Fuji One of the silliest engineering decisions...

Covey22

Hall of Famer
...was to disable flash when selecting "Silent Mode" on the X-series.

What in blessed heck does Silent Mode have to do with flash?

I swear these engineers have never talked to the UX design team. And neither of them have ever talked to user focus groups.

I just spent 15 sweaty minutes trying to figure out why my EF flash wouldn't fire. I finally in frustration reset all settings back to Factory and it still didn't work. Plowed through the menus and stumbled across Silent Mode hidden under User Settings. I knew I needed to disable it but couldn't find it. Holy Mackerel. :cool:
 
Well, I understand why. Silent mode is used for being discrete. A flash blasting off is not discrete.

Is there no way to turn off all beeps separately?

At the bare minimum, they should have an option labeled "Allow flash during silent mode"
 
Yes, there is a separate volume control for the faux shutter (presumably during e-shutter) as well as AF confirm. It's just frustrating seeing a No Flash indicator in the EVF and when you go to the Flash Menu, Flash mode is grayed out. At the minimum, there should be a tell tale saying Hey Silent Mode might be on.
 
Flash usually won’t work on silent mode because the flash duration is far too short to illuminate the sensor during the long read cycle.
Probably no use with built-in flashes or tiny clip-on ones, but: It could be made to work along the lines of highspeed flash sync (HSS): Start a fraction of a second before the shutter is actually opened (or readout is started, for electronic shutters), end after it's closed (finished). However, there'd to be quite clever tech involved - not something you'd find in mid-range mirrorless cameras, I guess. And it'd need a lot more power from the flash involved - not something you want an in-camera flash to do. So, maybe there are other ways?

However, I wonder how flash is done on cameras with purely electronic shutters like the Nikon 1 J5 or, much more recent, the Sigma fp. The J5 actually *had* a built-in flash with 1/60" (marginal) maximum flash sync time ... Sounds like a compromise to me; external flash wasn't possible at all, btw.

M.
 
The silly thing for them was to name it "silent" and not "discreet" mode. To me it makes sense to have such a mode. Disable all sounds, beeps, focus help lights, even flash, from one selection from the menu. Now it's only badly named, is all.
See, this is why marketing teams usually don't let me get involved with projects because I would've named this RSRD ("Run silent, run deep").
 
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