flash/ filters

[cjac9]

I just aquired my mom's old Pentax MG and Pentax AF160 hot shoe flash. The flash doesn't work I just found out because the batteries we're left in it and corroded. A friend let me borrow his hot shoe flash to take some indoor pictures so I wouldn't end up with a yellow tint to all of the pictures. I don't know what kind of flash it was but it was bigger than my little Pentax. It made taking pictures very awkward. Can you recommend a small hot shoe flash and a filter that i can use inside so I won't even need a flash in those situations.

 

[RyanLilly]

Did you get the old corroded batteries out of the flash? If you did, try using some white vinegar on cotton swabs to clean off the contacts, the vinegar should dissolve it easily, and the flash may work good as new.

 

[Helen B]

"Can you recommend ... a filter that i can use inside so I won't even need a flash in those situations."

What film are you using?

You can get tungsten-balanced film that will not have anything like as much of an orange colour cast when used indoors with incandescent (tungsten) lamps. The only tungsten balanced colour film intended for still cameras is reversal (ie slide) film. 35 mm tungsten negative still film was discontinued by Kodak not so long ago. You can get 500 speed tungsten negative film for movie cameras, and it will work in your Pentax if loaded into a cassette, but there are few places that will process it at reasonable cost.

However, you can use daylight colour negative film without a filter. It can be corrected at the printing stage. If you overexpose two stops it will be easier to correct - ie if you are using ISO 800 film set your meter to 200. You could also set it to 400, or anywhere in between 200 and 800. There are a range of possibilities, sliding between full correction and low film speed to less-than-perfect correction in the shadows and full film speed.

A deep blue filter to convert tungsten to daylight will lose two stops of light. A Wratten 80A is about right. If you are using colour negative film I suggest that you start by overexposing one of the ISO 800 or ISO 1600 films by one stop and see how the results come out.

This is just a start. There are so many ways of doing this that it could be confusing to go through them all at once. Please ask questions if anything is unclear - I have kept this very basic to start with.

Best,
Helen