..well of yesteryear.. The 283 has built up a reputation over the years and sure is an old timer, and STILL is selling! I'm not sure exactly how old it is but probably as old as me! I acquired my first one in 1982.
The fact that it is still selling dispite the competition from newer high tech ... Read review
Advantages: accurate exposures, accurate guide number, warm flash Disadvantages: showing it's age?
..well of yesteryear.. The 283 has built up a reputation over the years and sure is an old timer, and STILL is selling! I'm not sure exactly how old it is but probably as old as me! I acquired my first one in 1982.
The fact that it is still selling dispite the competition from newer high tech flash guns is a testimony to its design. This is the Nikon FM1 of the flash gun world. THIS is a system flash gun.
Starting with it's ... ...is a real workhorse. It was the choice of Professional Fleet Street photographers, and can still be seen around.
The real strenghth of this flashgun is the exposures are SMACK bang on, using it's own light sensor built into its body it's even more accurate than some of those techy singing all dancing TTL (through the lens) exposure systems. It's also perfect for portraits as the flash light is 'warm' lending a nice appealing colour ... more
..well of yesteryear.. The 283 has built up a reputation over the years and sure is an old timer, and STILL is selling! I'm not sure exactly how old it is but probably as old as me! I acquired my first one in 1982. The fact that it is still selling dispite the competition from newer high tech flash guns is a testimony to its design. This is the Nikon FM1 of the flash gun world. THIS is a system flash gun.
Starting with it's contruction it is ROCK solid, no flimsey plastics here and is a real workhorse. It was the choice of Professional Fleet Street photographers, and can still be seen around.
The real strenghth of this flashgun is the exposures are SMACK bang on, using it's own light sensor built into its body it's even more accurate than some of those techy singing all dancing TTL (through the lens) exposure systems. It's also perfect for portraits as the flash light is 'warm' lending a nice appealing colour to flesh tones. A lot of modern day flash guns tend to be on the 'cold' temperature side, imparting a bluish tinge to flesh, not appealing at all.
Being a system flashgun, the sensor can be removed off the body and pluged into a coiled extension lead which enables the flash to be operated off the camera for professional effects, no red eye, no direct on flash. Other accessories available (but hard to get these days) are the bounce reflector which attaches itself to the head to provide a soft diffuse light where there are no suitable ceiling to bounce the light off. This is a TRIFLE large - the bouncing card is about A4 in size (imagine this on the top of your 283 flashgun on top of your hotshoe). One side is white - the bouncing side, and the other is mid grey for metering purposes (quite handy if you know what I am talking about).
There is also an optional mains power supply which plugs into the wall to enable the flash to be used in a studio environment all day long without having to change batteries.
An optional lens adaptor allows you to adapt the flash coverage to suit different types of lenses from about 24mm to 135mm, and with a guide number of 38 with the 135mm adaptor lens it can punch quite a long way in the dark!
In auto exposure mode it offers a choice of 4 aperture settings 3 metres, 4.5 metres, 9 metres, and 12 metres. The aperture is determined by which film speed you are using. e.g. at ISO 200 means you have the apertures f16, f11, f5.6 and f4 available to you at the previously mentioned distances respectively. The guide number of this flash gun is spectacularly accurate and means the distances should be accurate as well, which is why I guess it has been a loved favourite in the pro world, a flash gun you can depend on, which is much needed for manual exposure. The film speed setting dial, where the distance readings also sit, are are on the side of the gun. This is can be illuminated for easy night time reading. The aperture settings are set by a rotary dial on the light sensor.
To test exposures there is a small round button on the back and a small green light which glows to indicate that correct exposure has been received before you actually take your shot.
To prevent the gun falling out of your hot shoe or the gun sliding misaligning the contacts, there is a lock which operates with a sliding cam action.
One downside I find is that the bounce doesn't swivel, so you can't bounce the shots for vertical (portrait format) shots. Quite annoying for me. Other quibbles which perhaps also show the flashguns age; the ISO range is only from 25 to 400 - some people may find it limiting when they want to use faster film particulary in the dark, and basically no bells and whistles of the newer generation guns, i.e. auto zoom, full auto exposure, TTL flash, off the film plane flash, matrix metering flash, autofill flash, strobe or other special effects.
BUT bear in mind this gun is not for the gizmo auto pilot SLR cameras out there, it's really for the manual enhusiast cameras such as the Nikon FM1s, Pentax LX's, Leica Rs, Leica M's of the world in which case it IS the perfect companion, in asthetics, functionality and in era!
