285hv fire on xti?

I just got a used vivitar 285hv. I was under the impression that I should be able to fire it on camera hot shoe to hot shoe. Tried last night and nothing. So what am I missing here? :confused:

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Originally Posted by agtaylor

So what am I missing here?...

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Need a bit more info here. What do you mean, hot shoe to hot shoe? Just normal on the camera? I assume the flash test fires ok by itself...

Do you have it in flash sync mode? I know, an obvious question, but you never know...

Sorry bout that. What i meant was that I should be able to attache the flash directly to the camera and have it fire right? I also tried triggering it with my ebay slaves with no success. The flash test fires on its own fine. Could the hot shoe be bad?

You lost me with the flash sync mode?

Thanks for the help.

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Originally Posted by agtaylor

You lost me with the flash sync mode?

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Well, I haven't worked with that camera body, so I'm not familiar with it. Some have a flash shooting mode or a shutter speed setting that you need to use to have the flash work.

You might consider syncing it with a cord...

Make sure you check your shutter speed. Since this is a manual flash, Canon cameras will not automatically set the shutter speed as with a dedicated flash. Do not go above the maximum sync speed of the camera. This happened to me years ago with a film Rebel. The sync speed on that camera was 1/90. Check your manual for further details on your shutter speed sync. You may have to go into shutter priority to get the desired results.

Based on your saying that it's a used 285hv, I'm guessing it's one of the older models with trigger voltage that's higher than your camera or the eBay slaves can handle. You're actually quite lucky. If the voltage is high enough, and it had trigger, it could literally melt the guts of your camera, complete with smoke for effect. Please check this chart here before using ANY older flash. You should not use a flash with more than a 6V trigger on a Canon! http://www.botzilla.com/photo/strobeVolts.html

That issue aside, the next most probably thing is that the flash isn't shorting properly via its shoe. Assuming the middle pin is there as it should be, the problem is probably caused by the contact on the side of the shoe. If you look at the flash's shoe, in the groove on one side or the other should be a metal tab. That tab must contact the metal of whatever hotshoe it's mounted to.

Thirdly, your XTi's sync speed is 1/200, but I've shot at 1/250 without noticing any shutter darkening. Since the flash is off camera, the camera doesn't know it's there and will fire at any speed.

There is no setting on the camera you need to change. The XTi will fire anything sitting on the shoe (assuming that thing is turned on, of course!), or at least it will on any of the advanced modes (Manual, Av, Tv).