GH2 GH2 shooting a flash unit

[Shooter]

Anyone here ever pointed a GH2 directly into a pro flash unit and flashed it? I am shooting a "fashion shoot" tomorrow and want to include "flashes" as part of the story. Did not want to risk a trial and end up with a blown sensor or circuit. Happy for some one else to be a guinea pig. :shocked:

 

[Bruce Foreman]

Trigger voltage should be under 5v. Many older flash units, including the popular Vivitar 283 = 285 series had about 230v + trigger voltage. Way more than enough to "fry" modern digital cameras. What you need is something to isolate the camera's circuit from the flash you use, there used to be a product from Wein called the Wein SafeSynch.

The only other way I know of is to use a shoe mounted flash unit made to work safely with the GH2 but in manual mode (on the flash) with the power level "dialed all the way down" to 1/16th or lower, head tilted up to "bounce" and all the other flash units in the picture set to "slave" mode or connected to "slave triggers".

If one of the units in the scene is an Alien Bees unit (Paul C. Buff), those are safe to connect directly as their trigger voltage is right at 5v or just under.

 

[TheDingo]

Trigger voltage should be under 5v.

Bruce, I think Shooter is concerned about frying his camera's CMOS sensor from the super intense light output from professional electronic flashes.

I've never heard of anyone damaging their camera from the light output of professional flash units, but definitely from filming laser shows.

I would imagine that your camera should be ok provided you aren't sticking your GH2 right up to the quartz flash-tube when it goes off.

A side note: In the 80's I got to work with the 20x24 inch Polaroid camera, and had 30,000 watt-seconds of Speedotron flash power go off about 2 feet from my face while I held a red apple half covered in green paint for a macro-shot. With my eyes closed tight, I could still "see" the bones in my hand holding the apple when the flash went off, along with a strong heat-blast from the flash. ( I was done after 5 takes )