop exposure compensation, which might explain my complaint with all iTTL with any flash I use on there(I had to hunt for the menu-there's no dedicated button like on older cameras...but I know that's user error and another Thom Hogan "moved cheese"). I can't say for sure, but I seriously doubt the CL-4 digital works with CLS.

Overall, though, I still love Metz flashes and even though I'm probably going to be going back to auto flash where I can, at least iTTL properly set does work well. The beauty of auto flash too is if I want to deal with the bulk, or rather the separate shoulder pack, of a 60 series Metz flash, I can still use it, and use it on anything at that(and a Wein Safe Sync lets me use even a CT-1 with or without a Mecamat).

BTW, I just recelled one of the Metz Ni-Cd packs, even though surprisingly enough I have yet to find one that was completely dead. Recycle time on a fresh pack is 6 seconds from a full dump. The P76 gets that down to 3 seconds-note that for users of the CL-4 digital, you need the same cord as the 50/70/76 for the P50 or P76(or if using a Quantum Turbo, obviously you need the Quantum cord-I just asked Quantum yesterday and they no longer have this particular one in stock but they are plentiful on Ebay).

[hjoseph7]

"I know this is a lot of rambling just to say that despite how good iTTL and other advanced TTL systems can be, at the end of the day 1970s era flash technology works just fine for me. "

 

First of all finding a Metz Mecamat that works is like finding the Holy Grail. I have run into some once in a blue moon on Ebay usually while I was searching for something else. You are right about the 1970's 'A' Automatic Technology, it just works.  I came to that conclusion when I purchased my first Metz handle-mount flash a CT4 back in 2006. They were still in vogue around that time, but dying out quickly. I still have that unit and it still works ! What I noticed about these units is that they gave you beautiful wrap-around light and that they were very consistent. Unlike my more modern ETTL flash units. The guy that sold me that flash unit who was from Canada, also gave me an education on how to use them in 2-3 portable light set-ups.

With that, I purchased 2 more CT4 units on eBay,  but one broke down along the way. In 2010 I purchased the the "big boy" 76 MZ5  with ETTL, but after spending more than $800 I was very dissapointed. I never got the ETTL to work even after sending it back to Adorama several times. Finally I blew out the main capacitor on it after leaving it in storage for too long. My CT4's were also in storage, but they work fine until this very day.

I have since replaced the 76 MZ5 with two 50 MZ5 that use the old A(Automatic) thyristor technology. I really love my 50 MZ5's because they are built like tanks unlike the more modern 76 MZ5. I make sure to charge them and run off a couple of shots every 2 months or so to keep the Capacitors happy. Instead of the Mecamat, I got the Optical Slave unit that allows a flash unit to set off another one. However the 50 MZ5's do come with built in Optical slaves, but not my CT4's.

I take a lot of heat for using this older/archaic technology when there are much better 'modern' options, but I say to myself "why bother when this stuff still works". If I was using this type of lighting professionaly that would be one thing, but I don't see any point in wasting money since they all basically do the same thing. I did take my 50 MZ5 to a wedding recently, because the bridal party was Huge; 15 groomates and 15 brides maids.  I don't think my speed lights could have handled that situation and I really didn't feel like dragging my strobes to a wedding. 

The problem I have with Metz, is that the cables are very sensitive and tend to dry out a lot. These days trying to find cables for these older discontinued units is like trying to break into Fort Knox !  There is a guy on ebay that sells Modified Power packs for the 50, 70 and 76 MZ 5's here is the link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/203917445099?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D777008%26algo%3DPERSONAL.TOPIC%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20230811125216%26meid%3D1520391b54f9486fb3912f4dfafd4dc9%26pid%3D101771%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26mehot%3Dnone%26itm%3D203917445099%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D4375194%26algv%3DWatchlistVariantWithMLR&_trksid=p4375194.c101771.m47999&_trkparms=parentrq%3Aec2df61618a0a244eb7584c0fffe26f2|pageci%3Ad6ee76c4-607b-11ee-8ac4-d24cae9e2533|iid%3A1|vlpname%3Avlp_homepage        

I will probably be purchasing a couple of these in the near future. This way I don't have to use my Quantum/Metz powerpacks,  I eleiminate cables, plus the batteries are rechargeable and don't have the same issues as Metz Nicad batteries that are notoriously finicky. 

Edited October 1, 2023 by hjoseph7

[ben_hutcherson]

1 hour ago, hjoseph7 said:

The problem I have with Metz, is that the cables are very sensitive and tend to dry out a lot. These days trying to find cables for these older discontinued units is like trying to break into Fort Knox ! 

I have started slathering liquid electric tape on them at the first sign of deterioration. \

It's not the prettiest solution, but it's flexible, won't come off like regular electrical tape, and is tougher than the original insulation. I fixed a 76 MZ-5 with a broken wire at one point by tediously unsoldering everything from the circuit board, cutting it back past the broken wire, rebuilding the insulation and strain relief using heat shrink, and then resoldering everything. The whole job took me a little while and was tedious work(done under a loupe!) but I also enjoy that kind of stuff in a weird twisted way and it did work after the repair.

As for those battery packs-I have rebuilt several of the 50/70/76 NiMH packs. They're not too bad to rebuild, although you need to dig into the old one to get the thermal diode out and then placing it correctly into the new cells. I'm also 50/50 on not killing the thermal fuses when transplanting them, but they're cheap and easy to replace. I like having packs that fit and work like the original, although the removable ones do show promise and at least if the cells go bad you can pop them out and replace them. Aside from that, too, when you rebuild a pack it's tempting to stuff the highest capacity cells you can get into it, but often the high capacity ones(I'd put anything over 2000mAh for AA NiMH in the high capacity category) often trade service life and also charging "finickyness"(for lack of a better word) to get there. Most flat top NiMH AA cells, which are what you really need for rebuilding packs(although the 50/70/76 packs are big enough and made in such a way that you can get away with button tops if you want) seem to run 1600-1800mAH and their spec sheets will show that the lower capacity brings with it better durability.

Suprisingly enough, Metz seemed to source relatively good quality NiCd cells and I've actually rarely found an original NiCd pack, especially the 45-40 pack that works in all the 45 series flashes, that didn't work at least some. Just the other day, I had a 45 CT-5 arrive with what I'd guess is likely a 45-40 pack of about the same age as it, and the 45 CT-5 had a fairly short run. I haven't dug for a date on it, but I'd guess the pack is probably mid-80s. It takes ~15 seconds to recycle from a full dump, which is far outside what I consider spec(a good, fresh fully charged NiCd 45-40 will recycle in 6 seconds from a full dump in any 45 series flash-something I've tested repeatedly) but to me at least it's something that it works at all.

Incidentally, the 45-40 packs are kind of a pain to rebuild I think. The clips holding them together are small and fragile, plus once you actually access the cells you don't have much space to unsolder the wires from the old pack. I've taken to just snipping them, then dig further into the charging circuit and replace them(if any corrosion has set in on the cells, it likely has migrated up the wires at least a bit anyway, so it makes for an overall better rebuild). They also did this annoying thing where tab joining two cells needs to be about 4" long as it bridges a plastic divider. Still, though, I've done a few. Incidentally, you'll find people doing these with NiMH, but I've chose not to and am not sure it's a great idea. Honestly the biggest advantage NiMH holds is capacity/size, which is not insignificant I know. NiCd can handle more charge cycles than NiMH over their lifetime(by a lot-like 3-4x as many) provided you don't seriously abuse them by doing things like seriously overcharging them or letting them run all the way down, which is part of why I suspect so many still work. NiMH is also surprisingly fussy to charge, where NiCd can at least tolerate moderate overcharge without caring, and is also less temperature sensitive. NiCds in general also have lower internal resistance than NiMH, which in theory can mean faster recharge although I doubt you'd notice it in practice(lead acid is probably best in this area, which is also partially why with a good pack the more powerful 60 series flashes can recharge faster than the 45s and also why I suspect Quantum stuck with them for so long, although obviously size and weight are big disadvantages there). The charging issue is why I rebuild 45-40s with NiCd-they really don't have much of a charging "circuit" but just take the 8V I think it is from the charger(the same #728 brick as the 60 series uses) and steps it down then leaves it up to you to time it.

There actually is an NiMH version of the 45 series pack, 45-56. It uses the same #970 charger as the 76-56 for the 76 MZ5(and backward compatible with the 70 and 50 flashes...). I have a few of these on the way now, but not in my hands. The 76-56 charges by sensing temperature rise, hence the thermal diode in the pack, which is considered the "best" way to charge NiMH. I suspect that the 45-56 does as well, and in fact if you rebuild a 75-56 pack you'll find that there's a 3rd wire going to the charger(gray in color) and the thermal diode is connected across the blue(negative) wire and this gray wire. Incidentally, the P76 external pack uses 8x Sub-C NiMH cells, and there's a big thermal sensing loop that runs across them. If you recell and don't have this in place, it will pretty quickly cook the cells(like to the point where they physically get too hot to touch) while also not registering a full charge but eventually just shutting down. I learned THAT one pretty quickly when bench testing a P76 rebuild, and actually ended up gluing the thermal sensing loop in place in the one I rebuilt after I killed one set of cells in it! It could be said that Metz probably under-engineered the NiCd chargers and instead just depended on their natural tolerance to overcharge. OTOH, they definitely went all out on the NiMH packs I've seen.

[AJG]

I don't know if they would still have what you need for your Metz flashes, but I used to use (and trust) Paramount PC cables for my Vivitars as well my my studio strobes  when I was still using PC cables and optical slaves for multiple flashes.

[hjoseph7]

"As for those battery packs-I have rebuilt several of the 50/70/76 NiMH packs. They're not too bad to rebuild, although you need to dig into the old one to get the thermal diode out and then placing it correctly into the new cells"

There is a guy on eBay that does this type of rebuilding for a fee, not sure how much he charges. I have a 76-56 battery pack that can only put out about 25 pops and a 45-56  that is totally dead. I think I also have a 45-40,  but who knows where I placed it ? I really don't think I have the skills to rebuild these types of batteries myself. I did rebuild 3 Quantum Battery +2 packs which I use to charge my CT4's . They were relatively easy to fix since, all  I had to do was buy the already assembled cells from a manufacturer based in Minnessota. Then it was just a matter of unsoldering and resoldering about 2 wires. 

 I still have my Metz P76 that I purchased for  $400 about the same time I purchased the 76 mZ5. I keep it in "Trickle mode" all the time and so far it has not given me any major problems. One minor problem is that I can no longer discharge it. The only way to do that would be to just let it sit there for a couple of days, but I'm afraid that might kill it. The pack is over 10 years old !

I use it to charge my two 50 Mz5's, but I prefer to use my just refurbished Quantum Turbo pack, because at least I know it won't die on me all of a sudden.   

The Liquid Electric Tape is a godsend,  yes it's ugly but it does the job.  I have a bottle in my drawer. I used it to fix a lot of my cables that were falling appart. Much better than regular electric tape that tends to lose it's grip as time goes on. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to repair the cables that were internally damaged, that would probably require me to skin the entire cable and look for any broken wires.  Yikes !

 

 

 

Edited October 1, 2023 by hjoseph7

[ben_hutcherson]

13 hours ago, hjoseph7 said:

There is a guy on eBay that does this type of rebuilding for a fee, not sure how much he charges. I have a 76-56 battery pack that can only put out about 25 pops and a 45-56  that is totally dead. I think I also have a 45-40,  but who knows where I placed it ? I really don't think I have the skills to rebuild these types of batteries myself. I did rebuild 3 Quantum Battery +2 packs which I use to charge my CT4's . They were relatively easy to fix since, all  I had to do was buy the already assembled cells from a manufacturer based in Minnessota. Then it was just a matter of unsoldering and resoldering about 2 wires. 

 I still have my Metz P76 that I purchased for  $400 about the same time I purchased the 76 mZ5. I keep it in "Trickle mode" all the time and so far it has not given me any major problems. One minor problem is that I can no longer discharge it. The only way to do that would be to just let it sit there for a couple of days, but I'm afraid that might kill it. The pack is over 10 years old !

I've seen the rebuild on Ebay, or at least seen one offering.

If it's the listing I'm thinking of, the seller replaces the thermal diode, which is probably a good thing and is something I would do if I knew the exact specs of it. I understand that back in the day, Metz was pretty good about supplying information when asked(although I don't know if this is something they would have supplied) but they have also been gone since 2020 or so, and I don't know if their schematics and other stuff survived. Apparently when they were still functioning they'd also flash your 3002 adapters to the newest firmware revision(subject to some limitations-I think it was ones that started as M3 and later on Nikon and other brands) but toward the end I understand that the one guy who could/did do it was either no longer there and/or the equipment was no longer functioning.

In any case, with the rebuilds on Ebay, at least one seller claims to use Eneeloops cells, which of course many people consider the "best"(not without reason) for NiMH. It's a good selling point, as they are among the highest if not the highest capacity AA sized NiMH cells on the market and also claim relatively low self discharge rates. The latter is a major failing in general, IMO, of NiMH. NiCd is a little better, but not much. In general, primary cells are king when it comes to low self discharge(especially lithium, and that's also one of the few redeeming qualities of carbon zinc) , although lithiium ion is pretty good as is lead acid. Really, though, even though lead acid can sit on the shelf for a long time, deep cycling is what kills them, even in batteries designed to be able handle it, and lead acid can basically live forever if "floated" all the time. I keep maintainers(which are just float chargers) on cars that are rarely driven, although car batteries are again a different animal since they are subject to vibration in ways small portable batteries generally aren't, and also under-hood batteries get pounded with serious heat. Really, really digressing here, but my MG, which does 1000-3000 miles in a typical year, has the battery behind the passenger seat and the last one in it lasted 10 years. I'm hoping the current one makes that long too, and that's for dirt cheap Wal-Mart $50 Everstart-brandd batteries. My much beloved and dearly departed 2004 Lincoln LS(1/04 build) had a trunk mounted battery, and the factory battery died to never come back to live on an especially cold day in January 2012, or almost exactly 8 years and 120,000 miles-that to me was pretty darn impressive for a car battery in a daily driver!

Going back to our camera batteries, though, I mentioned above that I rebuild with Panasonic cells that are rated at I think 1600mAh, or maybe it's 1800mAh. When one is dealing with easily replaced individual cells in a conventional battery holder, it's often not a big deal for them to have(relatively) short lives. Obviously they need to at least last a year or two or a few hundred cycles, or Panasonic or whoever would have complaints out the door about their premium $6+/cell batteries, but that's still not good enough for me for something that needs spot welds, soldering, and other work to replace. Being willing to sacrifice a little bit of capacity can usually win a lot of service life.

In any case, I am always happy to pay a fair price for dead or nearly dead 76-56, 45-56, and 45-40 packs(plus the NiCd version of the 76-56, 50-40 maybe?). Message me if you or anyone else want to be rid of them!

[BeBu Lamar]

I used to have the mecamat for the 45CT1 which was the first flash I bought back in 77. Now I have the 60CT4 but I couldn't find the mecamat for it. Yes I do like the basic auto flash better than TTL.

[hjoseph7]

"In any case, I am always happy to pay a fair price for dead or nearly dead 76-56, 45-56, and 45-40 packs(plus the NiCd version of the 76-56, 50-40 maybe?). Message me if you or anyone else want to be rid of them!"

 

I have to see how the eneloop replacement pack sold on eBay work. If they work fine I'll be happy to hand them to you. I'll keep you posted...