I bought my daughter a Rebel X because it was a good price and I don't like pop-up flashes. I can't afford the speedlite flash right now but I found an inexpensive ($15) automatic flash with a pretty good guide number. I know about the advantanges of dedicated flash but can I use this flash with the Rebel X by just going to manual mode and setting the aperture to the synch setting? I think it's 1/90 but I'm not sure. Of course, Canon says to not use other flashes because this may "damage" the camera. Is this true or are they just trying to sell their flashes? The flash is new (at Wal-Mart). I understand older flash units may use too high a voltage. The flash is made by Kodak, uses 4 AA bateries and has a guide # of 60. thanks for your help Don Wallace

-- Don Wallace (nodcod@hotmail.com), May 13, 2002

Answers

If the flash is an autoflash unit (sensor on the front) it may well work well enough if you set the shutter speed and film speed settings correctly. Experimentation is the only way.

Personally I don't see the point. You could probably buy a cheap used little low-end EZ series flash for $25-50 US that'll use the camera's TTL flash metering.

-- NK Guy (tela@tela.bc.ca), May 13, 2002.

NK guy: Thanks for taking the time to help me out. What's an "EZ" series flash? I am familiar with a used equipment site called "Cameta Camera" and thought about ordering a used Speedlite from them. But time is a problem. I procrastinated and my daughter is leaving this week for a trip. I thought I would spend some money later and get a better flash with dedicated features. But I planned to use this new flash for my old Pentax K-1000 as a backup to my new Pentax with a dedicated flash. Do you think my new, cheap, Kodak, automatic flash could hurt the electronics of her hew Rebel X? Thanks for your help Don Wallace

-- Don Wallace (nodcod@hotmail.com), May 13, 2002.

I have this cheap 2 AA auto flash that has enough sync trigger voltage to fry my EOS camera. Well over 100 volts. I have another flash that uses a 330 volt external battery that has a sync trigger of less than 5 volts. Small size, small GN and small batteries give no indication of how safe it will be on your camera.

Get a good volt meter and test it. Put the test leads across the shoe connectors and turn the flash on. When it's fully charged, fire it. If you have a decent meter it should be able to detect any significant transient voltage spikes. In any case if it ever reads higher than 10 volts (Canon says 6 volts) don't use it.

Chances are actually very good that the new flash will be under 6 volts, but there are no guarantees without testing it.

By the way, Canon specifies 1/90 second for the max sync speed, but all the Rebels I have tested with cheap auto flashes, sync just fine up to 1/125 second. Even at 1/180 second the picture lost ony a very small sliver of the bottom of the image. Sometimes when calculating fill flash, etc., the higher speed is worth the loss in image area.

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), May 13, 2002.

EZ is one of the lines of flash units Canon released for the EOS family of bodies. There's only one still in production (the 540EZ, which used to be at the top of the product line), but there are a few older models that are reasonably plentiful on the used market.

I don't know what the flash you're looking at is, but your understanding about older flashes and high voltages is generally right - many older flashes can fry the camera, while many newer flashes are safe. It wouldn't surprise me if someone somewhere on the Net had put together a listing of third-party flash units and what their trigger voltages are ...

-- Steve Dunn (steved@ussinc.com), May 13, 2002.

I agree with the other folks - the probability of the Kodak flash harming your camera is pretty low, but non-zero, so test it with a voltmeter.

I'd direct you to my Web site with an article on Canon EOS flash, which explains all this, but it's down for a few more hours today. Check later:

http:// photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/

-- NK Guy (tela@tela.bc.ca), May 13, 2002.