I've just ordered a turret accessory finder for my fed 5B so I can use a 35mm lens on it but I've realised that I won't be able to use a flash at the same time. What ways can I work around this?
I've just ordered a turret accessory finder for my fed 5B so I can use a 35mm lens on it but I've realised that I won't be able to use a flash at the same time. What ways can I work around this?
I use an L bracket (3leggedthing) to which I've attached a cold-shoe. I mainly use this to attach a 3 way spirit level, but a flash could be attached as an alternative. I wish someone made a double shoe adapter to allow two accessories to be mounted on the top plate.
Does the camera has some sort of sync port? I am not familiar with this particular model. If it does, you could put the camera on a flash bracket and run a sync cord from the flash to the camera.
Flash brackets can be bought for about $ 10.00. They will screw into the tripod socket of the camera and mount the flash higher and outside of the direct line of sight for the lens, which seems to help reduce red-eye in people pictures.
As long as your flash and camera have PC sync sockets everything will work fine.
If your flash doesn't have a PC cord, you can get one of these and a short PC cord from the camera to the adapter. I have 3-4 of them and use them all the time.
So I finally had another look into this. Neither my flash nor body has a PC sync port so I may be out of luck. There may be something I could do with some stuffing around but given that the reason I want the flash is mainly for colour family/friends snapshots it may be easier just getting a more suitable body. I already have a bessa r but it's usually loaded with b&w.
You can get small adapters that convert by fitting in the hot shoes and having a 3mm co-axial on the side. Usually there's a cold shoe on top of them but this might create (minor) parallax problems.
Here's a selection of odds and ends of flash accessories that have accumulated over the years. The small cube, in the middle of the coiled lead, fits the hot shoe and gives you a cold shoe and a 3 mm co-axial socket.
Old fashioned flash guns with the 3mm co-axials lead are dirt cheap and certainly a lot less trouble than a new body. In your shoes I'd look for one of the Vivitar 2500 flashes or any "auto" flash and use it on a flash bracket, as others have mentioned.
Regards, David
PS A lot of old flash guns had the 3mm coaxial lead very cleverly hidden; you had to look carefully to see them. Others had them as a short lead that plugged into the flash gun and disabled the hot shoe contact. It can be very confusing...
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