Can I use all my old Sunpak 522 Flashes with Canon EOS

[Desiree Vie]

Back in the 70s and 80s, my father and I used to listen to the police scanner, chase everything nearby, shoot it and sell it to the newspapers. I had Canon AE-1's, AE-1 Programs, A-1's and he was a medium to large format guy. Over time I had acquired 3 Sunpak 522's with all the TTL adapters, batteries, belt packs, if they sold it, I have it still. I can remember going out in the middle of the night to an accident scene or fire, setting these up and firing them all at once, lighting everything in sight. To this day, I still have them all, everything still appears to work as designed, except, now I have multiple EOS cameras, XTi, T3i, T5i and 70D. I can turn them on, hit the test button, all the stuff I bought for them, they all fire together, light up my whole back yard in the middle of the night.
I realize Canon sells some awesome flashes now, with all kinds of equipment to bond them together, but remembering using all 3 when doing wedding portraits, a car accident at 2am, you name it, I want to use them all still today. I am afraid to attach any of it to my camera and hit the button to fire it fearing I may see a puff of smoke come out of the camera, or otherwise, rendering my new Canon gear useless.
Call it partial sentiment to the past, or if I sold it all on Ebay or whatever, I could afford a new lens cap and cap keeper cord. I know those old film cameras synced at 1/60th, I can control them manually for power, I can calculate the difference, or test the heck of it for results, but does anyone know how I can still use this gear today?

 

[AcutancePhotography]

Check the voltage carefully. Some of those older flashs can overload some of the newer cameras.

Unfortunately, it will be the camera that will be damaged, not your old flash.

 

[LDS]

This may help you:

http://www.botzilla.com/photo/strobeVolts.html

Check also the maximum voltage supported by you camera model - and be aware the PC sync socket may be safer than the hot shoe contact. For example the 5D III supports up to 250V over the PC sync, but the manual advise against using high voltage unit via the hotshoe.

I used a Sunpak 4205G with the 5D III without issues - it just supports the PC sync. Did the 522 had TTL modules for Canon (Canon had no TTL camera until the T90)? Even so AFAIK the old Canon TTL metering doesn't work with EOS cameras - but it should anyway have a low voltage going through - but you should be sure it's within limits.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Canon has had high trigger voltage capabilities of 250V for several years now, but there are a very few older flash units that produce a spike over 200 volts.

Since the Sunpak 522 usually produces about 190 volts, I'd just toss it and find one that produces 24 volts or less. A defective unit might produce even higher voltages. Chances are good that there will not be a problem, but there is more than a little risk.

 

[Desiree Vie]

Unfortunately, none of this, and all of this I already knew, and because I have no way to determine the exact, perfect voltages, nor even know how to read what my Sunpak flashes emit, prudence has said to me, do not even try.

I found, amongst other items, the Wein Soft Sync and other products. I suppose what I should have asked, was has anyone tried these type of items with success, and what did you try, did they work, are you satisfied and so on.

Sadly there is way over $1000 invested in this stuff, to which I can not get a cup of coffee for selling it on Ebay or such now, so is the past the past or is there a way to bring all my gear back to life?

 

[Desiree Vie]

Thank You Mt. Spokane, your response came as I entered mine. I do not wish to toss these, but if needed, sobeit. I do have a volt/amp meter, I use it to read my car battery haha. It is dead, the car will not start. Not exactly science when you realize I have 4 Canon DSLR's I may ruin right? Oh well, some memories may have to remain memories.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Thank You Mt. Spokane, your response came as I entered mine. I do not wish to toss these, but if needed, sobeit. I do have a volt/amp meter, I use it to read my car battery haha. It is dead, the car will not start. Not exactly science when you realize I have 4 Canon DSLR's I may ruin right? Oh well, some memories may have to remain memories.

Its not easy to read those voltages since they only occur over 1/1000 sec, so a digital or analog voltmeter can be off by a factor of 100. A Oscilloscope that can capture 1/10000 or faster pulses will give a accurate reading, but few of us have one. I have two or three that will do it, but, in the case of the Sunpak 522, Sunpak was the source of the ~190V figure.

You are right about prices, but it also means that you can pick one up cheaply that has under 24 volts trigger voltage. There are lots of old Canon EZ series flashes that are cheap. I must have 12 or 15 old flashes, but unless they are Canon flashes, I don't put them on a DSLR. The cost just to replace a board in the camera will be $200-$300.

You can use a slave trigger to operate the flashes remotely from your camera, with a inexpensive Flash mounted to the camera to trigger them. This eliminates all risk, and slave triggers are cheap.

 

[Rejdmast]

I have a Sunpak 622 that works fine with my 550D.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I have a Sunpak 622 that works fine with my 550D.

The Sunpak 622 has a 6V trigger spike, the op has a Sunpak 522 with a 190V trigger spike. Big difference!

 

[Halfrack]

And this is why you'd want to use a cheap wireless cactus trigger set - worst case it'd fry a $10 remote, not your camera...

Or grab one of these - http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=227625&gclid=CKzGpp3TkcECFYhefgodX0wAbQ&Q=&is=REG&A=details

 

[distant.star]

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If it's true that "misery loves company," we'll love one another.

I had to give up Sunpak and other flashes that served me well back in the film days. On the plus side, you're going to find the newer flash equipment and the current ETTL is vastly superior to what we were using back then.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

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If it's true that "misery loves company," we'll love one another.

I had to give up Sunpak and other flashes that served me well back in the film days. On the plus side, you're going to find the newer flash equipment and the current ETTL is vastly superior to what we were using back then.

I think that even the low cost Chinese flash units will be better. The capacitors on 25 year old flashes are not going to be that reliable.

A few years ago, I bought good working Kodak DCS 460 for $100. Its original cost was $35,500. A smartphone will now do better, but it was neat to try it and take some shots with it. I had to buy a Microdrive to save images. Kodak still had support software, and Adobe Photoshop / Lightroom still supports the old format of the tiff raw images.