Flash re-configuration (sorta)...

[fishtek]

I've got a nifty little Vivitar 35 ES, and an also nifty Contax TLA200 flash. The rewind button on the camera is a few mm too tall to allow the flash to slide easily into the hot shoe.

Will one of the generic hot-shoe to pc adaptors do the job? I don't believe that I get auto function anyhow, since there's only one contact pin on the hot shoe, so can I get away cheap 'n easy?

Thanks!
Don

 

[fishtek]

SO......nobody knows whether or not I can find a hot shoe adaptor that will act as a spacer...letting me use my TLA200 on my Vivitar 35 ES? I stopped by a local shop today, no help there. Searched all over the Bay...no help there. Am I forced to buy another flash unit that won't be bothered by the too-tall rewind button?

Sheesh....

 

[rogue_designer]

You could use a hotshoe to hotshoe Wein safe-sync. That should solve your height problem. It has a pass through hotshoe, as well as adding another PC sync

 

[MartinP]

About 15 years ago, I bought an accesory-shoe tilt-adaptor that sounds like it would solve your problem. I think the brand was Kaiser.

It is a shoe (with tripod bush underneath, handy idea) that has a hinge allowing the top part to tilt backwards or forwards. On top of the moving part is another accessory-shoe. You will gain about 15mm of height and could bounce the flash off the ceiling, if you have a separate camera flash socket to connect the flash-lead to.

There are (or were) adapter-shoes to allow flash-units with no flash-lead to be used on cameras with no hot-shoe. Basically they slide in to the non-hot accessory-shoe with a cable going to the on-camera flash socket. I recall that you gain about 5 or 8mm of height with those.

Good luck finding this stuff in your local photographic shop these days !

 

[fishtek]

Thanks, guys!

I had seen the safe-sync, but wasn't familiar with it's features. MartinP, I'll check out the Kaiser adaptor (if I can find it).

Best Regards!
Don

 

[NL2377]

I've got the hot shoe adapter that Martin was talking about. its probably closer to 12cm tall though.

 

[fishtek]

I haven't been able to find the Kaiser unit on the 'net. If there's a fitting for the tripod on the bottom, it can't be "hot", and will have to rely on the pc cord. My Vivitar doesn't have a pc fitting, and I need it to be "hot-to-hot". Have you seen a picture of the unit anywhere? As far as the Wein safe-sync unit is concerned, they're selling for $50.00 or so. For that kind of money, I'll buy another flash unit, like a small Sunpak.

Thanks for the input, folks!

Regards!
Don