Plastic hot shoe on A77=BAD

cyainparadise said:

tom said:

It does seem to me that the newer cameras (A700 on) have a sloppier fitting flash shoe than my Minolta film cameras had. With my film cameras the flash snapped on and did not wiggle. With my A700 my flash rocks as I tilt the camera up or down. It does seem much less secure. Maybe the dies are wearing, or there's some tolerance stack up?

tom

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Tom, are you using a flash that is the same size on the A700. If it's bigger heavier and taller) than the one you used on the film camera, it could be a case of the added size that is making seem like the fit is sloppier.

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It's the exact same Minolta 5600 flash. Since the foot is obviously the same, it must be the camera shoe on my A700 that is looser.

tom

jonikon said:

I still don't like those very tiny little electrical contacts though, as they are too easy to get a little something on them and then you loose your connection.

Jon

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Those tiny contacts are probably why Minolta had to come up with the Minolta shoe.

I had the Minolta AF5000 camera with the 2800 flash (both had the ISO shoe.) Each time I mounted the flash and screwed the foot on tight, I would have a misfire (with film that's really annoying), and I had to wiggle the flash to get it to make contact. Eventually I learned to put the lens cap on and half press the shutter button; if the AF illuminator worked, the flash was correctly mounted.

Unfortunately, after using it a while, the motion of moving the camera around could cause the flash to shift a little resulting in another misfire. I was thrilled when Minolta introduced the new flash connection.

tom

tom said:

jonikon said:

I still don't like those very tiny little electrical contacts though, as they are too easy to get a little something on them and then you loose your connection.

Jon

Click to expand...

Those tiny contacts are probably why Minolta had to come up with the Minolta shoe.

I had the Minolta AF5000 camera with the 2800 flash (both had the ISO shoe.) Each time I mounted the flash and screwed the foot on tight, I would have a misfire (with film that's really annoying), and I had to wiggle the flash to get it to make contact. Eventually I learned to put the lens cap on and half press the shutter button; if the AF illuminator worked, the flash was correctly mounted.

Unfortunately, after using it a while, the motion of moving the camera around could cause the flash to shift a little resulting in another misfire. I was thrilled when Minolta introduced the new flash connection.

tom

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Tom, I've had a few problems with the Minolta/Sony shoe when I first put the flash on the body. I think it's a little bit of corrosion on the contacts on the body or flash. I'll slide the flash on and off a few times, and also push the pins on the flash foot a few times to clear off any corrosion. If I know I'll have to use the flash ahead of time, I'll do this at home, just so I don't have to do it while out shooting.

I caught my camera strap on a church pew with my A700 and Metz 58 attached. I totally demolished the mount on the flash but barely chipped the hot shoe on the camera. It also busted the 17-35 lens I had mounted.

I continued to use the camera that way for the next 3 years with no problems.

I don't find the plastic hot shoe mount on the A700 to be a problem at all.

Hi folks, actually that isn't true. I have an A230 and an A77 here, and they fit and work fine. We test all of the products and there are thousands in use worldwide.

Sony is at the moment my favorite camera brand, (for APS sensors) and I was thrilled to put a Puffer on mine.

If yours doesn't fit, we'd like to know about it. Our customer service people will assist you in getting your piece of equipment working. Our objective is to make photography more fun, not to make you throw money away!
--
Gary Fong
http://www.garyfong.com

Hi Gary,

pleasure to meet you. Love your products. I got recently the Lightsphere collapsible kit.

From your statement about A77 and the Puffer, I finally purchased from the Gary Fong Puffer for Sony to use on my Alpha 77.

I can't say that my puffer doesn't fit, nor that it fits perfectly, I would not be fair in both cases.

77


I hope it can be seen clearly on the pictures/album linked: I could only plug the plastic part half way into the flash shoe. It is blocked to both sides by camera body.

One thing to know about A77 pop flash is that it is ahead compared to previous camera models.

So placed that way, the white diffuser touches the base of the flash. I guess that if the black part could fit completely into the flash shoe it would be fine.

The way it is mounted, I suppose that it reduces somehow the efficiency of the diffuser (as it is a bit too close to the flash to use the entire curved surface).

I will live with it, get a few tools and adjust the shoe to fit.

References on the box are: CRD-PUF-SONY-EN-FR-DE EU-830690-001.

Please feel free to contact me for more details.

Thanks.

edit: sorry for the quality of the pictures and the poor English.

GARY FONG INC said:

Hi folks, actually that isn't true. I have an A230 and an A77 here, and they fit and work fine. We test all of the products and there are thousands in use worldwide.

Sony is at the moment my favorite camera brand, (for APS sensors) and I was thrilled to put a Puffer on mine.

If yours doesn't fit, we'd like to know about it. Our customer service people will assist you in getting your piece of equipment working. Our objective is to make photography more fun, not to make you throw money away!

Click to expand...

GARY FONG INC said:

--
Gary Fong
http://www.garyfong.com

Click to expand...

To give an idea of what could be wrong, here is a photo with the shoe of a flash HVL-F43AM and the Puffer for Sony. You can see the U part is much thicker and explains why at least this one (don't know for other ones) doesn't fit that well on my Alpha77.

I hope it will help to fix the issue.

I used a cutter tool, reduced the thickness of half the shoe. Now the puffer fits nicely on my A77. Took less than ten minutes, much less time than posting here.

my puffer came in yesterday and yes, initially it will not fit on my a77. i had to shave off (filed) the sides for a bit.. yes, less than 10 minutes and it fit quite nicely afterwards.

id suggest using the 3rd hole from the top of the puffer to mount it on the bracket as the 4th one below seems to hit the flash when it pops-up.

Same here, I have to file down the front half on both side to slide it in.
The flash pop up even though it is scraping the puffer.

So I guess it fits but I think the white plastic is way too close to the flash to really soften the light of the A77 as the puffer is intended. The arms really need to be longer.
Maybe a set of optional extender would be perfect.

Well, I had to recently send mine a700 in for repair due to the mirror box finally giving out. Among the other things that needed fixing was the hot shoe as I had broken part of it a couple of years before (I got by with a flash cord & a flash bracket). When they sent it back, the replacement hot shoe was a slightly different color than the original & was loose on the body where as it wasn't before. Also there was a small piece of plastic on the right side of the shoe that wouldn't allow my 56AM flash to slide onto it. So I called for another label and shipped it back this afternoon. Honestly, I suspect they didn't have any a700 hot shoes and tried to substitute one from another model. Hence the little plastic piece which looked like a shim. Hopefully they can get this sorted out on the second try.

(Work was done at the Laredo repair center)

I suspect under those conditions the metal ones could very well break also. Nice thing about the Minolta/Sony design is that the flash doesn't fall off because the thumbscrew came loose.

I've been using this flash system for about 23 years and have never had an issue.
--
Dave