Do I need to buy another flash for my G6??

[gardenstate]

Prior to buying my Canon G6, I had a Vivitar 285HV swivel head flash with a WEIN Digital slave adapter that fired this unit when the flash on my Canon Powershot S400 went off. The flash was mounted on the top of a bracket attached to the digital camera.

Now that I have the G6, should I just use the flash/slave for additional background use -- and buy a 420EX flash for the camera or continue doing (and save lots of money) what I did with the bracket device?

[steve547]

I have a G2 and I used my vivitar 285HV flash directly on the hot shoe mount of the G2. It seems to work well as an automatic flash with the G2 on aperture priority. But after reading some posts on this forum, I guess I was lucky that the 285 didn't burn out my G2 because I dont know the trigger voltage of the 285HV. I dont think its only the 6 volts that the G2 requires. Anyways, if you have nerve, you can try the 285 on the G6. I just bought the 220ex for my G2. It seems to work well. I'm using it on shutter priority 1/125 to force the G2 to use the flash as the only light source. I think, left to its own devices, the G2 and G6 used ambient light as the main source and uses the flash just as a fill in. Thats why most of my built in flash pictures have a red cast to them I think. I just got the 220ex yesterday, but so far the red cast seems to be gone and so is the red-eye. And I think the focus is better too, maybe because of the 1/125 shutter speed or the extra focus assist beam the the cannon flashes have. I noticed that the G2 is always using the F 2.0 aperture and adjusting the 220ex flash to get the proper exposure. I'd like to get the f stop to 4 or higher for sharper focusing but not sure how to do that yet. Probably by using Manual to adjust the shutter speed and f stop. I have to play with it some more. Good luck, Steve.

[Ballen Photo]

I have a G2 and I used my vivitar 285HV flash directly on the hot shoe mount of the G2. It seems to work well as an automatic flash with the G2 on aperture priority. But after reading some posts on this forum, I guess I was lucky that the 285 didn't burn out my G2 because I dont know the trigger voltage of the 285HV.

Hi Steve, Dont do it!
Edit; Read this; http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=6001
-Bruce

[steve547]

Thanks Bruce for the warning. I'll save the 285 HV for my film cameras and stick with the 220ex for the G2. I think Canon should have made this very clear since there is the danger of burning out the camera. They should have even made a proprietary hot shoe so no one could damage their cameras by accident. Thanks again. Steve.

[gardenstate]

thanks for your suggestions...

just a thought on using the higher voltage flash with the G series Canons.... Wein makes a hot shoe flash adapter called safe sync (cost about $50 USD) that compensates for the voltage difference and allows you to safely use your devices together.

http://www.adorama.com/WNSSHSHS.html

[Ballen Photo]

Thanks Bruce for the warning. I'll save the 285 HV for my film cameras and stick with the 220ex for the G2. I think Canon should have made this very clear since there is the danger of burning out the camera. They should have even made a proprietary hot shoe so no one could damage their cameras by accident. Thanks again. Steve.

You're WELCOME! :D Yeah, The more I think about this, it makes me wonder why they didn't make the warning more evident when you buy one of their DSLR's?
I'm glad I read about this somewhere before I used my Vivitar 283 on my 10D.
Funny thing is, I used it with my old Olympus E-10 with no problems, then heard a similar warning about that one as well. :rolleyes: I now use the 283 via a flash sensing peanut slave, for a secondary light. :cool:
-Bruce