Using old flash with dSLR?

jswoolf01

Maybe a silly question, but...

Many years ago when I had only an old film SLR and was strapped for cash, about the best flash unit I could afford was an off-brand model called a Starblitz 2000BTZ. It runs off two AA batteries, has a single hot-shoe contact button and an X-sync cord that I may or may not still have lying around somewhere. It's not dedicated; instead it has its own sensor that it uses to judge how much light to emit. It has three operating modes, which I mentally labeled "closeup" (assumes f/11 and close range); "area" (assumes f/5.6 and longer range); and "manual" (every discharge is maximum intensity). Basic and primitive, but on the rare occasions I needed a flash, it did an acceptable job.

A few months ago I bought a Nikon D80 dSLR and a couple of lenses for it. Unfortunately, the camera and lenses pretty much exhausted my available funds, so I couldn't and still can't buy a zippy new matching flash for it. But I still want a separate flash I can put on the cmera, or perhaps even use off-camera, mostly for low-light indoor situations and closeups of flowers & such.

Is there any reason why I can't use this old flash with my D80? :scratch Voltage problems? Communication problems? Losing the flash wouldn't be any great loss, but I have nightmarish images of firing a test shot and having some sort of feedback burn out critical circuits in the camera...

Anyone have any useful advice?


-- Jon W.

cmason

There could be a problem: older flashes required more voltage from the camera to fire, and putting one on a new dSLR is said to potentially fry the electronics of a dSLR, due to the high voltage an old flash uses with the hot shoe.

I personally would not try it. A flash is cheap compared to your camera.

Since the flash is old and you won't get eTTL anyway, why not get an optical slave and simply use it OFF CAMERA?

Try this out:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/62712-REG/Wein_W940030_HS_Hot_Shoe_Slave.html

This way you can use the pop-up flash on your D80, and it will trigger the old flash. You can vary the output of the D80 flash to reduce its output if you like.

ziggy53

jswoolf01 wrote:

Maybe a silly question, but...

Many years ago when I had only an old film SLR and was strapped for cash, about the best flash unit I could afford was an off-brand model called a Starblitz 2000BTZ. It runs off two AA batteries, has a single hot-shoe contact button and an X-sync cord that I may or may not still have lying around somewhere. It's not dedicated; instead it has its own sensor that it uses to judge how much light to emit. It has three operating modes, which I mentally labeled "closeup" (assumes f/11 and close range); "area" (assumes f/5.6 and longer range); and "manual" (every discharge is maximum intensity). Basic and primitive, but on the rare occasions I needed a flash, it did an acceptable job.

A few months ago I bought a Nikon D80 dSLR and a couple of lenses for it. Unfortunately, the camera and lenses pretty much exhausted my available funds, so I couldn't and still can't buy a zippy new matching flash for it. But I still want a separate flash I can put on the cmera, or perhaps even use off-camera, mostly for low-light indoor situations and closeups of flowers & such.

Is there any reason why I can't use this old flash with my D80? Voltage problems? Communication problems? Losing the flash wouldn't be any great loss, but I have nightmarish images of firing a test shot and having some sort of feedback burn out critical circuits in the camera...

Anyone have any useful advice?


-- Jon W.

High trigger voltage can indeed fry your camera. According to this page:

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

... your old flash is dangerously high voltage. While you could use a slave, as cmason suggests, if your on-camera flash uses a pre-flash the linked slave won't work. The correct slave could be:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/263024-REG/Wein_W940030D_HS_Hot_Shoe_Slave.html

For not much more you could also get a more modern (and safe) "auto" flash like the Sunpak 383 Super flash:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/52799-REG/Sunpak_0383_383_Super_Auto_Flash.html

My recommendation would be to purchase the Sunpak flash.

zacker

i too have an older starblitz, probably from the mid to early 70's.. anyhow, i wont tempt it on my cam...havent even tried it off cam for that matter... lol oh well, it works with a canon AE-1 ill have someday..(went with it) just need to go get the camera from a friends house.

Art Scott

if you really want to use your old starblitz strobe for around $30 you can purcahse a safe sync shoe adapter.....Wein makes them as do lots of other companies...safe sync shoe adapters run amuck on EBAY.....these protect your camera from recieveing too much voltage...0r what I did was buy a RF wireless flash trigger (from PhotoGerOk on ebay....I bought the 16 channel one less than $25) for use with my Sunpak 622's now I am not tied with pc cable or any cable and it works fantastic even with flash directly above my camera on a bracket.

jswoolf01

ziggy53 wrote:

High trigger voltage can indeed fry your camera. According to this page:

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

... your old flash is dangerously high voltage.

Thanks, Ziggy. That's exactly the sort of information I was looking for but couldn't find.

ziggy53 wrote:

For not much more you could also get a more modern (and safe) "auto" flash like the Sunpak 383 Super flash:

Sounds like a good candidate. No zoom head, but otherwise much better than this old flash. Hmmm...

Thanks also to everyone else who offered thoughts. It helps.

-- Jon W.