David Hughes
David Hughes
Hi,
Been thinking about the XA etc's flash.
What you want is a camera handle of the old fashioned sort with a bar to go under the camera and a bolt to hold it to the tripod bush. At the top of these brackets you usually get a cold shoe for a flash (because they were mostly made before hot shoes).
Luckily there's lots of high quality flash guns about from the time of hot shoes and 3mm flash sockets. So I suggest you get one and mount it on the camera handle. The sort you need has a detachable lead for the 3mm socket. (The Vivitar 2500 is a good example but there were many of them. Usually the 3mm lead plugs into the flash near the shoe and disconnects the hot shoe.)
From the lead, cut off the 3mm socket that would fit any other camera but the Xa's and make up a XA connector. Looking at an XA it's pretty obvious that the contacts on the camera just need a small tube to fit over them. So find some, solder a couple of bits to the cut off bit of lead and wrap insulation round it and stick each one on each of the XA's contacts.
What could be easier?
Regards, David
PS The point of this is that all that's altered is the little bit of lead. Many of the old flash guns were designed so that when the lead wasn't in use the hot shoe worked, so the flash need not be made inoperable. And nothing else need be touched.
Been thinking about the XA etc's flash.
What you want is a camera handle of the old fashioned sort with a bar to go under the camera and a bolt to hold it to the tripod bush. At the top of these brackets you usually get a cold shoe for a flash (because they were mostly made before hot shoes).
Luckily there's lots of high quality flash guns about from the time of hot shoes and 3mm flash sockets. So I suggest you get one and mount it on the camera handle. The sort you need has a detachable lead for the 3mm socket. (The Vivitar 2500 is a good example but there were many of them. Usually the 3mm lead plugs into the flash near the shoe and disconnects the hot shoe.)
From the lead, cut off the 3mm socket that would fit any other camera but the Xa's and make up a XA connector. Looking at an XA it's pretty obvious that the contacts on the camera just need a small tube to fit over them. So find some, solder a couple of bits to the cut off bit of lead and wrap insulation round it and stick each one on each of the XA's contacts.
What could be easier?
Regards, David
PS The point of this is that all that's altered is the little bit of lead. Many of the old flash guns were designed so that when the lead wasn't in use the hot shoe worked, so the flash need not be made inoperable. And nothing else need be touched.
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