A70 with slave Vivitar 283

Hi,

Testing a couple slaved flashes in Manual with A70. Got the synch and exposure worked out. Good results, except the vintage Vivitar 283 seems to produce light almost as yellow as incandescent. Getting good results with old Speedlight 155A.

Anyone have similar results with slaved flashes? I like the old Vivitar - very powerful.

To correct the yellow tint, I used the custom WB setting on the A70, which samples the white and stores it. Works OK, but now if you do not flash, you have to reset the WB.

Has anyone seen that much variation in color of flash units? Would be afraid to buy one w/o testing.

Photonak

PS Sorry for crssposting here and Light Forum. Got couple good hints, but wondering if anyone has tested the A series Canons with other flashes.

With my A70 I use a very inexpensive Vivitar 2000 with a slave bubble. The flash is very bright but I found I could significantly diffuse the light by wrapping a paper napkin around the flash head. I am no pro but I'm happy with the results. Each photo takes a fair amount of experimentation to get the flash angled right.

Thanks Don,

I assume that you use the A70 in Manual mode and that these are unmodified. Looks like your Vivitar has the same effect on the WB. It's hard to believe that the color of the light from the flash is that warm.

The attached pics have a warm (red/yellow) hint to them, which in this case may be pleasing. But if you shoot in a room which clearly has white walls, the yellowing is not so positive

Puzzles me that one flash (an older Canon) can produce light so differrent from another. All these years I believe all flashes put out light at 5600-5800K. At least it was to the eye or film.

I've not been able to find an article that addressed the flash/sensor and WB interaction in dig cameras.

Photonak

I was experiencing the same "yellow" problem with a pair of Vivitar 283s slaved to a Canon A70 in manual exposure mode. It's good to see that you seem to have a solution. I'm assuming that the custom white balance procedure will activate the slave flash, thereby correcting the "yellow" of the slave flash. I haven't had a chance to try the procedure yet, but a positive result would certainly eliminate reliance on Photoshop for correction.

Hi,

Glad to see it's not unique to my flash or camera. I find almost no specific references to this problem. Not sure if other Canon or (other brands) digcams have the WB problem as well. Not the kind of stuff you find in a review

Especially, since some flash units seem to either put out "better white light", or at least interact better with the camera WB system.

For the A70, to setup the Custom WB, I pointed the A70 at a wall, which I consider white and had the Vivitar slaved, then press Set - as it flashes, it measures the light and stores it "as white". This setting is "sticky", that is until you repeat the procedure you have it stored. You can switch to other WB modes and return to the Custom.

Pain is that the Custome WB is used for all pictures, even without the flash, until you change it. It's easy to snap one w/o flash and have it comeout blue.

Photonak