Old Flash on new bodies = bad news. But what about the inverse?

[Dubious Drewski]

I bought my first roll of film the other day. I'm sick of only having experience from one end of the photography spectrum, so I've expanded my horizons by purchasing a 36 roll of Kodak 400 Tmax B&W for my K1000(Which I originally only bought because of the lens attached to it).


It's fun so far. It's very strange to have so little feedback as you shoot; just a little lightmeter in the viewfinder. With this machine, I doubt I could accurately predict what a flash will do to my exposure, but I want to try one anyway if I can.

All I have is the Pentax AF540. Apparently, modern flashguns send less voltage through the body than old flashguns. So my K1000 is probably safe, but is there anything that could damage my flashgun if I use it on there?

 

[Dubious Drewski]

Screw it. I'm doing it.

 

[Dubious Drewski]

Well, no magic smoke so far. Thanks for your help guys! Haha.

 

[andrew99]

Post some pics when you get them developed!

 

[Dubious Drewski]

Yeah, I'm very curious. It wasn't C41, so it's got to be sent out of the province to get developed and it will take over a week. Ugh.

Most shots were taken with my 50mm and no flash, so they'll likely turn out. But some of them were with some bounced light from my flash and some others were with my modern 18-55. It created some vignetting, but it was still really cool to use because it was equivalent to a 12-36mm lens. I can't wait to see them

 

[MarcusM]

Hey I have an old K1000 with a crappy 75-200mm f/4.5 lens that you actually pull the focusing element back and forth towards or away from you to zoom in and out. (If you hold the camera pointed at the ground so the lens is pointing down, the focusing element actually drops downward due to gravity, - don't try to take any pictures of the ground with it because they'll be out of focus)

It's hanging in the closet and I haven't used it for several years...since before I had any idea what I was doing. I have some old film in the fridge also (wonder if it's any good still?) I should go take it out for the heck of it, might be interesting to see the results.

 

[Garbz]

A flash is triggered by shorting the main hotshoe contact to ground. Literally shorting it. It doesn't matter what the sync voltage of the flash is an old camera can trigger it.

 

[Mike_E]

Digital cameras are designed to work like film cameras so the numbers are the same (just pretend you are using slide film- IOW get as close as possible to the exact exposure).

Maybe this will help.. http://strobist.blogspot.com/2007/12/guide-number-your-free-flash-meter.html