non-digital flash works with A80

[ChrisA]

I have a Canon A80 and decided to try and use it with a plain old non-digital slave strobe. Success. It turns out in "M" mode the camera does NOT pre-flalsh. It works fine with a "workhorse" Vivitar 285 stobe with a Wein peanut hotshoe slave sensor attached and it seems to work with a 1000 watt second Norman studio powerpack system.

This means it should work with the lowest priced UW srtobe in "M" mode.

I may even put the Vivitar and Wein sensor inside a glass jar and try it under water. Used manual flashed are dirt cheap and the Wein sesor is waterproof so the most I'd loose is a cheap flash

 

[KrisB]

"the most I'd loose is a cheap flash" or a couple fingers from shorting the capacitors...

You should also be able to turn off the pre-flash by turning off red-eye reduction (found under the "Menu" button while in record mode.

Cheers,

 

[ChrisA]

I thought so too. But no. The camera will preflash even with red eye off. It uses the preflash as a kind of light meter I think. You can't see it preflash like you can with a red eye reduction preflash but it's there an triggers a slave such that it fire to soon, efore the shuitter opens.

You should also be able to turn off the pre-flash by turning off red-eye reduction (found under the "Menu" button while in record mode.

Cheers,

 

[KrisB]

Huh. All I had noticed was a red light coming from an LED in a different part of the camera. Would this be causing the slave to fire? I really don't know how the slaves work -- I would have thought it was restricted to bright white light, but maybe any momentary light source cause the flash.

I know the red light is used in low-light situations to help the focus (if the camera can't see what you're trying to focus on, it can't autofocus).

 

[ChrisA]

You can't see the non-redeye preflash. It happens to close to the main flash. There is
maybe a one thousandth of a second space between the two flashes.

The slave I have is made by "Wein" and has been made and in common use by
(mostly) profesional photographers for many years. It is about a 1 inch rounded cube of plexiglas with a hot shoe on top. You can see the electronics inside the solid clear block of plastic as if it were frozen inside an ice cube. It needs a pretty bright light to flash. The A80's flash at low poer will trigger it if there is a clear light of sight but not if the flash is bounced off a wall 20 feet away.

No, I don't really intend to make a UW flash. But now I know a cheap used sea and sea film camera slave flash will work. And also now on land I can take pictures of a large group.

maybe ther whole discussion is moot. I just checked the web and found they
make a line of "digital slaves"
http://www.omegasatter.com/v2/products/displaycategory.cfm?CatID=495

Huh. All I had noticed was a red light coming from an LED in a different part of the camera. Would this be causing the slave to fire? I really don't know how the slaves work -- I would have thought it was restricted to bright white light, but maybe any momentary light source cause the flash.

I know the red light is used in low-light situations to help the focus (if the camera can't see what you're trying to focus on, it can't autofocus).