THE COCKROACH
I called it a "Cockroach", not a nice name but accurate. This is a required read for the individual considering the VIVITAR 285HV or the 283 Classic model. The 285HV Vivitar is like the winner on Survivor. I coined the phrase thirty years ago since they have been around for decades and you never can kill one.
More thirty to forty year old Vivitar’s are being used today than any other legacy strobe ever and that includes the Metz 45. The Metz is superior in many ways, but realistically is and has been more expensive then and now, especially for repairs. There is also the Cactus coming out of the same Chinese Factory through the direct vendor. For how long, who knows. Not long I predict. Chinese failure rate is high.
Years ago I built and offered plans for a battery pack that worked specifically with it. In its day, I called it the Jacobs Battery Pack. Today it’s called "The Black Box” and with changes and modules they still work on Vivitars and anything with six-volt four “AA” technologies.
Even inclusive of bike lights and spelunking, thats a long legacy.
USAGE
I’m still endorsing them for the tough shots where you need something; That does what you want it to do in manual or basic auto; In gangs for blast power; the roach is expendable, perfect for if there is a danger of fire, falling or failure of any kind, better than your 500 dollar strobe ripping off the dragster.
FEATURES
The advantage of the Vivitar is, if you like to simply maintain control of things, in manual, Vivitar is for you. And I make them even more manual.
To me Automatic mode is great for event work and when you don't have time. We take (M) manual mode for granted. I like to control the light.
Having spent a good portion of my life in the lab, I have seen the results of the “P” and “A” modes. Blown highlights and or underexposure. The amateur believing the machine is better than the mind and the eye. Not always, machines match, they don't think.
It has a true Manual with four settings. 1/1, 1/2, /1/4, 1/16 and squelch commonly called A mode in automatic only. The squelch is a simple pre TTL (first letter doesn't matter, Nikon is D, Canon is I) through the lens sensor that does the job if aimed right. It is an on-board sensor, the globe in front of the strobe, basically a light to subject and squelching circuitry. This is light of a very simple, subject to distance nature, and in shutter speed mode you can control the amount of background illumination by simply altering the shutter speed.
On some contemporary strobes today the manufacturer simply deleted this feature and they are totally proprietary. Use the A mode on the flash and aperture preferred on the camera. Slower the speed; the lighter the background. The flash will still be consistently squelched to the subject.
HOW TO IDENTIFY COUNTRY OF ORIGIN and ERA
The older 285HV's were strong, can take a fair amount of abuse and many are still around. BUT be aware of some of the older ones shortcomings. The Vivitars were manufactured in four countries, Japan, Taiwan, Korea and now the current version (see notes) from the mainland of China so they do differ.
The key is on the bottom. On the frontal area near the hot shoe it is recessed molded with the country of origin. Though all the units are similar in shape, size, and function, they differ in sync voltage, the boards inside , size of the wiring and reliability. New is not necessarily better. Be especially wary of the oldest, the Japanese because of this high voltage. But the Japanese model is great with a light trigger or optical slave, then and only then is it safe. Again the bottom should say in capitol letters JAPAN, KOREA, CHINA or may say nothing.
For nothing they simply filled in the name plate. Erased. You can see the fill-in job if you look close enough. Looks like a shadow. It is China Mainland and might have a blue dial on one side and newer but not stronger. The blue peels off.
<< POINT OF LIGHT - WEINERS>>
Do not talk to me about WEIN units reducing the sync power. In fifty plus years in this business I have seen more camera units ruined by them then any aftermarket product. They fail, they are cheaply made and don't ever put a Japanese Vivitar on top of any new model DSLR period.
Frugal blows stuff up and they make lousy unpredictable base shoes. I don't care what you read, what your friend told you, who bragged about what on a forum, never put any bare Vivitar on a late model DSLR with pin outs. Those five nipples are squelch and command units and rated at three volts. Moisture or any shorting will eat your motherboard faster than your wife can spend your paycheck.
<< POINT OF LIGHT - POCKET WIZARDS>>
Pocket Wizards can fail if you hook these Japanese units direct. I have reports of the voltage being too close to the top of the amount wizards generally can handle. That thresh hold is up to 200 volts, but the Japanese can go as high as 330 and at $169.00 wizards are not cheap. The solution is to try those from China (Old series - Taiwan) Korea - and Chinese mainland.
JAPANESE TOASTER TIME
The original models from Japan, from 1970-1982, the sync voltage didn’t matter as the cameras in those days had heavy-duty mechanical metal triggers. This high sync voltage 250-300V will fry a new digital camera. Most modern digital SLR’s and advanced compact hybrids like the Fuji 9100, X-100 etc. series can’t tolerate high voltage. I know the first one I saw on the bench was a 9000 toasted beyond toast, new motherboard and Fiji service was not nice to the owner, about 60% of what he paid for the camera.
Later Japanese models 285HV came in with a relay to offset the high voltage but I caution you check the voltage or have someone do it for you. Markings alone tell you nothing. There was a transitional period and I trust no one. Test them yourself. Use them remotely the risk is not worth it.
After the VIVITAR folks, a US distributor, realized they could farm out the units to Korea and Taiwan, for lower labor costs, than the Japanese, the quality basic 285HV stayed the same. These are the most desirable units as they are low-sync power and quality construction.
Vivitar USA the importer liked that word...it meant profit and they worked good, so no service department was needed. Really didn't matter as service from Vivitar the importer, sucked anyway, and thats the reason those a-holes went under. At trade shows they were the most obnoxious people I ever met. More about them later.
A cottage industry started repairing, modifying the sensor, upgrading, boosting, metaling the foot, making bare bulbs, and if given the time, I expected power windows and tilt steering. These were the grand days of the Armatars and others who really took it to the edge. Their units are still around and many are still working but parts an schematics are gone so they are a dead end. I do not work on them anymore, don't even ask, there is no support.
ENTER THE STROBISTOS
Whats a Strobist? They are an international internet group who support a fantastic web site and nation of users whose lives are all about frugal lighting. Well, sometimes too frugal. The 285, 285HV and 283 are perfect for beginners who take delight in simple affordable lighting mixed with frugality, it's called a budget, budget, budget, simplicity of purpose exercise.
They are ones who kept the 283/285 legacy alive. It's nice to see the civility, humility and innovation these guys and gals extend to each other. Nice, today that is a lost art. As a businessman though, there is a difference in time spent. Time is money to a business man. Time is fun to a hobbiest and fifty plus years ago , it stopped being a hobby.
GIZMOS
Being older you start to believe in the theory of what goes around comes around.
All the Vivitar flash innovation you see on some of the flickr sites and mods on Strobist owe their heritage to the originators of the stepped up 283/285's which were actually upgraded thirty-five to forty years ago.
ARMATOS
History tells us the most popular of the upgrades was the work done by the Armato Bros of Glendale Long Island. Yes, there were others, some knockoffs even today, but these guys stepped up the flash power, coverage and resource. These "advancements" years ago did not have the benefit of the web to exchange ideas. They made their own power boards and circuitry and stuffed them into the innards of the Vivitar.
Thats why they can't be readily fixed today, no parts, no service, no diagrams and trade secrets…gone. Please do not call me to work on these, I can't anymore. Nor do I know any of the other gurus in the industry, I used to know, who will touch one. We are getting older and there are less of us….
SOME STUFF REALLY NEVER WORKED RIGHT
I have been building these things for years. See above photo. The Peanut slave by Wein on the 283-285 has been a might/might not work device. It had lousy range, mated with the lousy port on the Vivitar and as we say "Two wrongs don't make it right, they make it twice as bad". We went internal added a 1/8 port combined with a good synch cord so the module can be aimed at your light source to trigger it instead of being blocked.
Ours is a more useful version of the Wein, combined with a robust light stand clamp and interchangeable synch cables. Oh, the 1/8" connector to the strobe is made into the metal foot we replace and on my units I wired it direct period.
On the Strobist sites and Flickr, I saw some really sharp conversions. I tip my hat these fellow innovative Gadgetmeister's, some of their work is extraordinary and the Strobist movement certainly gets the credit for getting them excited.
But basically re-inventing the tuna fish sandwich does not qualify for the "Iron Chef".
These devices are great for table top and macro work, not essentially needed, as most strobes for real studio work are twice to four times as powerful.
So you are variably cutting back power from basically a low to mid range source. The only reason is short subjects, small table top pictures, etc.
Your camera works great on the to the kids Teddy Bear, which seems to be a popular subject. You can create a nice illusion but the real images come from the wider dispersion of a much more powerful light.
Besides on modern full boat SLR's the variable exposure time handles flash fill and variable aperture like ƒ3.45 can do the same thing. Distance also changes ratios, and thats the part that I don't understand. Why all the fuss?
Most 285's are weak, thus the Armato's brought in larger capacitors and bulbs for their units. Remember the film in those days was 25-100 ASA. No RAW, plain alkali batteries and you used FILM with a limited amount of exposures which leads us to…
GUIDE NUMBERS - <<Forget what they tell you, its bullshit>>
Use a good flash and ambient light meter like the excellent Sekonic 358B. It’s the only way to tell what these flashes do accurately. Establish your own guide number at 10 feet in a white ceiling room. Flash on camera and strobe meter at ten feet like we did. Suddenly the guide of 120 was as valid as anything you were told during the GOP candidate selection.
285HV VIVITAR
We read ƒ10 at ASA/ISO 100 at 10 feet on a new Japanese 285 HV. That converts to ƒ10 which digitals can be programmed for. It is halfway between F8 and F11. They (SAKAR, B&H) claimed a guide of 120 because the variable head focuses tighter and concentrates the beam for their guide number of ƒ12 or 120. But the truth is that head concentrates the beam center and you get edge falloff. So the Bride and groom look good and the rest of the wedding party is in the dark.
283 VIVITAR
For more color saturation use a guide of ƒ8. Also ƒ8 with the 283, since the smaller head without the telescoping head tends to underexpose. Many flashes today are measured in great white rooms with 85 to 105 lenses and that tends to produce higher guides as the beam is narrowed by the flash head motor.
After testing ten 283's at ISO 100 at a measured ten feet the best round, norm was ƒ8.4. And that was from a batch of ten we bought from a police department and they were from Japan, Korea, and Free China and never used, having been stored and forgotten all these years in their original boxes and "literally stored in the evidence room". I wonder if the department had ever reported their forensic flash units stolen".
Making the variable strobe more variable as with a few parts from Radio Shack is a great project for the enthusiast and I may suggest you look on the Strobist site for other variations of this device. I built many of these over the years but shied away from production since many of the Vivitars sent me are getting old in the tooth and I'm too busy with more important projects as the addition of one more stop is negligible.
One has to see if there was any new advantage to taking the thing apart to add F8 to the manual settings on a 285. Frankly I do not see it. With one touch of my finger I balanced my exposure by going from 3.45 to 4.2 on the digital camera or backed the flash two feet.
<< BULLSHIT DISPERSION - THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE>> Careful what you spend your time on. These new Chinese units have been questionable and the good ones from the Taiwan (Formosa) and Korean can also be 10-33 or more years old but they still retained the 18 gauge wire and fairly staunch electronics. But time may get to the capacitor, the breadboards were pretty good in those days being more hand built than the boards in the new ones.
The newer 285HV, from B&H and others, are adapted to the lower sync constraints of the newer digitals. Thats fine, they won't ruin your camera, they just won't last too long if pressured or over-clocked. They have blue plastic labels on the pinion point side. The build of this new Chinese model still plastic, almost the same on the outside but not the same on the inside. Also seen under CACTUS brand out of China. See top photo. Same place B & H got them from. In the space of 18 months not only did the factory change hands the importers changed hands just as fast.
INSIDER STUFF - THE ROMANCE NOVEL
The 285 HV and its less featured brother the 283 is an interesting story. The newest model of the 285HV came back by DEMAND. Inexpensive, a great legacy and all the credit goes to the Strobists who really turned up the heat for this legacy strobe.
The original Vivitar Corporation is out of business. They were nothing in recent (20) years but importers of aftermarket goods from JAPAN, then KOREA, TAIWAN and in the latter years MAINLAND CHINA also known as the Great Wall-Mart of China. You can just imagine what happened to the quality as time progressed. Like Polaroid they licensed their name. Polaroid makes more money from their name today than all the film they sold.
I did a lot of business with Vivitar when I was a dealer. They went belly up and I will attribute it to their attitude. They were the rudest, crudest and most arrogant frickin people to do business with. No dealer or customer support and no service period. Rarely returned calls or service orders, so we dumped them in our store.
They went into bankruptcy, they put the name up for grabs and it was scoffed up by Syntax- Brillain,
a television distributor for Olevia who picked the Vivitar name as an add-on,
and imported it expecting to use the Vivitar name for other small items like
digital cameras and frames. They had a short lived career but long term prison from lawsuits
involving securities fraud (SEC).
SAKAR INTERNATIONAL
The third time the name changed hands; a firm by the name of Sakar in New Jersey bought the name but they had no vision soon after the acquisition. They did however have the same arrogant attitude of the original Vivitar crew.
I called, got referred, left message, no reply. I wanted to talk to them at the trade show and got the same reception I received from the original Vivitar jerks. I felt right at home knowing they are still a-holes.
Later this year some of the China Syndrome 285HV's showed up at B&H under new packaging. Not the usual thirty or forty year old black and red cardboard Vivitar had for years. There is a simple explanation, money. Maybe Sakar woke up, they felt the money they were losing, made them change their mind and B&H will sell it if it makes a profit.
The Vivitar clone or con is also sold under Cactus Brand being sold out of China under the eBay program that Cactus
had established for its radio transmitters. And there are enough
opinions on that company and the quality of their product to fill a book. Both good and bad.They go under the name Gadget Infinity on eBay. You decide. Today Sakar has the new later model (unknown manufacturer in China, money bet on Yung-Nuo) with numbers. Their interest in the 285 has drained.
TROUBLESHOOT
The New Chinese flash units sold, with no name on the bottom, I will tell you ahead of time there are some anomalies. Yes, I work on a ton of them and we are very careful but we have seen some out of the box with the following.
Be patient, at first the capacitor is slow starting. Some are fast blinkers, some stay solid. Before you take that first shot that counts, flash the strobe five times at full manual to "reform" the capacitor. It is shipped with a totally drained capacitor. You should do this in manual, full power, be patient full power in manual is logical. That shuts the squelch circuit off and forces full charge to the capacitor. Just do it.
These late units from China might not have the same invulnerability the older units have had because of internal board changes and again, and the integrity of the builder country. The base wires are 18-20 gauge in the original Japanese, and had heavy breadboards, much thinner (22-24) gauge in the Chinese model.
Avoid overheating or fast blasting heats these wires like a toaster. But the more desirable older units might be showing age. It was rare to see an older Japanese unit 285 HV that failed period. But time, use, abuse, or not being used take their toll. It's a crapshoot. I turned one on the other day that is twenty years in storage and it worked. To date two have failed that I received back to test out of hundreds. I suspect they might have been used pretty strongly in their day and marginally now. Yellow tubes and smell tell you that.
Please read Part Two - Modifications