300D a discovery - Flash

Steep · 22-03-2005, 11:47

Like many others I've found the onboard flash to be limiting and tried the various finbounce ideas to compensate. Nothing however could compete with a proper off camera flashgun. Trouble is, much though I want one I can't afford a decent one sooo.... Many years ago I was a Pentax MESuper/645 user and bought then a Centon FH85 flash plus extras (off camera bracket and battery pack/arm thingy) which was naturally enough Pentax dedicated. I've looked around for a Canon module for the gun (great idea that, one flash gun does any make as long as you have the module for it) but not found one and even been told by the guy in Jessops that it wouldn't work anyway....back on track I decided in a fit of madness to just fit the flash to the camera and try it, it worked!
Of course it doesn't have any of the auto functions that a dedicated Canon flash would have, but I have a working, swivelling, tilting, zooming, off camera flashgun. It has a full mode (from memory guide no. of 34m) a 1/16 strength mode and a small fill in flash on the front.
I'm not sure how much I'm missing not having e-ttl or autozoom but never having had either I don't miss them and it's really not hard to judge exposure from the histogram. I used this gun on my competition entry this month, hand held the camera and bounced the flash off the ceiling.

I don't know how lucky I was that the pin arrangement was suitable or wether there is a standard basic arrangement for most. I did check that the trigger voltage was correct for the camera (should be no more than 6v) and it was fine. It just goes to show, if you don't try you never know, I may have been risking damage to the camera which is why I called it a fit of madness but it worked out well for me.

Matty · 22-03-2005, 20:38

here is a page that has lots of flashes and the trigger voltages, and if its EOS friendly!

Im off to ebay now....

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