Experiments with an old flash

by Brad Grier on November 19, 2006

in Photography

Recently I had the oppor­tun­ity to acquire an older Vivatar 283 external flash / strobe for a good price. This is one of the early model external strobes that had really proved the test of time (years ago I had it’s big­ger brother, the 285, and missed the ver­sat­il­ity it provided). So when this one became avail­able I grabbed it.

My cur­rent interest in flash pho­to­graphy can all be blamed on this cool ‘niche’ blog; Strobist. It’s a great site pro­fil­ing flash tech­niques and setups, tools and pho­to­graph­ers. Inspir­a­tional, you might say.

Inspired I was.

So that brings me to this post and my first ‘exer­cise’. I’d acquired said flash and tested it to ensure that it wouldn’t fry my Lumix FZ30. It seems that older flashes may have a trig­ger voltage as high as 300v DC across the contacts…not too healthy for these sens­it­ive modern-day digital cam­eras. I’m happy to say this baby registered just under 9v. If you’re inter­ested in read­ing more about flash voltage, check out this art­icle and com­pre­hens­ive list­ing chart.

Test­ing done, I needed a sub­ject to shoot. Then the dogs wandered by…

Just to get you up to speed, they’re mini­ature piebald Dachshunds; Heloise and Selena. And yes, they’re black and white.

Next, I needed to set the scene. Since we live in a north­ern cli­mate that tends to cause water to change to a solid, I’m shoot­ing indoors for now. And, the little tur­keys need appro­pri­ate cloth­ing to ven­ture out­side. My wife found a great designer online (www dachsundsdressedforshow.com) who was able to get some very nifty look­ing coats to us in a very short time; winter rolled in early here in Alberta. The zebra stripes seem to suit them.

Dress the dogs, set them on a futon with a nice neut­ral col­our, drape a blanket behind for a nice con­trast col­our, and shoot away!

The shots were pretty simple at this point; I just wanted to get a feel for the flash with the cam­era. I’ve pos­ted five of them to flickr (and to the Strobist flickr group).

I found the illu­min­a­tion a bit harsh without any dif­fu­sion, so I grabbed an opaque plastic food con­tainer lid and held that in front of the flash, boun­cing light from the walls and roof.

Dif­fu­sion sys­tems are in my future. An umbrella/reflector/stands and maybe a nice fill light would also help, but hey, I’m just get­ting back into this and my wal­let needs to build up slowly ;-)

Also, the Viv­itar has only one axis of rota­tion, but once I take it off cam­era (I have a hot-shoe exten­sion cable arriv­ing shortly) that prob­lem will vanish.

But now I’m think­ing, is this thing going to really do what I need with por­trait and still life (and macro) work, or am I really going to need to invest in a lar­ger kit?

I guess only time will tell…

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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Ranger Bob November 21, 2006 at 3:34 pm

Brad,

Will have to look into that more with my old Canon (T232A) T-70 SLR flash mounted up on my Canon 20D digital that I’ve also got to work together. Last night took in the Edmonton TUC meeting where Phil Rowley talked about doing macro photography on flies, fish and bug. Also cool was that John Acorn was also in attendance.

TTYL

RB

2 Ranger Bob November 21, 2006 at 3:35 pm

Oh yeah, I take it you are into WOW these days? Should check out my blog then. ;) ;)

3 Brad Grier November 21, 2006 at 10:04 pm

Dude, MAKE SURE you check out the trigger voltage of that flash. 300v DC is not friendly to the sensitive circuitry in these digital puppies :-)

WOW, actually, I’ve been a Guild Wars goonie for a while now. Just bought the 3rd expansion. Difference is you pay all at once, rather than the subscription $xx.xx/month.

But will check the blog.

4 Ranger Bob December 13, 2006 at 8:34 am

Tried it while it was still under warranty. What they’re for are they not?

Specs on my ‘legacy’ flash:

http://www.canonfd.com/277ind.htm

The recommended new flash:

http://www.canon.com.hk/en/Consumer/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?product_id=10215&series_id=10004

5 Ranger Bob December 13, 2006 at 10:50 am

Oh yeah.. just stumbled across this for the benefit of others.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=6436977&q=speedlight+277t&qf=m

“Older Canon Speedlite flash units.

Older Canon Speedlite flash units which lack the letter E in their product name were not designed for EOS cameras. There were Speedlite A models (eg: 199A) for old A-series Canons such as the A1 and AE1 and Speedlite T models (eg: 277T) for T-series Canons such as the T50 (but not the T90) and various other special-purpose models.

You can put these older flashes on your EOS camera and they’ll trigger OK when you take a photo, but they can’t use modern automated flash metering. So you have to either use them in auto mode if they have such a setting (set your camera to a shutter speed up to the camera’s X-sync), dial in manual power and calculate the flash distance yourself if they have manual controls or else expect the flash to fire at full power.”

6 Ranger Bob December 13, 2006 at 10:53 am

Oh yeah, one more.. then I am gonna try this flashy stuff out.

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

Canon 277T – Triggering at 4.8V
EOS Safe = Yes

:) :) :) :D :D :D :P :P :P ;) ;) ;) :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

7 Brad Grier December 13, 2006 at 3:21 pm

Excellent! I’m looking forward to the next week or so. I’ve been playing with diffusers, reflectors (all home made) but want to get serious.

I am SO tempted to make this SoftBox ( http://www.diyphotography.net/homestudio/cheap-diy-flash-mounted-softbox ) and play with macro over the holidays :-)

Off camera is fun!

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