adventures in old photography, flashes.

[zahc]

I found out that my wife had an old 35mm slr hidden away, truly the first pleasant thing I have discovered among the waves of junk and woman-stuff that she came bundled with. It's a camera, the kind that use plastic film embedded with photo sensitive chemicals. It's what was used before digital photography.

It's a Pentax Program Plus and AF-200 flash.

The Program Plus uses the same system of lenses and accessories as the Super Program. Four exposure modes are available: programmed automatic, aperture priority automatic, coupled metered manual and programmed automatic flash.

After brilliantly resculpting the broken-out flash dovetail mount with JB weld, I think it doesn't work. Either that, or I don't know how to use it. The flash test-fires, and it fires with the camera if you put it (the flash) on 'manual'. But if you set it (the flash) to either of the Auto modes, it doesn't seem to go off.

If I put the flash on Auto and the camera on Program mode and go into the closet, the camera just switches to like a 4 second shutter speed. The flash doesn't go off. I doesn't go off with the camera on Manual mode either.

If I switch the camera to the "100 <lightning bolt>" setting, the flash goes off when set to the Auto modes. But I don't understand what is happening in that '100' mode. I think perhaps I can set the aperture to the value shown on the flash when put in Auto mode, and just shoot, and the camera will lock into shutter speed 100, and it will just magically work?

But, I'm pretty sure the camera is supposed to work with the flash somehow when the camera is set to the Program mode. Perhaps one of the pins is not making contact?

[Manedwolf]

Got a digital camera to try it with? Any model of digital SLR with a hot shoe should be able to trigger the flash, if it's set correctly. My Olympus eVolt e-500 talks just fine to the old flash from my OM-10.

[Mabs2]

It's a camera, the kind that use plastic film embedded with photo sensitive chemicals.

Huh?  How many megapixels does it have?

[zahc]

I have my friend's Nikon f-801 right now actually, with a Nikon flash on it. But I know how to use it even less. It has frightening digital menues. And autofocus.

[Manedwolf]

I have my friend's Nikon f-801 right now actually, with a Nikon flash on it. But I know how to use it even less. It has frightening digital menues. And autofocus.

If it has the same sort of shoe for a flash, though, you should be able to choose external flash, or it might just find it. See if it will fire it on auto.

[One of Many]

I believe the 100 Flash symbol is the speed setting for the automatic flash system. The shutter speed is constant (100) on this setting and the flash synchronizes at that speed, and the aperture is used to control depth of field - the auto-flash adjust the duration and/ or intensity of the flash to get the correct amount of light through the lens for the selected film speed. My old Pentax worked in a similar fashion, but I believe the flash setting used a shutter speed of 125 on that camera. That flash unit had a high and low setting. The high output setting allowed the distance to increase from a maximum of about 6 feet, to about 12 feet.

If you use it on manual mode, the flash puts out the full intensity for each shot, and the shutter speed and aperture must be correct of the exposure is bad.

[geronimotwo]

http://www.butkus.org/chinon/pentax/pentax_program_plus/pentax_program_plus.htm

here is a link to a link with the program plus manual. they are asking for a $3.00 donation if you find it helpfull.

[DJJ]

One of Many has it. The camera has a mechanical shutter, which is most likely just a two-piece, overlapping fabric curtain. It starts with the lap on the right side; when it opens, the piece on the left moves from right to left. Then the piece on the right moves from right to left to close. When you wind it, both halves move together back to the right (you're literally cocking it). On the faster shutter speeds, the right curtain actually starts closing across before the left one has gone all the way over; this creates an effect where only a narrow bar of light hits the film, and it pans across, exposing the whole frame, as the shutter moves across. If you were to try to use the flash at these shutter speeds, you would only expose part of the film to the illuminated scene, since the duration of the flash is faster than the shutter. That 1/100 sec. is the fastest shutter speed where the whole shutter is open at the same time, and that's when the flash fires. At least that's how I remember it being explained.

[zahc]

I have the manual for the camera and for the flash both. It doesn't really explain what the "100<lightning bolt>" setting is practically used for. And it says I should be able to put the flash on, set it to auto, and use it in program mode, but it doesn't work even though it test-fires. I think it must be broken.

[Monkeyleg]

I don't know what the settings are for the flash you've got, but the shutter speed on the old SLR cameras was supposed to be set on 1/60th of a second. Faster shutter speeds could result in the focal plane shutter closing before the flash fired or during the duration of the flash, thus underexposing the shot or leaving a portion of the frame dark.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

My dad has one of those cameras.  They have a really goofy flash system.

Shutter synch speed on your camera is 1/100th.  Any faster shutter speeds will result in one or both shutter curtains blocking the frame when the flash fires.  Hence the "flash 100" thing, the camera locks the shutter speed to 1/100th for flash operation. 

Aperture is determined by a combination of settings on the back of the flash unit.  The red/green spots form a sort of crude automatic flash control.  With ISO 100 film, the green dot gives you f/2.8 and the red dot gives you f/5.6 (I have no idea why, but that's what they do).  With any other speed film, those aperture values are automatically scaled up or down as needed.  If you want to set your own aperture, move that selector switch off the red/green spots and onto the 'M' and set it to whatever you want.  The distance scale on the back of the flash gives you a recommendation.

The 'TTL' option puzzles me.  That acronym stands for "through-the-lens".  As regards to flash systems, that usually means that the flash unit fires a small test flash before taking the picture.  The camera measures the amount of light from the test flash that reflects back off the subject and passes through the lens, and uses that information to determine the correct flash and aperture settings.  But this sort of flash metering is quite sophisticated and advanced.  I don't recall the Program Plus being able to do this.

Dig through the manual geronimo linked.  I'm sure it explains everything in there.

[zahc]

The program plus can't do TTL. But the flash could, if the camera could.

Aperture is determined by a combination of settings on the back of the flash unit.  The red/green spots form a sort of crude automatic flash control.  With ISO 100 film, the green dot gives you f/2.8 and the red dot gives you f/5.6

So do you mean I should manually set my aperture to those values?

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

The program plus can't do TTL. But the flash could, if the camera could.

Of course.  That makes perfect sense.

Aperture is determined by a combination of settings on the back of the flash unit.  The red/green spots form a sort of crude automatic flash control.  With ISO 100 film, the green dot gives you f/2.8 and the red dot gives you f/5.6

So do you mean I should manually set my aperture to those values?

Nope, the camera sets the aperture on its own whenever you select red dot or green dot.  The idea was that you would use the green dot whenever your subject is fairly close, and red whenever it's farther away. 

At last I think this is the way it works, but I might misremember.  Try toggling between dots and see if the aperture changes automatically.

Like I said, it's goofy.  Whenever I use my dad's program plus with a flash, I always set the aperture manually just to save myself the aggravation.