Mecablitz

Mecablitz 36 CT 3 on a Minolta 7000
image by Uwe Kulick (Image rights)

Metz Mecablitz 180 on Konica C35
image by Uziyahu Michaeli (Image rights)

Metz Mecablitz is a series of amateur and professional electronic flashguns. Metz also developed SCA adapters allowing their flash units to be used on different cameras and provide full facilities, such as TTL operation.

The Metz SCA flash adapters ("System Camera Adapter") comprises a range of flash adapters for different cameras. As flash units became more complex, offering TTL measurement and viewfinder status, each camera manufacturer developed their own proprietary contact system on the hotshoe. In addition to the standard central flash trigger connection, additional pins are provided for additional functions. Metz developed the SCA connectors to allow their flash units to be used on different cameras with full functionality.

SCA adapters have evolved through several generations, starting with the SCA 300 range.

The basic adapter is the SCA 301 which can be used on every standard hot shoe. Some adapters even add camera functionality like the autofocus-aiding red light. The Metz SCA 332 RL is a sample for such an adapter which adds an AF aid light and connects a Mecablitz flash unit of the System SCA 300 to the Minolta 7000 SLR camera. Some other flash makers offer flash units which use Metz SCA adapters, for example for the sophisticated electronic flashguns of Cullmann and Osram.

Metz Mecablitz 36 CT 3
image by Uwe Kulick (Image rights)

Flash units

Metz Mecablitz 36 CT 3

The Metz Mecablitz 36 CT 3 is a flash for the ambitious amateur, compact and yet powerful. Its flash head can be set to indirect lightning positions 45°, 60°, 75° or 90° upwards, or into normal straight-forward lightning position or the same position with the close-up variations 5° or 10° downwards. The flash head can also be turned horizontally, up to 180° to the right or 90° to the left. On the flash light part is an uncoupled analog calculator to see which film-speed/aperture combination allows which distance in feet or metres. A second analog calculator is coupled to the electronic settings switch on the back. This calculator also shows different distances for wide, normal and tele lenses. And it switches the electronics to settings for apertures 11, 8, 5.6, 4 or 2.8, or to a TTL mode, or to the M mode (manual full output), or W (winder) mode. The uncoupled analog calculator can be switched from M to W mode or vice versa. Thus this uncoupled calculator supports aperture setting calculations for the manual and winder modes.

The flash belongs to the SCA 300 system. That means that its foot can be exchanged with a special foot for a certain camera's special hot shoe.