Hacking an old Ring Flash
Today, my girlfriend and myself continued to play with her new macro lense. I got my Centon MR40 Ring flash out, I bought half a year ago for about $35. It's an old type TTL-lense, which doesn't really work to well on my 20D. It fires alright, but it fires at the lowest level, so it didn't really help.
My first solution was to set an exposure time at about half a second, and have an assistant (me or my girlfriend depending on who held the camera) fire the flash, using the "Test" button on the flash, when the other pressed the shutter release. It worked surprisingly well, except for a few ghosts from the long exposure time.
My second thought was if it would be possible to disable the TTL, and just have the flash fire everything it got. There are no controls on the flash whatsoever, so my only change was to remove the TTL comunication. I did this by covering all but the main flash trigger with tape. And it WORKED!
Wow - a ring flash for a tenth of the price of a Canon. Of course the camera has to be run completely in manual mode. But since macro are such a controlled environment, that isn't much of an issue anyway.
Here are some of todays images. Some of them are by my girlfriend. Enjoy!
My first solution was to set an exposure time at about half a second, and have an assistant (me or my girlfriend depending on who held the camera) fire the flash, using the "Test" button on the flash, when the other pressed the shutter release. It worked surprisingly well, except for a few ghosts from the long exposure time.
My second thought was if it would be possible to disable the TTL, and just have the flash fire everything it got. There are no controls on the flash whatsoever, so my only change was to remove the TTL comunication. I did this by covering all but the main flash trigger with tape. And it WORKED!
Wow - a ring flash for a tenth of the price of a Canon. Of course the camera has to be run completely in manual mode. But since macro are such a controlled environment, that isn't much of an issue anyway.
Here are some of todays images. Some of them are by my girlfriend. Enjoy!
posted by Klaus Post at 21:01
2 Comments:
I just found out that the Centon MR40 is also called "Vivitar 6000AF" in some countries.
I love your flower pix! I also received my Vivitar 6000AF flash yesterday but couldn't get it to fire on my D70s. The camera just locked it's shutter. From what I see on your flash contacts, you just use clear tape to block off the TTL contacts everytime you use? What about the setting on your body after that? Manual?
Pauline.
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