Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/11/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]>Bill Barrett: >> >> Some recent messages referring to the Vivitar 283 flash prompt me to seek >> the collective wisdom of the LUG. jack gottlob: I >shoot with it just about every day. In my experience it is the battery >holder that goes bad and not the unit. I have (2) 283 units that were >converted for bare bulb use. I've owned them for a dozen years and have >done literally thousands of weddings shots and school shots with them. >Only problem that I've ever had is when I dropped the damned thing at a >shoot last week. I still worked, but the shoe broke. If you have >external power to use with the 283 like the Armatar battery or any of the >others advertised you probably won't have trouble and can put all that >money towards another lens. > Ditto the last remarks for me. The flash shoe on the 283 is a stress point. This is a design problem that should be corrected. Another problem area is the synch cable socket for off camera flash or for use on cameras without hot shoes. Synch cable incompatibility with other units can be a pain too, when groping around in a camera bag, only to find that the proper cable was not brought along. Finding rechargeables for them with the right voltage isn't easy (not all AA nicads will work with them). For some reason, the 283 also can trigger slaves inadvertently when the capacitor has recycled up to full charge. But the 283s are fairly inexpensive compared the Metz units. As far as photo equipment goes, I'd say that the 283 is quite a success story. You can't find many things, especially those controlled electronically, that have been around for over 15 years and still enjoy such widespread use and popularity, in spite of their shortcomings. - -GH