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PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:58 am    Post subject: Old flashes Reply with quote
Messing around with daffodils in the kitchen and an old thyristor flash gun (Jenazoom 3600)

Both pics Tamron 70-150 f:3.5

Light bounced off ceiling and second fill light is on. I thought that window was clean Laughing




Swivel flash head pointing backwards and up at 45degrees. Quite an even illumination, seems to have picked up diffused creamy tone from paint on walls. Tamron on macro setting.


PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 2:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Very nice, I like them both, and you did a great job with the lighting!

Bill


PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Well done!

I also use old flashes. Aafter looking at the prices of the new ones (like the Canon 580EX, around 500€), I got a Vivitar that was designed for the Canon film cameras (and whose automatisms do not work with the 350D) by 5€ plus shipping. Sometimes I miss the first shot by overexposing, but it's easily corrected in the second shot... Again MAF (Manual adjusting flashes Smile ) beats over the expensive automatisms at a big saving costs... Just wonder how many good lenses could you buy with the difference...

As a matter of fact, there is a trick very useful for the old flashes: You can get a nice light diffusor by covering the old flash with an empty white plastic bag coming from the children's kellogs cereals...

Jes.


PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Very nice result Dave!
Perfect balance with outdoor light

Jes wrote:
I got a Vivitar

5€ is indeed a crazy price


PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Jes, I have two old cheap flash units from years ago, a Sunpak and a Cobra, but I've been to scared to use them with the 400D because of the voltage. Could you give me any tips? Smile


PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
peterqd wrote:
Jes, I have two old cheap flash units from years ago, a Sunpak and a Cobra, but I've been to scared to use them with the 400D because of the voltage. Could you give me any tips? Smile


Peter, you act wisely. Old flashes are risky to use. First of all, you should check the specific models against the "official" voltage list in Photo Strobe, they have collected a nice database of flash voltages:

http://www.botzilla.com/photo/strobeVolts.html

and you could discards some at first.

But best of all is to check it by yourself. If you have access to a VOM (multimeter) check the voltage between the two poles on the hotshoe flash (obviously powered on Smile )

Ricoh states their modern cameras can cope with flash voltages upto 12V. Canon is more conservative and states 6V for theirs.

I built a safe hotshoe adapter for those of us that love our old flashes. It's based on a optoisolator that triggers a Thyristor which in turn triggers the flash. It works 99% of cases, but I've found some flashes that are reluctant to get triggered from time to time.



I'll try to recover my article (with detailed pictures). It was about to fit the adapter inside a flash unit, but it could be built standalone with their own batteries.

Hope this clarify the issue a little more.

Jes.


PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 10:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I've been reluctant to try my old Vivitar 283 on my D200, does anyone know how safe it would be?


PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 10:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Richard_D wrote:
I've been reluctant to try my old Vivitar 283 on my D200, does anyone know how safe it would be?


Richard, I would't try it:

According Photo Strobe:

"Older units have been reported as high as 600V!
Recent (post-'87) revised 283's ("Made in China") are safer with modern cameras, running around 9-10V. Bob Atkins reports some as low as 5V. Recently units marked "Made in Korea" have also appeared... measured at 8v by Andrew Cassino and Tony Bonanno.
Kevin Omura used a Quantum battery and got a hefty 261.4V out of his (sn3012330), while
Göran Samuelsson had two units with different voltages: 230V and 190V. Other reports have had similar variety, up to 270V."

To me is risky. Anyway I would measure the real voltage at the hotshoe.

Jes.


PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I have a Vivitar 285VH perfect flash for my Olympus E-1 , unfortunately some of them produce high voltage and kill modern DSLR cameras. To be in safe measure first they voltage via flash shoe.


PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Jesito wrote:
Richard_D wrote:
I've been reluctant to try my old Vivitar 283 on my D200, does anyone know how safe it would be?


Richard, I would't try it:

According Photo Strobe:

"Older units have been reported as high as 600V!
Recent (post-'87) revised 283's ("Made in China") are safer with modern cameras, running around 9-10V. Bob Atkins reports some as low as 5V. Recently units marked "Made in Korea" have also appeared... measured at 8v by Andrew Cassino and Tony Bonanno.
Kevin Omura used a Quantum battery and got a hefty 261.4V out of his (sn3012330), while
Göran Samuelsson had two units with different voltages: 230V and 190V. Other reports have had similar variety, up to 270V."

To me is risky. Anyway I would measure the real voltage at the hotshoe.

Jes.


Thanks - I'll definitely borrow a voltmeter before trying!


PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 1:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thanks all. Smile
I stuck these up just to show that nobody needs to spend big bucks on the latest flashes, that many of the older flashes work perfectly well, in fact as well as they ever did on older SLRs. That, and if we are into manual lenses, manual (or semi-auto) flashes fit in rather well. These old auto-thyristor guns are available off ebay for the price of a pint.

@ Jes
This JenaZoom is one I've had for years, but luckily it falls within the limit for Canon DSLRs, being only 5V on the trigger. When I discovered the list of trigger voltages I bought a handful of old flashguns to keep me going - one of my projects I want to try out is painting buildings with light and a battery of remote guns can be assembled really cheaply nowadays.

@peterqd
I bought a Cobra 700AF kit a few months ago (the seller said it didn't work on his digital Canon) and it works fine on mine, just dial it up on semi-auto or manual. Trigger voltage on it is about 7V. Mind you, just because the 700AF is ok, doesn't mean that your Cobra is the same. Check the voltage on your Sunpak, for I've a feeling it's quite high. Then again, the 400D might be ok with higher voltages.
Certainly the latest DSLR Canons are - it was only the early ones that got fried, mine being amongst the ones at risk.

@Richard D
Istr that DNikons are tolerant of high flash trigger voltages, but I wouldn't risk it until I knew for sure.


PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 3:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Jesito wrote:
First of all, you should check the specific models against the "official" voltage list in Photo Strobe, they have collected a nice database of flash voltages:

http://www.botzilla.com/photo/strobeVolts.html

and you could discards some at first.

Thanks Jes. Your circuit diagram looks great but I don't understand it Crying or Very sad Neither of my flashes are listed on that site but similar units seem to have very high voltages (66v and 260v).

Quote:
But best of all is to check it by yourself. If you have access to a VOM (multimeter) check the voltage between the two poles on the hotshoe flash (obviously powered on Smile )

I have a digital multimeter and I've tried to test the Sunpak Auto28. Maybe I'm being thick, but I can't get a sensible reading. The hotshoe on the flash hasn't made contact in the camera shoe for years so I use the little inbuilt cable plugged into the camera PC socket (which has been forgotten on the 400D BTW). How can I test the voltage? With the flash turned on and charged up I've clipped the negative probe to the outer case of the PC plug and when I touch the positive probe on the inner pin I get a zero reading. There's no test button on the flash unit, the only way to fire it is to short out the PC plug, which also of course short circuits the meter probes. The meter just gives a flicker and returns to zero again.

And I can't find the Cobra flash to test, I think it was an Auto150, very cheap.

The best thing I think will be to dedicate the Sunpak to the old film cameras only, and get a new one for the Canon. I'm not interested in fancy metering or focussing, just a plain flash unit. What would be the best choice?

@Farside
Thanks Dave. Maybe I'll look for the 700AF then.


PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 3:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Old flashes rock! I love my SB-15 (Nikon's first ISO-shoe based TTL flash) It's nice and compact, puts out plenty of light and gives great exposure on both my FG and my N8008s. Even when I borrowed my friends totally incompatible Oly E-510 DSLR, it's auto-thyristor modes produced much better exposure than the built-in pop-up flash...


PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 5:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Dave wrote:
This JenaZoom is one I've had for years


Me too - it was produced for the Jenaflex AM-1 (re-badged Praktica BC-1) which was released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first ever SLR.


@ Peter:

An opto-isolator is a device that uses light to transmit a signal - it effectively electrically 'isolates' one device from another but still allows a connection.

Jes' diagram shows a six pin device connected as follows:

Pin 1 to positive terminal on hot shoe.

Pin 2 to battery negative.

Pin 3 is not used.

Pin 4 to Silicon Controlled Rectifier GATE.

Pin 5 is not used.

Pin 6 to one end of R1 which is either a 5100 ohm or 5600 ohm resistor depending on flash voltage.

The other end of R1 is connected to the ANODE of the SCR and the positive terminal of the flash itself.

The CATHODE of the SCR is connected via a '"tank" circuit comprising R3 at 100000 ohms and C1 capacitor at 1 micro-farad - these components are connected in parallel, with the positive terminal of the cap being connected to the cathode of the SCR.

The other end of the tank circuit goes to the negative terminal of the flash itself.

The remaining connections connect the positive terminal of the battery via R2 100 ohms to the negative terminal on the hotshoe.

Don't know if this helps any.... Confused

Last edited by bob955i on Sat Mar 15, 2008 5:52 pm; edited 1 time in total


PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
bob955i wrote:
Dave wrote:
This JenaZoom is one I've had for years


Me too - it was produced for the Jenaflex AM-1 (re-badged Praktica BC-1) which was released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first ever SLR.


So that's the story behind it. I could never find any info on it and I wondered if it was a re-badged Vivitar. Even now, a google search on it turns up nothing.


PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I haven't found anything either Dave although I know there was a lower spec model known as the Jenazoom 2400.

I still have the manual for my 3600.

The Jenaflex AM-1 accessories comprised either the 2400 or 3600 flashes and a motordrive.

I had the motordrive on my first BC-1 but the camera jammed and that was the end of the body. Sad

I've often wondered if the Jenazoom branded lenses were part of the AM-1 arsenal too as they certainly appeared around the time (1986) that the AM-1 was released.


PostPosted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
bob955i wrote:
@ Peter:

An opto-isolator is a device that uses light to transmit a signal....
Don't know if this helps any.... Confused

Thanks for trying Bob Shocked Wink


PostPosted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 2:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
peterqd wrote:
bob955i wrote:
@ Peter:

An opto-isolator is a device that uses light to transmit a signal....
Don't know if this helps any.... Confused

Thanks for trying Bob Shocked Wink


Hi Peter:

Sorry, I lost track of this thread.
Which kind of connector do have your camera and flash?. If you are not in a hurry, I could build one of these adaptors for you... It's not difficult and I got the parts, (they are cheap). I just need some time to set the solder lab.. Wink

Jes.
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