vivtar 283 randomly won't turn on

thanks. sorry i wasn't very descriptive. i used a metal brush with rubbing alcohol. the contacts were clean to start with. i was just trying to try.

i have an sb-15 now. and an sc17 cord so i can use it handheld when i want. plus it came with this L piece as another mounting option. the diffuser. and case. all for $30 including shipping. already been taking shots with it. pretty excited.

my FA outfit -- 50mm f/1.2 ai-s and the metal hood, 105mm f/1.8 ai-s with some uv filter i don't know much about or use, wrist strap, and above flash equipment -- is now complete except for a case.
 
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The SB-15 was a neat flash. The SC-17 remote cord I have is from the Reagan era, and still has good outer coating on the cable; the 20-years-newer SC-28 cable has already lost a LOT of its coating on the cable exterior..copper wire is now exposed in spots. The FA was a neat camera; it won the European Camera Grand Prix award as best camera of its year. The FA was the ***first*** camera to use Matrix light metering, and an 8-bit microprocessor to handle its bank of over 100,000 analyzed photos as metering scenario examples. As I recall, the FA was the first camera that could utilize the speed notch in the Ai-S series of lenses...the "S" part in the Ai-S nomenclature. Glad to hear that you received the flash and accessories for it.
 
the speed notch forces the camera to use a faster shutter speed on p mode according to the focal length? that's my interpretation from googling, which led to another post from you. i don't really know what p mode is nor have i ever used it. p must also select your aperture?

reason i went with the fa over some of the other nikons was the matrix metering. i've fallen in love with slide film -- often scans like garbage but seeing it projected makes up for that -- and hear the fa matrix metering works great for it. not that i really had a problem with the fg other than the slow max shutter speed when not using low iso slide film. but with the fg i'd wave the center around different areas in the frame i wanted to shoot -- like pseudo spot metering -- and then guess my shutter speed based on what areas gave what readings. i'm hoping the fa will allow me to pull the trigger with less prep and still get the same results.

now that i say it, my rc and xa never give me a problem metering slide film either. i guess i override the suggested exposure if i think something's throwing the meter off with those too. i don't know. just felt silly using a $30 camera with a $450 lens. plus selling my fg and 50mm series e lens just about paid for the fa. and i definitely wanted and love the 50mm f/1.2.
 
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The speed notch was a mechanical idea that was made obsolete by CPU and contacts in AF Nikkor lenses within just a few years of the FA introduction. A solution that became unneeded due to the emergence of newer technology.

Metering for color slides involved measuring the brightest subject and setting the exposure to get a good highlight tone.
 
Metering for color slides involved measuring the brightest subject and setting the exposure to get a good highlight tone.
do you have suggested reading (online or library) and/or something you've written in the past that you could link so i could learn more about this, please?
 
I don't at the moment. One slide-film technique is to swing the 12mm Nikon circle to just outside the sun, and meter that bright part of the sky. Do not allow the sun itself in the 12mm circle. The scribed, 12mm dia. circle is 60% of the metering emphasis in the FA, the balance of the finder image is 40% of the metering.(ie Nikon's old 60/40 center-weighted metering pattern.) Swinging the metering circle around the scene is an actual WAY we used to light meter, reading various areas, dark, bright, middle values, to get a sense of the readings over an entire scene. On swinging needle cameras like the FE or FE-2, that was super handy, and showed the right shutter speed for wherever the meter was pointed (f/stop was what would be fixed). Less handy on LED or LCD readout cameras!

As always though, color sldie film is sensitive to the highlights, and those are supposed to be "pegged", and then the shadows are allowed to fall where they will fall.

Search Results for Query: metering | Photography Forum

Some threads about metering,from a very quick search of threads I've been in.
 

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