Vivitar 285 flash

According to the list at http://www.botzilla.com/photo/strobeVolts.html the 285 is "Your call."

Both flashes have trigger voltages at the high end of the safe range for digital SLRs, according to the list at http://botzilla.com/photo/strobeVolts.html

I wouldn't use either on my Nikon DLSR without something like the Wein Safe Sync:
http://www.weinproducts.com/safesyncs.htm

The Vivitar 285 HV is specified to have a trigger voltage of 12V. The Nikon DSLRs are specified to be safe up to 12V. This puts the combination right at the fuzzy point. It should be safe, but if the flash goes a little high while the camera goes a little low, you might run into trouble.

The 285 (no HV) is definitely a no-go.

You can use the 285 with the D90, just don't do it without something isolating the two to prevent the trigger voltage from frying the D90. You can use something like the Wein Safe Sync
( http://www.weinproducts.com/safesyncs.htm ) for this.

As for an off-camera cord, you can use something like the Nikon
SC-29 ( http://shop.nikonusa.com/store/nikonusa/en_US/pd/productID.213505500 )

285 has high trigger voltage(+250v) ,where as 285 HV has less than 5.5 volts trigger voltage (which is safe to be used for any digital SLR). 285 HV has a Thyristor circuitory.

You should not put AC voltage into DC circuits.

A better directions:

Open open the 285 and solder two wires(red = positive; black = negative) then snake it out to AC connector(this needs to be removed).

Buy 7.2V plug set from Radio Shack or remote control car stores.
Buy 7.2V Battery and Charger.

This will be better than buying the Quantum & cable battery.
It will also wake up the flash faster than using the Quantum.
The total cost should be less than $85.00.
The battery is about 5X stronger than those 4 AA and they do last longer.

eltroman
[email protected]

Yes, insert 285's cord into PC of camera.

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I also own a Vivitar 285 that i used with my Canon F1 manual 35mm camera. Most older cameras before the advent of digital, had a hot shoe on top of the camera, or like in my case, the hot shoe went over the rewind knob. I also had to plug in a power cord from the 285 flash foot and the cameras PC connection in order for the flash to work on some other cameras. The Canon Rebel XTi has a TTL (through the lens) hot shoe usable with Canon's own EX flash units. You can buy a "hot shoe to PC connector" if the TTL camera hot shoe doesn't work, but be extremely careful, the only problem that exists with the older manual flash units was the trigger voltage is as high as 200+volts which would fry digital camera hot shoes. I tried my unit with a Wein flash trigger device on the PC cord of the flash and my Canon D60 with it's own flash. All shots were overexposed and washed out highlights.  Here's a copy of the hot-shoe review:h The EOS 400D's hot-shoe can be used with Canon and third party flashes (although sync only on most third party units). The hot-shoe is E-TTL II compatible. Compatible flashes include Speedlite 220EX, 380EX, 420EX, 430EX, 550EX, 580EX, Macro-Ring Lite, MR-14EX, Macro Twin Lite MT-24EX and Speedlite Transmitter ST-E2.  The Canon Rebel XTi doesn't have a PC socket to plug in a manual flash trigger cord which common sense tells me there is no provision to step up the voltage to trigger manual flashes - so my answer is this combination is not a good idea on a Canon Rebel XTi. Hope this helps.

Personally, I would not try it. While the Canon has a protection system built into the camera, the trigger voltage on the Vivitar is pretty high. I have had good results using a 283 on a slave shoe, you will have to stop down more with the extra light

To test everything except the camera, just short the contacts on the Wein protector. If the flash fires, the problem is in your camera, and maybe the protector did not do its job as good as expected.

Good luck