Pentax 330FTZ plus panasonic FZ-50 issue.

Guilhas · Nov 27, 2007

Hello Friends.
This is my first post here, glad to see so many photo lovers in this place.

My question isn´t simple, but I´m pretty confident someone can help me anyway.

I´m a proud and happy owner of a pentax ZX5 and a 330FTZ flash unit.
Some days ago, my wife gave to me a Panasonic FZ-50 digital camera.

I must say, never owned any digital cameras before and my experience with digital photography is below average.

My first impression about this camera was good, but miss a decent flash unit.
Searching on the net I found a olympus/panasonic flash for US$ 300-500, too expensive for me.

Wondering if my ancient (but yet very good) pentax 330ftz, can be used on my panasonic camera (off curse without TTL and variable zooming), without frying any circuits.

Did anyone tried before? Mate a Panasonic camera with a pentax flash ?

hehe

Any inputs will be very welcome.
Sorry for my English skills folks.

Best regards and thanks in advance.
Guilhas

Don Simon · Nov 27, 2007

Hi. I think you're definitely right to ask before trying it... it is certainly possible for a flash to 'fry' the flash circuitry of a camera, and kill the flash itself, if the voltage is too high.

Basically there are two questions to answer first... First, what is the trigger voltage of the flash? And second, how much can the camera take?

There is a page - http://www.botzilla.com/photo/strobeVolts.html - listing 'safe' flashes... this is for Canon EOS cameras, however it also applies to many other modern film and digital SLRs, and possibly fixed-lens compact models too. Generally I would say try not to use anything with a trigger voltage over 6V... unfortunately that particular Pentax is not on the list... do you have any way of measuring the voltage?

If I had to guess, I would say that you are probably safe with this combination. The 330FTZ is not that old, so probably doesn't use such a high voltage, and the MZ-5N is a relatively recent SLR too... if it was safe to use on that then I expect it'll be safe to use on your Panasonic. But I can't say for sure.

Guilhas · Nov 27, 2007

Thanks for your input ZaphodB, it was great hear your idea.
It help me a lot, believe ... Thanks a lot brother.

Well, I have a digital multimeter bouncing around here, if anyone tells me how can I check this "trigger voltage", that will be great.

I will be glad to send my measure to any page, if this can help others to overcome the same problem I have.

Once and while I ask some really stupid questions, so, here goes a big one.
Why not ask to community members to do such measures in all kind of owned flash units ?

A compreensive database can be helpfull to so many people.

I sent mail to panasonic today, asking the same question. If my english is poor, can you imagine my japanese ?
LOL

I dubt that will be any response whatsoever, even a short one.
But I will kept my old fingers crossed just in case.

Meanwhile, lets pray for more help in this forum.
Who knows huh ?
Maybe someone had the same problem and found a solution.

Why those panasonic/olympus flashes are SO expensive ?
Jezzz
There so many great flashes around $200 or even less, (paid $150 on my 330FTZ)
I really cant understand why.
In Japan both units costs about 46.000 iens, almost the price of a decent 12mpix Canon G9 (52.000 iens)

Who makes those flashes, panasonic or olympus?
Since they are the same unit, why panasonic is about $150 more expensive ?
Thanks again folks.