Senior Member Registered: February, 2011 Location: New England Posts: 150 | | Review Date: December 11, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $100.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Powerful, zoom head, tilt, ease of use on both SLR and DSLR, reliable, tough | | Cons: | Does not swivel, a bit heavy, non TTL and P-TTL, ISO range up to just 400 ISO | |
With the coming of DSLRs, new technology came as well to flashes, and some were more difficult than others. My old Pentax K-5 had some issues with just about every flash, and since I shoot for newspapers, that could be frustrating. Took a while to figure out the K-5 was the culprit (issues with flash on this camera have been common) which I later unloaded for K-3. While I was figuring that out, I was also finding my Pentax flash was also erratic that was a pain too. Finally, I went back to my photo closet and dragged out my original Vivitar 285, a flash I had not used in some 20 years. I checked to voltage to make sure it was safe for my K-3 and others, found it was, and went out to shoot an assignment.
As I said, it was some 20 years since I last used it, but it fired up right away. There are 4 auto settings on the flash so I used red which gets you up to 30 feet, and started shooting. Just about every picture I shot was a bullseye exposure wise. It recycled very quickly using lithium Energizer batteries, and lasted really well. I also took it outside in a snow storm for winter weather features and it never missed a beat. If the auto sensor recommended the flash to be set at f/8, I could set the camera to f/11 for a stop under exposure and it worked every time. That saves time as opposed to going into modern flashes menus. I also like that many flash soft output accessories are available for this flash, such as Omni Bounce (very easy to use with quality results), mini softboxes, and white flash reflectors to soften the light to a more flattering degree on people. Take a look at accessories at a store like B&H in NYC.
I have since added Metz flash units and a Sigma, all of which work very well on Pentax DSLRs. Metz in particular is a quality pro flash and I'd very compatible with Pentax. But will never get rid of the Vivitar 285; in fact, I have recently bought 2 additional Vivitar 285 HD units (guaranteed to be safe for DLSRs, lower voltage that the Vivitar 283), and still use them. I keep one in my car just in case my high tech flash has a problem. For a tough, reliable, easy to use flash, even though it doesn't swivel, or you need a good back up, you can hardly do much better than a Vivitar 285.
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Pentaxian Registered: March, 2008 Location: Quebec city, Canada Posts: 9,363 | | Review Date: April 19, 2011 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | Great power, multiple auto/manual modes, zoom head | | Cons: | Limited communications with camera, somewhat complicated auto modes, no pan | |
I was surprised that this flash was not listed in the database, seeing as it's apparently quite ubiquitous.
I've been given this flash as a gift. My copy is pristine but sadly did not come with the accessory lens and cable. The voltage trigger of these flashes should always be verified prior to using them on camera, mine reads 7.6V while fully charges, and peaks at 9V while charging.
The flash is very powerful. I've seen Bowen lights with a GN of 60 selling for 600$ (of course, that's apples to oranges but for raw power that's telling something). With freshly charged Eneloops, it recycles quite fast even at full power (a few seconds). EDIT : it must be noted that the GN is 120 FEET, not meters...
The manual zoom head works well, and is pretty well designed even though the whole flash is plastic. The vari-power sensor is reliable but the auto modes (four of the) are not intuitive to me. I like that the wheel used to calculate the correct auto mode can be lit so it can be read in the dark.
The head does not pan, and does not tilt down for macro, but that's not the purpose of this flash. In 2011, the flash is best used as a remote light for strobist work. And for that it's probably unparalleled.
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