[Lord Lucan]

.
I have added an area to my website, about using older flashguns on digital cameras.

Older Flashguns

I was prompted to do this by the hints that the well-known Botzilla list of flashgun trigger voltages might be discontinued, so I wanted to salvage that data. In any case, it was Canon oriented. For each flashgun, as well as the trigger voltage I added the Guide Number and a "one-liner" description, and links to any decent external reviews I could find (including to PF reviews). There are nearly 300 flashguns described in 28 brands, and some of the 300 are groups of up to 10 of similar type. I was amazed at how many different units have been made.

There is also a page on hotshoe layouts up to the present day, and further pages on buying advice, useage, and technical discussion of the electronics. It is stuff I wished I could have found when I first bought flashguns.

I have not addressed what voltages particular modern cameras can tolerate, and might get into legal hot water if I did. There is a standard that they should tolerate at least 24 volts, but it is not always adhered to - Canon have advised no more than 6 volts for at least one of their cameras.

I am open to any errors being pointed out, and sugestions for additions. I am not interested in listing hundreds of really ancient (typically pre-1975) units, although I have included a few just to show the high voltages that some of them can kick out.

These are partial screenshots from the voltage page and the hotshoe layout page :

[texandrews]

Very helpful.

[35mmfilmfan]

Thanks very much - will save a great deal of worry on the part of many, and may help to ensure electronics are not fried !



T

[K-Three]

really ancient (typically pre-1975)

I resemble this,

Nice work, Thanks for the effort and preserving this information

[Papa_Joe]

I am very impressed! Excellent website, with profound knowledge! Thank you for all the work!

If you are interested in some aditional information: My old Revueflex AC2, which is a rebrandet Chinon CE-4 has the same hotshoe configuration as Ricoh. I was lucky the Agfa Seletronic 3 was also a CE-4 in disguise as my Agfatronic 352 CS therefore was compatible with my camera.

[Lord Lucan]

... If you are interested in some aditional information: ...

Thanks for that. I had heard of Chinon, knew they used the K-mount, but did not know much else. After some web crawling I see they made some decent cameras around the 80's and 90's. Their later CP-9AF had four auxiliary hotshoe contacts to suit a special flashgun (the AF-S120) powered from the camera batteries and which folded down when not in use, a fore-runner of pop-up flash.

So I have added a section on Chinon hotshoe layouts. Let me know if I have got anything wrong Hotshoe Configurations

[Farside]

Really useful work, thanks.

[Denver]

Thanks very helpful.