Hot shoe adapter - or not?

I recently took some moderate closeups (from about 18-24 inches) of some plants, using the built-in flash on my 1st DL because the light was poor under trees and I didn't have my tripod with me. The lower edges of the pictures contained a nasty shadow of the camera lens and hood.

So, I was about to go and spend £6 on a Kaiser hot shoe adapter into which I could plug the lead of my old Hanimex Pro 550 flash unit, as the 1st DL doesn't have a flash socket, when I read somewhere that old flash units shouldn't be used with digital cameras, as the voltage is too high, and a Wein Safe Sync was recommended, at a cost of £46 - ouch! (If there is any warning of this in the Pentax operating manual, I have not found it.)

Obviously, that £46 would be better put towards a compatible flash unit, but I am reluctant to spend money on something that I would very rarely use. (I have since returned to those plants with my tripod and got some decent shots without using flash.)

I'll be glad to see the comments of all you experts out there.

You can get a wireless trigger for a lot less than £46 and a lot more versatile. Try Mr Studio 1's Ebay shop. They are in Hong Kong and I highly recommend them.

To answer your question, only very old flashguns are likely to have an unacceptably high voltage.

Get a voltmeter, and measure the voltage across the terminals on the flash gun. Unless you are very ublucky, it will be 10 volts or less, and you can use it with perfect safety. In fact you can probably get away with much more.

I used to wire up an old Bowens studio flash to my *ist D. The voltage was over 200. The camera is still fine.

This issue is hyped up enormously by people with shares in Wein!

G

IIRC (from a manual somewhere) it was recommended not to use the lens hood when using the built-in flash because of the problem you describe.

Hi itsme,

according to the usual source..

http://www.botzilla.com/photo/strobeVolts.html

234V, so I'd be wary of putting it straight onto the the DL's hotshoe.

as mentioned, you can get a wireless remote that'll do the job, as long as the flash unit has a socket output..

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Radio-Slave-Wireless-Remote-Flash-Trigger-Studio-T1A_W0QQi...

or similar. I have one of these and it works well. You just need to get a 3.5mm to 2.5mm adapter for the end, so that it fits into the flash socket.

Cheers

Liam