ZI and High Trigger Voltage Flash

[HoodedOne]

Lately I've been given several small flash units (5 to be exact). But most of them have a high trigger voltage.
Does anybody know if those flashes can damage the ZI, because of those high trigger voltages ?

cheers.

 

[HoodedOne]

Since nobody here could answer my question. I decided to send the question to Zeiss.

This is there answer:

Thank you for your inquiry to Carl Zeiss. In reference to your inquiry from 2010-03-23:

We tested the Zeiss Ikon camera with an old flash unit which works with a 236V trigger signal. This worked without any problems.
But of course, we cannot guarantee that higher voltages would not damage the camera.

We would recommend Metz flashes, e.g. the models

Mecablitz 76 MZ-5 digital
Mecablitz 45 CL-4 digital
Mecablitz 54 MZ-4i
Mecablitz 44 MZ-2
Mecablitz 36-C2
Mecablitz 20-C2

Further details about these flashes can be found at the manufacturer´s website:

http://www.metz.de/en/photo-electronics/mecablitz-models/sca-flash-units.html

You can use all flashes that are equipped with manual control or computer control (M or A mode).

I hope this satisfactorily answers all your questions. If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

[Revolucion Artistico]

I would be curious about the answer to the nikon flash question as well as I have a mecablitz 34af3n for nikons that I want to use on my ZI

 

[smillie]

For the Nikon questions:

Depends on the particular Nikon flash. TTL will (obviously) not work. Non-TTL auto modes (i.e., thyristor) will work. Manual mode will work. Some current Nikon flashes don't have an easy way to set manual mode and/or no way to vary the power on the flash itself; better than nothing, but not particularly useful.

You shouldn't need an adapter. At most, you should tape over the extra pins on the flash shoe to avoid any inadvertent connections/shorts – the centre pin and the rails are all that's used.

I don't know of any canonical references for trigger voltages, but I would assume anything that is safe to use with an F3 would be safe with the ZI, and almost certainly any AF-compatible flash will trigger well within the safe range. Which, incidentally, I would have guessed at 12V or maybe 24V (which is the oft-ignored ISO standard), so the 200+ is pretty good news to get direct from Zeiss.