JoeV
Thin Air, Bright Sun
Hi Folks;
Okay, I have a bit of a technical question. As an accessory to my various film cameras, I recently purchased a Fritz the Blitz flash from Lomography. This is a little plastic, retro-styled flash that looks good with older cameras, and comes with an L-bracket with adapter cable to hot shoe mount. It also has a nice low power setting with fast refresh time, powered by a CR123 cell. The flash works fine with all of my mechanical cameras.
The problem comes when using the flash on my Lumix G1. The flash won't fire on the G1, when connected to the hot shoe. Yet, my older, full-power accessory flashes all work when connected to the G1.
I thought that maybe the spring contact on the side of the flash's hot shoe fitting was not touching the G1's hot shoe frame, so I used clip leads and a meter to ensure the continuity is correct. No help. The flash connector is making contact correctly, and I also tried reversing the polarity of the connections, again using clip leads, thinking that perhaps the polarity mattered. Again, no help.
The flash works fine on all my mechanical cameras that use mechanical flash contacts, and the G1 will trigger all of my older flashes. I've also tried doing the same tests through a Wein cell, again with negative results. I've also measured the voltage on the flash connector, and I can't get any voltage reading, so I don't think it's over powering the G1's circuitry.
The only thing I can surmise is that the G1 uses a transistor-like switch to fire the flash, which somehow is not compatible with the flash circuit.
So, anyone out there have any suggestions? I really like the Lomo flash for its low power output for fill flash, and it's fast refresh time, plus it's retro style.
-Joe
Okay, I have a bit of a technical question. As an accessory to my various film cameras, I recently purchased a Fritz the Blitz flash from Lomography. This is a little plastic, retro-styled flash that looks good with older cameras, and comes with an L-bracket with adapter cable to hot shoe mount. It also has a nice low power setting with fast refresh time, powered by a CR123 cell. The flash works fine with all of my mechanical cameras.
The problem comes when using the flash on my Lumix G1. The flash won't fire on the G1, when connected to the hot shoe. Yet, my older, full-power accessory flashes all work when connected to the G1.
I thought that maybe the spring contact on the side of the flash's hot shoe fitting was not touching the G1's hot shoe frame, so I used clip leads and a meter to ensure the continuity is correct. No help. The flash connector is making contact correctly, and I also tried reversing the polarity of the connections, again using clip leads, thinking that perhaps the polarity mattered. Again, no help.
The flash works fine on all my mechanical cameras that use mechanical flash contacts, and the G1 will trigger all of my older flashes. I've also tried doing the same tests through a Wein cell, again with negative results. I've also measured the voltage on the flash connector, and I can't get any voltage reading, so I don't think it's over powering the G1's circuitry.
The only thing I can surmise is that the G1 uses a transistor-like switch to fire the flash, which somehow is not compatible with the flash circuit.
So, anyone out there have any suggestions? I really like the Lomo flash for its low power output for fill flash, and it's fast refresh time, plus it's retro style.
-Joe
charjohncarter
Veteran
I've had some flashes not work with radio triggers while others do. I've also had a very few not work on hotshoes. You might try radio triggers to see if that helps; it doesn't do you much good with on camera flash. Also, there may be a minimum voltage to that feeds bck though the hotshoe; if that is the case it won't ever work.