SB-600 and FA

[WCpilot]

Hey guys. I just received my "new" FA body today. It's a gorgeous old film body. The first with matrix metering. There's a pretty shot of in the film forums... Anyway, enough drooling. Does anyone know if the SB-600 is compatible with the FA. According to one website (mir.com or something like that), the FA does have TTL capabilities. But I'd also read somewhere that there can be a voltage problem between new and old flashes and bodies. But I can't remember if the problem was with new body/old flash, or old body/new flash. Apparently one is capable of frying the circuitry of another. Anyone know the details on this?

[Grandpaw]

Hey guys. I just received my "new" FA body today. It's a gorgeous old film body. The first with matrix metering. There's a pretty shot of in the film forums... Anyway, enough drooling. Does anyone know if the SB-600 is compatible with the FA. According to one website (mir.com or something like that), the FA does have TTL capabilities. But I'd also read somewhere that there can be a voltage problem between new and old flashes and bodies. But I can't remember if the problem was with new body/old flash, or old body/new flash. Apparently one is capable of frying the circuitry of another. Anyone know the details on this?

Some of the OLDER flashes have a high trigger voltage that may damage a NEW camera. The newer flashes should be OK with the older cameras, Jeff

[WCpilot]

Yep seems to be the case. Just took a couple shots with flash. I did a direct flash and a bounce shot, so we'll see how well the TTL control on this one works. Thanks!

[another view]

Actually you shouldn't have any problem with Nikon flashes and Nikon cameras in this regard. However, I found out recently (here) that the SB600 doesn't actually do TTL with cameras like the FA. You'd need an SB80DX or earlier flash (SB24, 26, 28 or one of many others) to get true TTL flash compatibility with an FA. Actually the one that was out at the time was an SB16, I believe... Since these flashes are pre iTTL, they usually are pretty good bargains.

I'm not sure how you have your SB600 set, but I think the only "correct" choice (for consistency, at least) is Manual mode on the flash. With neg film you'll have some latitude so you might be OK, but it'll take some experimentation. If you are using neg film, be sure to look at the negatives to judge exposure.

[WCpilot]

Ya, the flashes seemed pretty week for the available light. This may call for the highly scientific method of "get it right on the digital camera, then do it with the film camera", haha. Just so you all know, this conversation is also now going on in the film forum. So I'm probably going to keep up mainly with that thread now.