Sunpak 383 flash

I want a flash for my D50 and this one is in my price range right now. However, the room that I take alot of pictures in(my livingroom) has 10 ft. ceilings. Will this flash give me enough light when I bounce? Also, what is the degree of swivel? Right now I use a Sunpak 280A thyristor on my Panasonic FZ30 and it seems like its not giving me adequate light bouncing.

Plenty of power for 10ft ceiling, manual or semi auto only, no ttl.

330 degree rotation and 90 degree elevation, sold it to get the sb600, but worked fine on my d50 and pana fz20. May be worth saving the extra for one of the sb's ttl just makes life so much easier.
--
Gerry,
http://gerryd.smugmug.com/ discount code on homepage

D5O, 7O-21O, 24-I35 Tam sp, 6O micro, I8-55, 24-5O, 5O 1.8. 7O-3OO APO dg, 80-200 D twin ring, 28-200g, kenko 1.4x tc
FZ2O, Sunpac 3-eight-3, PSE-3

I use the SunPak Auto 383 Super and I am very happy with the results. The 383 has quite a bit of power and a 10 foot ceiling shouldn't be a problem. Don't use to shallow an angle or your light will reflect off the ceiling to the area behind your subject. You probably want about 75 degrees; mine has a little icon at the 75 degree position. I have found the unit has a good range outdoors too, and I use it for fill light when shooting Hummingbirds.



These taken in my livingroom bouncing the light (8' ceiling)





Taken in a church social hall that was dimmly lit and I was on the other side of the room.



All were taken with the D50 and 70-300G lens, and SunPak Auto 383 Super.
--
Brooks

http://www.bmiddleton.smugmug.com

I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.
— W. Somerset Maugham

Thanks for the replies!!! Nice hummer Brooks! I can tell by your pics this flash is enough power for me. The ttl doesn't bother me too much because I am just starting with my dlsr and I fiddle around alot with my settings in manual mostly. This fits my budget and I think I will go for it! Eventually I will get the sb600 though.

nice shots...this lens in the right hands is really sharp..great job

Can someone explain the i-ttl functon that the sb's come with? Do I undserstand this right, the ttl function is when the camera sends out a beam of light and decides how much power to give the flash based on the distance reading it gets. But what about the i-ttl?

diamondlovr said:

Can someone explain the i-ttl functon that the sb's come with? Do I
undserstand this right, the ttl function is when the camera sends
out a beam of light and decides how much power to give the flash
based on the distance reading it gets. But what about the i-ttl?

Click to expand...

i-TTL is the name of the TTL flash metering system used in Nikon cameras (before i-TTL there was a system called D-TTL). When you press the shutter release to take a picture, the camera issues a "pre-flash" by firing the flash at a low power setting, and uses its metering system to measure the amount of light coming back through the lens. Then it calculates the flash exposure based on ISO, aperture and focus distance (amongst other things). Some lenses don't provide distance information, but apparently that very rarely makes any difference. Once the pre-flash is done the camera pulls up the mirror and takes the shot.

i-TTL also has a lot of very nice wireless flash capabilities, but the D50's built-in flash can't control remote slaves so you would need an SB-800 on your D50 before you could do that.

The Sunpak 383 Super has a GN of 120 @ 35mm. This compares to a GN of 98 for the SB-600 and 125 for the SB-800 at the same settings.

I used this flash for a few years, until it went "pop" at a wedding. It's good for most people, but wedding work means lots of high-power flashes in a relatively short period of time, which is hard on the circuitry.

I've gone on to the Sunpak 555 "potato masher." I don't miss TTL flash automation. Use the flash in the automatic mode, and the camera in either the A (for ballanced fill flash) or M mode. Match Aperature and sensitivity (ISO on camera to ASA on flash), and you'll be set.

Good luck!
--

• Arved

'Take only pictures. Leave only footprints.' - Photographer's creed

These photos look great with the 383. I have used the same flash for some time on my Panasonic FZ10 with very good results, but when I attach it to my D50, the camera does not seem to recognise I have an external flash attached. (I made sure it had good contact with the hotshoe) I set the flash setting on the D50 to manual. Can you give me the settings you use, please. No matter what I do the camera sets a very low shutter speed, and does not appear to be in sync with the flash. On my FZ10 it would automatically go to 1/60. Do I have to change the D50 to all manual settings with this flash attached?

I did check the 383 and the FZ10 last night and it worked fine. And I checked an old Nikon flash on the D50 which worked ok, so I must be doing something wrong in the settings, just can't figure it out.

I just got the 70-300vr lens, so am not ready to go to the sb 600 just yet.

Thanks for any advice
--
Wendy
http://shutterhappy.smugmug.com/

WOtey said:

These photos look great with the 383. I have used the same flash
for some time on my Panasonic FZ10 with very good results, but when
I attach it to my D50, the camera does not seem to recognise I have
an external flash attached. (I made sure it had good contact with
the hotshoe) I set the flash setting on the D50 to manual. Can you
give me the settings you use, please. No matter what I do the
camera sets a very low shutter speed, and does not appear to be in
sync with the flash. On my FZ10 it would automatically go to 1/60.
Do I have to change the D50 to all manual settings with this flash
attached?

Click to expand...

Yes, the D50 can't "talk" to a Sunpak 383, so you'll need to switch to Manual mode. The flash setting on the D50 only applies to the built-in flash, so there's no need change that.

WOtey said:

I did check the 383 and the FZ10 last night and it worked fine. And
I checked an old Nikon flash on the D50 which worked ok, so I must
be doing something wrong in the settings, just can't figure it out.

I just got the 70-300vr lens, so am not ready to go to the sb 600
just yet.

Thanks for any advice
--
Wendy
http://shutterhappy.smugmug.com/

Click to expand...

WOtey wrote:
. No matter what I do the

WOtey said:

camera sets a very low shutter speed, and does not appear to be in
sync with the flash. On my FZ10 it would automatically go to 1/60.
Do I have to change the D50 to all manual settings with this flash
attached?

Click to expand...

Use Manual Exposure on the camera. Apparently, some of the Panasonic models have a tiny microswitch built into the hotshoe to tell if a flash is attached.

With most camera brands that can take a non-dedicated flash, you'll need to use manual exposure on the camera (they won't see it since it's missing the extra contacts a camera manufacturer's proprietary flash would use).

Basically, just set your Aperture and ISO Speed to match the selected Auto Range on the flash. For example, the middle Auto range may tell you to use f/5.6 at ISO 200 if you move the ISO speed slider. Then, set your desired shutter speed on the camera to let in the amount of ambient light desired.

I'd probably use around 1/100 second as a starting point (which is fast enough at f/5.6 so that you shouldn't get any motion blur from ambient light exposure in most rooms at lower ISO speeds, since the flash would be providing most of the light).

--
JimC
------
http://www.pbase.com/jcockfield

Thanks so much for your fast responses, I am going to go and try it out now. Did not think about manual mode, bbit Jim your explanation makes it clear to me.

Thanks again
--
Wendy
http://shutterhappy.smugmug.com/

First of all, I have two. Used them on my Sony 717, D70 & reflect off umbrellas. Now I mostly use my SB-800 with my D70. One thing I miss when using my 383, there is no fine tuning EV in auto mode. And manual only has 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 1.1 power. Unlike the Sb-800/600, you have EV adjustments and more manual settings. Also, the Sunpak is cooler then the Nikon flash. The image will have a cooler [blue] tent to it, which I remove in PS. The cooler matches my 717 better, apparently the WB setting on my 717 is warmer then my D70. No matter what manual flash WB I use on my D70, the image looks a little cool.

Mark

diamondlovr said:

I want a flash for my D50 and this one is in my price range right
now. However, the room that I take alot of pictures in(my
livingroom) has 10 ft. ceilings. Will this flash give me enough
light when I bounce? Also, what is the degree of swivel? Right now
I use a Sunpak 280A thyristor on my Panasonic FZ30 and it seems
like its not giving me adequate light bouncing.

Click to expand...

--



Church Event Photographer

Full time auto tech, part time photographer. Just wished it were the other way around. Mark Thompson/MTT
Louisville, KY. USA

http://mtt.smugmug.com/

Use can shoot 1/1000 if you like.

Mark

Just to add a little to what Thomas has already written.

When using a flash unit like the SunPak 383, you will be using the exposure meter built into the flash unit, not the meter in the camera. You set ISO on both the camera and the flash unit (to the same value); on the flash unit you select a distance scale, i.e. 2 – 15 feet, 4 – 30 feet, 8 – 60 feet, or select an exact distance, i.e. 8 feet. Once you have selected the distance, you can read the appropriate f-stop on another scale on the back of the flash unit; this is what you will set the aperture to on the camera. The shutter speed isn’t real critical, (I have used from 1/60 all the way up to 1/2000 on my D50) but it will have some affect on White Balance or the color cast of the photo, depending on the ambient light. If the shutter is fast enough so that without a flash you would get a very dark or black photo, then the ambient light won’t be a factor. The duration of the flash is quite fast, faster than 1/1000 sec at full power and it gets faster as you reduce the power (there are five power steps). When you take the picture the meter on the flash will determine when there has been sufficient light, and these meters work very well.

With a Nikon SB-800/600/400 the camera and the flash communicate. The flash knows what the camera settings (ISO, aperture, etc) are and when you snap a picture there is a pre-flash, which is registered by the camera’s meter. The camera and the flash act together as a system and the proper settings are determined and set from this pre-flash. The time between the pre-flash and the flash happens so fast (I believe it around 100 milliseconds on the D50, even faster on other Nikons) that most people can’t detect the pre-flash from the regular flash and they see only a single flash. Using the camera’s meter and communicating between the flash and the camera has some definite advantages.

--
Brooks

http://www.bmiddleton.smugmug.com

I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.
— W. Somerset Maugham

So, if I were to buy the sb800 for my d50 I would be able to use other flashes as strobes? Would I be able to put them into softboxes for studio lilghting? What other flashes(other than Nikon) would work for this use? Since the sb800 is 300.00 I would not be able to afford two. Interesting...

I kept my 383 when I upgraded from my Panny FZ20 to my D50, works great!

Will this flash also work on my Pany FZ30?

It pretty much works on anything with a hot-shoe.

Check the manual or On-line for the trigger voltage and then check this Website http://www.botzilla.com/photo/strobeVolts.html
--
Brooks

http://www.bmiddleton.smugmug.com

I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.
— W. Somerset Maugham

diamondlovr said:

So, if I were to buy the sb800 for my d50 I would be able to use
other flashes as strobes? Would I be able to put them into
softboxes for studio lilghting? What other flashes(other than
Nikon) would work for this use? Since the sb800 is 300.00 I would
not be able to afford two. Interesting...

Click to expand...

You can get 1 SB800 for your D50 and SB600 as stand alone flashes which can be controlled via the SB800.

--
Nikon D50
Nikkor 80-200mm 2.8 ED-D
Nikkor 50mm 1.4
Nikkor 50mm 1.8
Sigma 18-200 f3.5-6.3 DC
Tamron 28-75 f2.8
Tokina 100-300 f4.0 AT-X
Sigma 10-20 DC
Lensbaby 3G

SB-600