novatron and 20D

I just saw where some flash strobe systems will blow newer D-SLR's PC SYNC out. I am getting my 20D system tomorrow and have and older, c. 1986 Novatron 550 4 head system. Would it mess my new camera up at all? are there adapters to control the voltage?

Also anyone have links to products that will filter the voltage, if any cables do so?

Thanks in advance for your input. I used it with my Olympus C2020 just fine. Just want to be sure.

Wein makes a little box called a "Safe Sync" or you can just use a wireless slave

shawnstar said:

I just saw where some flash strobe systems will blow newer D-SLR's
PC SYNC out. I am getting my 20D system tomorrow and have and
older, c. 1986 Novatron 550 4 head system. Would it mess my new
camera up at all? are there adapters to control the voltage?

Also anyone have links to products that will filter the voltage, if
any cables do so?

Thanks in advance for your input. I used it with my Olympus C2020
just fine. Just want to be sure.

Click to expand...

I've had to replace my hot shoe contacts on my D60 once, but I think that was a result of using my Qauntum Transmitter on it, and not the fault of my lights.

shawnstar said:

I just saw where some flash strobe systems will blow newer D-SLR's
PC SYNC out. I am getting my 20D system tomorrow and have and
older, c. 1986 Novatron 550 4 head system. Would it mess my new
camera up at all? are there adapters to control the voltage?

Also anyone have links to products that will filter the voltage, if
any cables do so?

Thanks in advance for your input. I used it with my Olympus C2020
just fine. Just want to be sure.

Click to expand...

--
Regards,
Phillip@keepsake
http://www.keepsakephotography.us

I use older 220 Novatron pack with D60 and 1D and have never had a problem. If you are worried about it get some radio slaves. It's nice not having to be wired to the pack.

Or you could put a peanut slave on the pack and use flash to fire the novatron lights.

pfiltz said:

shawnstar said:

I just saw where some flash strobe systems will blow newer D-SLR's
PC SYNC out. I am getting my 20D system tomorrow and have and
older, c. 1986 Novatron 550 4 head system. Would it mess my new
camera up at all? are there adapters to control the voltage?

Also anyone have links to products that will filter the voltage, if
any cables do so?

Thanks in advance for your input. I used it with my Olympus C2020
just fine. Just want to be sure.

Click to expand...

--
Regards,
Phillip@keepsake
http://www.keepsakephotography.us

Click to expand...

Why would all of you guys give such bad blind advice? Philips with the worst idea. "Put a peanut slave on the pack and use the camera flash?" are you kidding? You dont want to do that shawnstar. Philip you give him this advice with out telling him that if he doesnt set the on camera flash to a bare min that it will make a effect on the light and image taken. That is if he even bothers to set the flash at the perfect exposure. " Just enough to trigger the slave but not enough to effect the studio strobe lighting" which is a very fine line. Dont ask the advice of such a question here where your going to get the bad advice given above Shawn. To be sure just give a call to an actual professional that really does know whats going on. Call Novatron and explain the camera and setup you have and they will tell you if its okay or not. Odds are I am sure that you will be fine using a standard sync cord to the pc connection but call novatron to be sure. If not then spend the money and get the radio slaves which are a big plus in many ways. Dont use the on camera flash to trigger a slave on the pack. Which also would put a serious strain on your batteries in the camera. If the older packs are not compatible spend the cash to buy the radio slaves or spend some money and get a more updated novatron power pack used. There is plenty of them out there for pretty cheap. Worst comes to worse use the cheap JTL stuff you see on the back of the magazines. They are fine I use a couple of them here and there for location or editorial shots cause there really small and compact and easy to hide in small places. These days you dont need alot of power to to light things with a 20D. As most guys will tell you these days alot of the time you are looking to find ways to cut down the power.

T. Marvin said:

Or you could put a peanut slave on the pack and use flash to fire
the novatron lights.

pfiltz said:

shawnstar said:

I just saw where some flash strobe systems will blow newer D-SLR's
PC SYNC out. I am getting my 20D system tomorrow and have and
older, c. 1986 Novatron 550 4 head system. Would it mess my new
camera up at all? are there adapters to control the voltage?

Also anyone have links to products that will filter the voltage, if
any cables do so?

Thanks in advance for your input. I used it with my Olympus C2020
just fine. Just want to be sure.

Click to expand...

--
Regards,
Phillip@keepsake
http://www.keepsakephotography.us

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I DID NOT tell him [your quote]"Put a peanut slave on the pack and use the camera flash?" [end of your quote].

What I said, and have done for 5 years now is use a quantum transmitter on my hot shoe adapter. This fires my pack remotely using a slave connected to the pack via pc connector cable.

5 years, and thousands of exposures... No problems. Yes, I've had to have the hot shoe replaced on one of my D60's, but that's all in 5 years.

If any any doubt one should always contact a mfg when in question and not rely on a forum for business decisions. All I did was tell him how I do it, and not recommend to do it.

rmstudio said:

T. Marvin said:

Or you could put a peanut slave on the pack and use flash to fire
the novatron lights.

pfiltz said:

shawnstar said:

I just saw where some flash strobe systems will blow newer D-SLR's
PC SYNC out. I am getting my 20D system tomorrow and have and
older, c. 1986 Novatron 550 4 head system. Would it mess my new
camera up at all? are there adapters to control the voltage?

Also anyone have links to products that will filter the voltage, if
any cables do so?

Thanks in advance for your input. I used it with my Olympus C2020
just fine. Just want to be sure.

Click to expand...

--
Regards,
Phillip@keepsake
http://www.keepsakephotography.us

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Regards,
Phillip@keepsake
http://www.keepsakephotography.us

I am not sure about the power packs but I use novatron monolights, a couple of which are fairly old. I sent them back to Novatron and for $15 a head, they modified them to be digital camera safe when connectiing a sync cable. As one of the guys above said, give Novatron a call and they can tell you what you need to do.

shawnstar said:

I just saw where some flash strobe systems will blow newer D-SLR's
PC SYNC out. I am getting my 20D system tomorrow and have and
older, c. 1986 Novatron 550 4 head system. Would it mess my new
camera up at all? are there adapters to control the voltage?

Also anyone have links to products that will filter the voltage, if
any cables do so?

Thanks in advance for your input. I used it with my Olympus C2020
just fine. Just want to be sure.

Click to expand...

RMstudio -

Somtimes I think you people think good lighting can only be achieved by someone with a graduate degree in math ratios and a studio full of lights and modifiers.

Using a flashs set at 1/128th power to fire studio stobes certainly isn't going to ruin his lighting setup. And, by the way, using the flash to fire the stobes was only the third option I listed.

rmstudio said:

T. Marvin said:

Or you could put a peanut slave on the pack and use flash to fire
the novatron lights.

pfiltz said:

shawnstar said:

I just saw where some flash strobe systems will blow newer D-SLR's
PC SYNC out. I am getting my 20D system tomorrow and have and
older, c. 1986 Novatron 550 4 head system. Would it mess my new
camera up at all? are there adapters to control the voltage?

Also anyone have links to products that will filter the voltage, if
any cables do so?

Thanks in advance for your input. I used it with my Olympus C2020
just fine. Just want to be sure.

Click to expand...

--
Regards,
Phillip@keepsake
http://www.keepsakephotography.us

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

where your coming from. I'm just replying back to you, suggesting I told him one thing, when in reality, I didn't. Look at your post. Who is suggesting ratio's... Geeeezz.

T. Marvin said:

Somtimes I think you people think good lighting can only be
achieved by someone with a graduate degree in math ratios and a
studio full of lights and modifiers.

Using a flashs set at 1/128th power to fire studio stobes certainly
isn't going to ruin his lighting setup. And, by the way, using the
flash to fire the stobes was only the third option I listed.

rmstudio said:

T. Marvin said:

Or you could put a peanut slave on the pack and use flash to fire
the novatron lights.

pfiltz said:

shawnstar said:

I just saw where some flash strobe systems will blow newer D-SLR's
PC SYNC out. I am getting my 20D system tomorrow and have and
older, c. 1986 Novatron 550 4 head system. Would it mess my new
camera up at all? are there adapters to control the voltage?

Also anyone have links to products that will filter the voltage, if
any cables do so?

Thanks in advance for your input. I used it with my Olympus C2020
just fine. Just want to be sure.

Click to expand...

--
Regards,
Phillip@keepsake
http://www.keepsakephotography.us

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Regards,
Phillip@keepsake
http://www.keepsakephotography.us

I wan't replying to you but RM studio, who said we both were complete lighting idiots (OK maybe I'm reading between the lines)

I suggested you could use peanut slave and flash to fire novatrons, and he said you'd ruin you studio lighting setup by adding flash to the equation.

My question to him is, how does he call himself a photographer if he can't figure a way to throw light at the power pack without throwing light at the subject.

Studio lighting is all about directional lighting.

The power pack isn't setting in the subject's lap....it can be set 90 degrees from camera or even slightly behind camera.

Here's a diagram to those visually impaired:



I think it would be easy for you, Philip, to throw light from flash at the power pack without the light spilling onto you subject and thus, if you had no other way to do it, could use this to fire your novatron lights without ruining you lighting setup.

pfiltz said:

T. Marvin said:

Somtimes I think you people think good lighting can only be
achieved by someone with a graduate degree in math ratios and a
studio full of lights and modifiers.

Using a flashs set at 1/128th power to fire studio stobes certainly
isn't going to ruin his lighting setup. And, by the way, using the
flash to fire the stobes was only the third option I listed.

rmstudio said:

T. Marvin said:

Or you could put a peanut slave on the pack and use flash to fire
the novatron lights.

pfiltz said:

shawnstar said:

I just saw where some flash strobe systems will blow newer D-SLR's
PC SYNC out. I am getting my 20D system tomorrow and have and
older, c. 1986 Novatron 550 4 head system. Would it mess my new
camera up at all? are there adapters to control the voltage?

Also anyone have links to products that will filter the voltage, if
any cables do so?

Thanks in advance for your input. I used it with my Olympus C2020
just fine. Just want to be sure.

Click to expand...

--
Regards,
Phillip@keepsake
http://www.keepsakephotography.us

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Regards,
Phillip@keepsake
http://www.keepsakephotography.us

Click to expand...

Everyone has to start somewhere, and I'm right in with all of them.

When I frist opened my studo, I was teathered to my pack. OK, that sucked. Then I used a optical slave that plugged into the pack to fire my strobes.

Believe it or not, I was using on camera flash to fire that puppy... Didn't take but a couple of shots to figure out I didn't like that

I then went to using a quantum transmitter sitting on top of my camera's hot shoe, which talked to a slave sitting on the floor, which was hooked up to my pack via pc connectiion cable bought from Novatron...

What a learning curve. Crawl, Hobble along, Walk, Run, then Sprint to the finish line...

Philip:

I've often admired your studio shots, so I would think you walked for a couple of days then sprinted to the finish line.

I wish I had your guts to open my own studio, but I'm keeping the day job at least until the kids are out of college.

You are right, being wired to studio lights suck, so really the original poster here should figure out the best way for him to go wireless from this pack.

An optical slave on pack with a hotshoe flash at low power aimed away from the subject and at the pack is probably the cheapest way to accomplish this.

Because I have the day job paying the bills and use my photography income to buy new stuff, I've gone the pocket wizard route. It's too bad they are so expensive, because they work so much better than anything else out there.

It just really offended me that RMstudio suggested that you and I weren't "actual professionals".

That led to my post saying that if he can't figure out how to throw light at pack and not on subject, he may not be an "actual professional."

pfiltz said:

Everyone has to start somewhere, and I'm right in with all of them.

When I frist opened my studo, I was teathered to my pack. OK, that
sucked. Then I used a optical slave that plugged into the pack to
fire my strobes.

Believe it or not, I was using on camera flash to fire that
puppy... Didn't take but a couple of shots to figure out I didn't
like that

I then went to using a quantum transmitter sitting on top of my
camera's hot shoe, which talked to a slave sitting on the floor,
which was hooked up to my pack via pc connectiion cable bought from
Novatron...

What a learning curve. Crawl, Hobble along, Walk, Run, then Sprint
to the finish line...

Click to expand...

Exactly Braks just what I said above. And as far as philps can take a hike. You did give really stupid advice for some poor guy starting out trying to learn. If you did know anything about lights or lighting you would know that by putting on or using the camera flash its obvious it would be pointing towards the subject in someway or another unless you had the hotshoe flash rig to point in the direction of the pack which would be highly unlikely. Also which you didnt mention to the guy to do if he where to be dumb enough to try it this way. And for the guy that said "set it to very low power setting as to not effect the lighting set up" odds are that it would be to low to actually trigger the lights. Even then phitz didnt mention to the guy to power down the hotshoe flash that he would use to trigger the slave. Which is why I said he was giving and still am saying the guy gave bad advice. LIke I said above the odds are that there was a very fine line where the flash would be set to high or to low to set off the slave or alter the studio strobe lighting by being to bright. Best thing to do was like I said get a sync cord to go the cheap way or radio slaves if he had the money to do so but on the older pack like he was describing. But be sure to ask a "Professional person that builds and repairs these power packs" not some guy on this board that think he knows about things that he obviously doesnt know.

I

Brak's Buddy said:

shawnstar said:

I just saw where some flash strobe systems will blow newer D-SLR's
PC SYNC out. I am getting my 20D system tomorrow and have and
older, c. 1986 Novatron 550 4 head system. Would it mess my new
camera up at all? are there adapters to control the voltage?

Also anyone have links to products that will filter the voltage, if
any cables do so?

Thanks in advance for your input. I used it with my Olympus C2020
just fine. Just want to be sure.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Sorry philps was actually referring to Tman for his post. As far as "Trying" to make me look like I dont know anything about lighting saying I cant figuire out a way to angle the flash to the side to trigger the pack slave is also stupid. For one I can figuire that one out in a second but the bigger question why the hell would I do it! thats such a mickey mouse way. 2nd you didnt mention this to the guy when you told him to use a flash to trigger the slave. Maybe you need your drawings to figuire out that grand idea of what you think is a safe way to sync studio strobes, but we dont cause we got better things to do than try and sync studio strobes in this lame way. Also not to mention unreliable way. Any pro would never use such a unconsistant way of syncing there studio strobes. I mean what if the guy has some daylight coming from a window in the studio? what if he was to use the flash from the camera that you didnt say to use or not to use? then he wouldnt have a way to turn that flash to the side would he? what if he did use the on camera built in flash? the odds are it wouldnt have sync correctly anyways. Sorry you put your self in this one by saying I dont know anything about lighting. Bad call..... Just the thought that you would give this hanky way of syncing strobes gives an indication of where your head is at about lighting. Ask any actual working pro if he woudl do such a lame thing in front of a art director on a commercial job? Only maybe unless he was pinned against the wall on location with no other choice because he had a sync cord go out on him or his pocket wizards failed. I bet you would get the exact same response I gave you for giving some guy trying to learn this really bad advice. .

shawnstar said:

I just saw where some flash strobe systems will blow newer D-SLR's
PC SYNC out. I am getting my 20D system tomorrow and have and
older, c. 1986 Novatron 550 4 head system. Would it mess my new
camera up at all? are there adapters to control the voltage?

Also anyone have links to products that will filter the voltage, if
any cables do so?

Thanks in advance for your input. I used it with my Olympus C2020
just fine. Just want to be sure.

Click to expand...

jeez, i didn't mean to start a fire here, had a basic question about my new digital camera working with my old strobes....I never had to use a voltmeter on strobes before. If I will have to buy a new strobe kit, I will....I Thanks RM for your advice.Nice website and work BTW. I will call Novatron to get the lowdown. I guess they will fix my pack for 15.00 for D-Work if in fact it's not already. I did send the pack last year to get it repaired, I had 4 cells blow during a shoot, thankfully, it was a the end of the shoot.

As for the rest of you, judging by what kind of photographer I am, if I am not resourceful blah blah blah....I am resourceful, I just want to make sure that my strobe pack will not blow my new camera when I hook it up. I really hope that you all are not as rude and mean to your subjects while you are shooting them, as it would be an upset for the end result. Y'all should really try to be a little more kind to each other.

This whole hobby/profession/life endurment is a love/passion of mine, that I have had the opportunity to learn and grow with since I was 6 years old. My father himself being a professional hobbiest himself introduced me to the realm.

Peace,

Shawn

Thank you shawn. I just dont like when people give new people really bad advice. Its not fair to do that. The moral of the story is yes you could be resourceful as they put it but why would do it in that poor way or unreliable way. ALso at 15 bucks like someone said above to convert your pack to be digitally safe is a bargain. Then you wont be having to worry if you lost your safe sync you can just be secure and not even worry about it at all when you change it to a digital safe from novatron. Then it will be just "All Good". make the investment if you can in the radio slaves pocket wizards or quantums so much nice to room around unwired. expecially if you ever go out and shoot a event or wedding. but dont worry if you have a regular sync cord all of us pros used them all the time until about 5 or 7 years ago. Equiptment is so over played by so many or put over a higher priority as apposed to learning how to make what they already have work or bend it into something new or creative. Whatever you use just play with it to get the maxium that you can from it. You will become a much better photographer from it. Then when your stuck in jam or dont have much on location for some odd or problematic reason you wont be sweating bullets and you will be able to figuire something out. Best of luck shawn and remember "Practice"

shawnstar said:

jeez, i didn't mean to start a fire here, had a basic question
about my new digital camera working with my old strobes....I never
had to use a voltmeter on strobes before. If I will have to buy a
new strobe kit, I will....I Thanks RM for your advice.Nice website
and work BTW. I will call Novatron to get the lowdown. I guess
they will fix my pack for 15.00 for D-Work if in fact it's not
already. I did send the pack last year to get it repaired, I had 4
cells blow during a shoot, thankfully, it was a the end of the
shoot.

As for the rest of you, judging by what kind of photographer I am,
if I am not resourceful blah blah blah....I am resourceful, I just
want to make sure that my strobe pack will not blow my new camera
when I hook it up. I really hope that you all are not as rude and
mean to your subjects while you are shooting them, as it would be
an upset for the end result. Y'all should really try to be a
little more kind to each other.

This whole hobby/profession/life endurment is a love/passion of
mine, that I have had the opportunity to learn and grow with since
I was 6 years old. My father himself being a professional hobbiest
himself introduced me to the realm.

Peace,

Shawn

Click to expand...

I have an older V400 Novatron 2 head system. It was not compatible for use with digital cameras becasue of the voltage. My unit was still under warranty so I brought it to Novatron and they upgraded the power pack at no charge to me. As I understand it the just modified it to lower the voltage to 6 volts. As best as I can tell, it would have cost less than $75. You should email/call Novatron and see what needs to be done to your power pack.

George

pfiltz said:

shawnstar said:

I just saw where some flash strobe systems will blow newer D-SLR's
PC SYNC out. I am getting my 20D system tomorrow and have and
older, c. 1986 Novatron 550 4 head system. Would it mess my new
camera up at all? are there adapters to control the voltage?

Also anyone have links to products that will filter the voltage, if
any cables do so?

Thanks in advance for your input. I used it with my Olympus C2020
just fine. Just want to be sure.

Click to expand...

--
Regards,
Phillip@keepsake
http://www.keepsakephotography.us

Click to expand...