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Vivitar 285 owners. FWIW

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Jeff S said:
Ran across this item on E-Bay. May be old news but wanted to pass
it along. I ordered one as I have always worried about the plastic
shoe.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1361108861
--
Jeff S
UZI 21OO, C2OOO, A2OO
WB9ZPO
Pbase Supporter
Click to expand...
This past spring my son (a HS junior) took a course in photography, and was given an assignment to shoot several rolls of 35 mm Tri-X and do the lab work at school. The school had several old SLR's, and he complained to me that he couldn't get one at the last minute, so I dragged out my old Minolta SRT-101 and Vivitar 283. I know it had been a good ten years since that Vivitar had fired up. The alkaline batteries were leaky, but there was no damage.

I was amazed to see you can still buy a 283.

Put new batteries in, cleaned the contacts, and it worked perfectly. I've been thinking I might get a bracket & and try it with my C-2100.

--
Jerry Cupples
 
Jeff S said:
Ran across this item on E-Bay. May be old news but wanted to pass
it along. I ordered one as I have always worried about the plastic
shoe.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1361108861
--
Jeff S
UZI 21OO, C2OOO, A2OO
WB9ZPO
Pbase Supporter
Click to expand...
The Vivitar 283s and 285s have been around for a long, long time. My 285 (not HV, probably about 20 years old) fell victim to a broken hot-shoe several years ago. I discovered, by accident, that my local indipendent camera store offers a repair for this common problem, and rebuilt mine for $20, parts included. This store doesn't even usually do repairs. At that time they mentioned that if I wanted to pay a few more bucks and wait a few more days that they would make the repair with an alumnium shoe. From what they told me, you will need to do a little soldering of some small wires, but that the repair is not difficult. The aluminum shoe looks like a good deal to me!
--
yogi
 
Jerry Cupples said:
This past spring my son (a HS junior) took a course in photography,
and was given an assignment to shoot several rolls of 35 mm Tri-X
and do the lab work at school. The school had several old SLR's,
and he complained to me that he couldn't get one at the last
minute, so I dragged out my old Minolta SRT-101 and Vivitar 283. I
know it had been a good ten years since that Vivitar had fired up.
The alkaline batteries were leaky, but there was no damage.

I was amazed to see you can still buy a 283.

Put new batteries in, cleaned the contacts, and it worked
perfectly. I've been thinking I might get a bracket & and try it
with my C-2100.
Click to expand...
I would be extrememly careful in doing this. According to the web page on flash voltages:

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

Older Vivitar 283's could send 600 volts through the flash contact, and Oly says the maximum for the UZI is something like 6 volts. This didn't affect the older manual focus cameras, but can be deadly for the newer autofocus 35mm cameras and the digitals. If you suspect your flash of having too high of voltage, you should be able to protect yourself with:

http://www03.bhphotovideo.com/default.sph/FrameWork.class?FNC=ProductActivator__Aproductlist_html___245295___WEMPSSH___REG___CatID=0___SID=EEE5F3857C0

(or)

http://www03.bhphotovideo.com/default.sph/FrameWork.class?FNC=ProductActivator__Aproductlist_html___245292___WESSHSH___REG___CatID=0___SID=EEE5F3857C0

However those prices are 2/3 the price of a new Vivitar 283.
 
Metal replacement shoes for the 283/285 have been around for years and can normally be ordered or purchaced from a camera store for about $15. Most do require some soldiering to install.
Karl
 
Michael Meissner said:
Jerry Cupples said:
This past spring my son (a HS junior) took a course in photography,
and was given an assignment to shoot several rolls of 35 mm Tri-X
and do the lab work at school. The school had several old SLR's,
and he complained to me that he couldn't get one at the last
minute, so I dragged out my old Minolta SRT-101 and Vivitar 283. I
know it had been a good ten years since that Vivitar had fired up.
The alkaline batteries were leaky, but there was no damage.

I was amazed to see you can still buy a 283.

Put new batteries in, cleaned the contacts, and it worked
perfectly. I've been thinking I might get a bracket & and try it
with my C-2100.
Click to expand...
I would be extrememly careful in doing this. According to the web
page on flash voltages:

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

Older Vivitar 283's could send 600 volts through the flash contact,
and Oly says the maximum for the UZI is something like 6 volts.
This didn't affect the older manual focus cameras, but can be
deadly for the newer autofocus 35mm cameras and the digitals. If
you suspect your flash of having too high of voltage, you should be
able to protect yourself with:

http://www03.bhphotovideo.com/default.sph/FrameWork.class?FNC=ProductActivator__Aproductlist_html___245295___WEMPSSH___REG___CatID=0___SID=EEE5F3857C0
Click to expand...
Thanks for the warning, Michael.

cheers,

Jerry
 
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