Saaaaayyyy, wait a minute. I've had half a day of tremens over nothing.
Those damaging strobes Zx(5)Lx was talking about? THEY'LL KILL ANY
CAMERA! Those jobbies have so much voltage and current that they'll fry
anybody's electronic circuit. The only cameras they won't fry are
mechanical shutters on view cameras, am I right?
Apparently not. But then again, as Zx5Lx states below, it probably is a
combination of camera and strobe that forms the deadly combo. One camera
may be impervious while another will fold up and collapse at the
transistor level.
Now we're right back to where we started. Any modern strobe that sits in
a hot shoe that kills the Nikon needs to be OUTED!
See the other thread dealing with Named Names.
Get out your collection of flash shoe triggered flash units and put a
digital volt meter across the shoe contacts. What do you see? My 1979
Vivitar 285 reads just a hair over 8 volts. Am I playing with fire?
Dancing with the DEVIL? Is my Nikon going to repair in a hand basket?
Not yet.
And not after hundreds of exposures.
The 8 volts is conditioned down to around 6 by the AS-E900. Nikon's own
adapter buffers the trigger voltage, somewhat. Since Nikon flash units
reportedly have 5 volt triggers, wouldn't that argue that low voltage
trigger flash units are safe? (I mean, how many times do I have to be
wrong here?)
MY RESPONSE:
I certainly didn't want to leave the impression that all older flashes
are guarenteed to damage today's electronic SLR cameras and their
electronic circuitry...but some have! It's not only a question of how
much trigger voltage some of these older flashes put out..but how
sensitive to damage the electronic circuitry of some of theses cameras
are. for example..a older Vivitar flash that has a trigger voltage of 90
volts may fry the electronic circuitry of a Nikon AF SLR but maybe not
that of certain Minolta models...or visa cersa. How sensitive the
circuitry of the Nikon 950 is to such things, I don't know. I recall
(but may be mistaken) that to measure trigger voltage requires something
more than just putting a volt meter across both terminals. Anyhow, it
oes to prove..each case of flash/camera is unique. Thanks!
[email protected]
If ZxLx (the five is s* nt) has made a practical point it is this: Don't
use a high voltage inducing flash unit on modern cameras. It might be
okay, but there is no guarantee.
If I have made a point, I would hope it came out like this: Nikon's
insistence that we only use their flash units isn't the whole story.
Some very good Non-Nikon units are out there that couldn't harm your
camera and the vested interest of the supplier has to be taken with a
grain of salt.
The first line of defense against Strobe-N-Fry is the voltage that is
triggering the flash. Don't use a flash with harmful trigger voltage.
What is the specific number of volts? Nikon won't say. They have flash
units to sell. That's why I solicit stories of woe and terror. So far
NOBODY has fried a 950 and reported it here (10/12/99).
The more Nikon keeps us in the dark (heh, heh), the more we need to
depend on them. I say that this attitude is flawed. They wish to keep
us ignorant of how the tool we bought from them works. So they can sell
us more stuff.
If they simply said: "Don't get burned. Never use a flash unit with a
trigger voltage of more than 15 volts. It could damage the camera. All
our units are safe," they probably wouldn't have caused this thread. We
would have seen an honest intent.
"To self-protect and to self-preserve," isn't the motto I want to hear.
-iNova
