Alpha 450 Flash Compatibility

[warudge]

I have a Sony Alpha 450 and wanted to use my old 35mm Minolta accessories.  I've tried my flash, a Vivitar 850AFM, which worked fine for my film cameras, but seems to be very over powered for the A450.  It seems as though it is just outputting full power and that the TTL is not functioning.  The only way I can get acceptable results is to manually control the flash power.  Anyone know if this flash should work or not or if there is a setting I should be using?

Thanks

[blaireau_photo]

Hello warudge - welcome to the Sony Forums

Just to check, is the TTL not functioning at all when you set the camera according to the instructions on page 89 of the manual:

http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/4159241111.pdf

If has been set up correctly, is there any activity or is TTL not active at all.

Thanks,

Simon

[Mick2011 · Accepted solution]

I'd be very careful about using older flash units on newer digital cameras.

There's often a trigger voltage difference which has been known to cause problems, even circuit failure, on some cameras. What can seem at first glance to be a cheap solution can easily end up being a very expensive mistake!

I did a quick Google check and I *think* your Vivitar flash may be safe in that respect, but I'm definitely not recommending you use it on your a450!

The over-exposure is probably due to the camera being unable to either detect or initiate a test flash, so it's just triggering the unit in a very basic way when you press the shutter and you simply get a full-power blast every time.

This is because the flash was designed to synch with a camera body that metered for subject distance in real time, by measring the light bouncing off the film surface at the exact time of exposure.

That type of synchronisation is obviously missing from most, if not all modern DSLRs, which also rely on the flash unit being able to 'read' distance information fed back to it by the camera lens.

Sorry it's not good news

Mick