At 03:27 PM 10/26/2005, Glen wrote:
What amount of voltage and current is the hotshoe of the Pentax *istDS
designed for? By this, I am referring to the "primary" set of contacts
that would actually trip a flash unit, and not any of the "extra"
dedicated contacts.
Does anyone know the technical details for the hotshoe?
thanks,
Glen
Okay, I found a partial answer -- in case anyone else was also wondering. I
contacted Pentax-USA tech support, and spoke to a gentleman named Mark. He
claimed that although he didn't remember the exact voltage specs, that they
were impressively high in his opinion -- on the order of at least several
HUNDRED volts! He assured me that he had used Pentax DSLRs with old hotshoe
flashes, as well as old studio flashes, which had hundreds of volts at
their sync terminals.
This is contrary to what the camera store sales people had led me to
believe. Mark said that was a common misconception, most likely based upon
mere assumption. Some other DSLRs have trouble with the high voltage, so
camera sales people like to play it safe and tell everyone to avoid the old
flash gear on their new cameras.
Before I tried the old flash, I asked Mark if by some chance the flash were
to fry the *istDS, could I have the camera repaired under warranty, and of
course he said "No." However, he was convinced that the camera should
handle it. After being reassured that it should handle my ancient Sunpak
flash, I very nervously gave it a try. It works! :)
I don't have any of the nice dedicated features with this flash, but it
sure beats the popup flash for power! This will be a big help, till I can
get one of the new flashes someday. (It also saves me a good amount of
money for the immediate future.)
So, I still don't know the true voltage and current specs for the hotshoe,
but at least I know it works with my old higher-voltage Sunpak flash. I'm
both surprised and delighted.
take care,
Glen
