Flash for digital camera

[cpc]

I have a Quantaray PZ-1 DSZ and wanted to know if it would work on a digital camera. I have only used it on my film camera, and wanted to get rid of it if it will not work on my digital camera. Does anyone know if it works on digital cameras, or does it just work with film cameras?

[icicle]

Call up ritz camera and see

[cpc]

Good idea, thanks!

[another view]

You could do that but it's not likely to get you too far...

Try an optical slave. This is a device with an "eye" that senses light from another flash, and tells the flash mounted to it to fire as well. I've never used this one, so I can't comment on it specifically but B&H also has other types as well (be sure to get a hot-shoe type). Personally I'm not a fan of Wein products but maybe they're better now than they were a few or so years ago.

Optical slaves have a somewhat deserved reputation of not being 100% reliable - they need good sight of the first flash going off to work. They'll also fire from someone else's camera, so wedding photographers don't like to use them although that may not be a problem in your situation. Also, be sure to turn off any pre-fire or red-eye reduction which happens before exposure. You just want a burst of light at the moment of exposure, or the remote flash will fire too early.

If you don't want the camera's flash to contribute light to the scene, there are a couple of ways around it. Easiest is to turn it down if your camera has flash compensation. If you turn it down to -2 it'll hardly contribute anything but should work just fine with a slave (experiment). If not or it still isn't what you want, you could put a mirror or piece of white poster board over it to direct the camera's flash away from the subject and towards the optical slave.