Customer Reviews

Vivitar 285HV Auto Professional Flash

5 star:		(58)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I compared the 285HV with Sunpak 383 Super and I found out these differences and similiraties:

1. Both are non-brand specific Manual/non-TTL auto flash for use in practically any camera with standard hotshoe.
2. Both have the same Guide Number of 120.
3. In Manual mode, they can slice their power output from 1/1 to 1/16th except that the 285HV is missing 1/8th.
4. In non-TTL auto, the 285HV has four auto-aperture settings while the 383Super has only three.
5. The 383Super can do vertical and horizontal bounce (swivel) while the 285HV can do vertical bounce only.
6. The 285HV has zoom positions to cover 35mm, 50mm and 105mm focal length lenses. It also includs an extra-wide flash head adapter to cover 28mm focal length. The 383Super has no zoom position and can cover only 35mm focal length and up.
7. I havent measured the sync voltage of the 383 Super but I am sure that the 285HV has a sync voltage of 6V DC as I measured it myself.
8. The 383 Super locks on the hotshoe by turning a screw while the 285HV has a one-action locking lever.
9. The 285HV has a lovely illuminated (yes!) calculator dial which is practically a tiny work of art! Its a pity though it has no varnish of some sort to protect its surface markings from scratching.

I can live without 383 Super's additional swivel and 1/8th power ratio. I need the 285HV's direct, brute light power when shooting inside high-ceiling rooms and dim conditions where I cannot approach my subjects. The zoom-capable flash head helps in this situation because it boosts precious flash range just a bit more than what the 383 Super can.

I can also use the extra-wide adapter when using the 18-55mm lens of the D40 at 18mm. In film terms, 18mm focal lenght on the D40 is 27mm- just perfect for the 28mm extra-wide adapter.

I prefer the one-action locking lever of the 285HV. The locking lever makes the flash more stable as compared to the turn screw on my other flash.

Of course, the 285HV has none of the programmed high-tech artificial intelligence of expensive flashes (say,a Nikon SB800 or a Canon 580EX), other than its auto-thyristor and manual controls. However, in its auto thyristor mode, I found it to be accurate. Sometimes in tricky situations (say, a white board behind your friend) it under-exposes, as expected. But thanks to the digital SLR where I attach it to (Nikon D40), I can quickly make corrections on the spot by examining the LCD! Easy!

Although plastic, Vivitar build it well. Solid feel with no loose parts which are not supposed to be loose. Overall, a beautifully made simple flash. But for what it was made to do, from my experience a least, it does very well, consistently and reliably.

Let's get to the bad stuff first:

1) no swivel
2) printed numbers on calculator dial may wear off or get scratched off (UPDATE: no, they haven't been scratched off yet by mes, but in the hands of heavy/pro users they might be. Bottom line, for casual use, the printed numbers are durable enough.)
3) plastic foot may break
4) sync cord, battery holder and AC adapter are hard to find in stores
5) of course, no TTL, but we already knew that

OK, the good stuff (really good)
1) very powerful, big grins on subjects after they hear the loud pop and see the light. This is one big gun.
2) meter is surprisingly accurate
3) zoom head and wide angle adapter
4) generous auto range of 4 apertures, variable power settings of 1/2, 1/4 and 1/16
5) if you use flash as main source of light, don't shoot closeups with flash and have no need for TTL, this is all the flash you need (UPDATE: actually with the proper set up, you can even use this for close-ups)
6) did I say this flash is so affordable?

I've been using Vivitar 283 and 285's for years now. I was introduced to the 285 when my backlight died on a Glamour shoot. The style my client wanted was an over exposed background to ad a haze around the subject through the softener1 filter. This required a powerful flash. The only store near the salon was a Carmen's camera and all they had in their used department was this old 285, the man in the store, a professional photographer himself, assured me that with a slave unit on the manual setting this flash would be powerful enough to do the job. He even had an SB-4 power supply and this little plastic display unit, which made a perfect little backlight stand!

Not only did this flash recycle in time, it was powerful enough to do the job. This little flash even replaced my Metz for wedding work because of its compact size!

I also noticed at the time that many other press photographers were leaving their Metz's at home too! For travelling and backpacking I bring my 283, which is very light and also has the remote sensor feature so handy for close-up work.

The 283 also sits nicer on the hot shoe being lighter, making the camera less top-heavy. Which brings me to the only complaint I have with these two flashes.... or many hot shoe flashes for that matter. Shooting at crowded concerts or busy news scrums the vulnerability of the hot shoe is always on my mind, on more than one occasion I have broken this hot shoe and had to order a new one which requires a bit of assembly and downtime. To make up for this -the remote sensor makes it possible to use these flashes off camera even with the broken hot shoe and with the amount of used 283's and 285's out there at good prices, they are still the best darn portable mini flashes I've come across!

With an on camera 283 fill light, reflected, a slaved 285 with a reflector on a stand next to the camera and a 283 slaved for a back light and you have yourself a portable studio, but watch out your subject doesn't step on the backlight!

(Review is from Greg's wife, Marcy Worthington) I've been a professional photographer for over three decades and started using Vivitar 283 and 285 flashes years ago. I also teach photography and recommend these flashes to my students.

Both the Vivitar 283 and 285 have four automatic and one manual exposure settings. They work well both on and off-camera and can be easily used when "painting with light"; this technique is often used by crime scene and accident photographers when photographing large, dark areas.

These flashes aren't dedicated or TTL (meaning they don't communicate with the camera for "through the lens" metering) but they are extremely versatile and very powerful for the money. Don't buy these models if you plan to only use your camera on P (Program, essentially "point & shoot" mode) but definitely get them if you use the S (shutter priority automatic exposure) or M (manual exposure) modes and are serious about photography.

The Vivitar 285 HV is a classic flash, and known for its durability. It has good power and provides accurate exposure.

My only gripe with it is the head doesn't swivel. This means if you want to do bounce flash with the camera in verticle position, you have to take it off camera and hold it in your hand. Not a huge problem, but you can get one that does swivel for similar money (although maybe not one so well made).

This two page review contains two sections. The first section details the benefits of flash photography over household bulbs. The second section reviews the Vivitar flash. The bulk of this review is dedicated to the first section. When I first researched the Vivitar 285HV I was completely new to flash photography. In the process I wasn't completely sure if this flash would be good upgrade. I am pretty sure most people researching this flash are also new to flash photography. So I have included the first section to help them understand the benefit of flash by answering the same question I had back then. Overall I think it's a good upgrade.


Whether you are upgrading from household bulbs or following Strobist this flash is an excellent choice. The Vivitar 285hv is affordable, reliable, and to an extent versatile. For me this flash has solved many problems I was facing with household bulb lighting including:

FIREPOWER: flash produces much more power in an instant compared to household bulbs; by as much as 10 stops more vs. a 250W bulb. For example, I used to shoot portraits at 5.6 1/60 @400iso. Now with the flash I can go 11 1/200 @100iso using at full power, that's a big improvement! I don't have to worry about soft pictures because of camera shake at low shutter speeds as flash fast duration takes care all of that up to 1/1000 of a second. Neither do I have to worry about getting noisy pictures because of high iso.

POWER RANGE: This flash can be controlled by 5 stops. Actually 4 stops but with a 5 stop range as follow 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/16. I am not sure why they skipped f8 but the flash can be made to fire at that power level by setting it to 1/4 and inserting a 1 stop gel in front of its lens to reduce its output to 1/8.

CONSISTANT COLOR: To control the lighting ratio between main, background, hair, kicker, etc I used different bulbs with different watt output like 250 main 100 background. Different bulbs have different color temperatures and that introduce major color balance problems. Even worse as time goes by same power rating bulbs would shift in color temperature. Using this color balanced flash minimizes this problem to no more than 200-400k which is in the range of tolerable.

HEAT & CONSUMPTION: bulbs used to heat up the subject so much and they were really bright, so bright that most people would quickly start to sweat and squint. Flashes don't have model lamps and their burst is so short that it's impossible to be annoyed by it unless looking directly into the flash lens.


This flash also opened many new opportunities for me including:

COLOR EFFECTS: I can insert gels in the included wide angle holder to obtain any color I want. The flash will work with the Rosco sampler nicely. I also can color correct my flashes to balance with ambient light. For example, if I am shooting in a fluorescent lit room I can always slip a green Rsoco gel from the same sampler to make the flash light match room lighting in color temperature. Since the Rosco sampler gels are a bit smaller than the lens surface area they have to be placed carefully to fully cover the center of the flash lens. That is where the light originates from so that section has to be fully covered with the gel. I could not do any of this with bulbs because the continuous heat would gels would melt.

MOBILITY: This flash is small relative to a light bulbs plus fixture and reflector. Even better it works off batteries so it's very easy to take it anywhere. In general I get between 150-200 flashes from a fresh 2000 nimh batteries. Now I can go out of my home studio and do on location photography like office portraits very easily. One padded gym bag is all I need to include everything.

MODIFIERIS: This flash is easy to use modifiers as there plenty made for it like Honol snoots and grids and Lumiquest reflectors, etc. Also it can be adapter to work with standard studio equipment like umbrellas and softboxes. Plus they don't emit any heat that would otherwise damage modifiers.

SIMULTANEOUS EXPOSURES: Since flash is controlled by aperture only (shutter speed remains constant at camera sync 200 or 250 for most cameras) reducing the shutter speed allows more ambient light in the same scene. You have to try this to understand how versatile this is. For continuous light photographers this is a game changer. You have to experience this yourself to understand its value.



In a sense all flashes offer the same benefits listed above. The Vivtar, however, stands out in value and reliability. For a price below the one hundred mark, the Vivitar 285hv is the only flash that offers a) 60Ws power output which is at par with Canon and Nikon top of the line flashes, b) full manual control with proprietary sync plug, and c) tilt and zoom head.

Additionally the flash is made of high quality plastic. The finishing is equally well made and doesn't feel like cheap plastic at all. The head tilt and zoom action is very solid. New models are camera sync safe, as they have voltage below 6V. This is important to pay attention to because after getting your first Vivitar most likely you will look for adding 1 or 2 more to your camera bag. If you decide to buy used you have to watch out if the model is old as they can have sync voltage as high as 250V, which can fry your camera.

Except for sync voltage this time tested flash didn't change much over the years. Old models still fetch 50% value in the used market which is a testament to the quality and reliability of this flash. Hence, I consider buying Vivitar flashes new a good learning investment because they maintain high resale value when you decide to upgrade to studio lights for example.

Plus you can grow with this flash for a long time because allot of dedicated and third party accessories are available to keep you busy experimenting with it. Best of all this flash is very consistent in power and color temperature output. Hence, there is really no reason for replacing them with more professional options.

On the down side, the Vivitar doesn't come free of some disappointments. The most apparent of which is the missing 1/8th power level. The flash power dialer skips that setting because Vivitar decided to skim on the cost of the dialer. It's also missing a rotate head which is standard on modern flashes and mono or pc connection. Instead the flash comes with a proprietary connection that requires a cable to be connected to the flash to which a pc cable can be connected. This cable comes standard with the flash, but it's annoying to use because it's easy to lose the small cable and worse it doesn't provide a very secure connection. Make sure you are looking away from the flash as you connect that cable because it has a habit of firing the flash prematurely.

The Vivitar 285hv doesn't come with an optical slave. The most practical slave for this flash is the Wein peanut which very small and plugs directly to the proprietary connection. Its so small and convenient to use that you can literately forget it's connected to your flash. There is one problem with this slave it doesn't work with the new Vivitar when the flash is being powered by rechargable NiHM batteries. With such batteries the produces less than 6v through the hot shoe. In order to use the peanut you have to use disposable alkaline batteries. There are, other slaves that will remedey this problem but none are as small and convenaint to use as the peanut.

Recycling times are a bit slow. With fresh batteries installed expect to wait few seconds at full power. Side note: the optional Vivitar Power cord will only work when alkaline batteries are inserted, which somewhat defeats the purpose, but improves recycle speeds. The flash is also pretty bulky when compared to modern flashes and weights considerably more.

For manual flash photography the Vivitar 285hv is only second to the Lumopro 120, but for the price it's the best deal around, period.

I started out buying more expensive Canon flashes but didn't need the E-TTL features. Based on a web review, I bought a couple of Vivitar 285HV's and used them with my existing off-camera triggering system (which consists of Elinchrom Skyport radio triggers and Wein optical hot shoe triggers). All of my existing triggers fired through the hot shoe of the flash and have worked with a variety of flashes, including older Vivitar 283 flashes.

However, the 285HV is triggered on a different contact point than most flashes. It works fine on-camera, but doesn't work at all with any of these remote triggering options.

I've found that you need to use the trigger port on the side of the flash. Wein peanut slaves have a high failure rate, but Sonia triggers seem to work much more consistently well with this flash.

Once your system is working, these will fire consistently well. They don't recycle as fast as some of the more modern and expensive designs, but if you take your time and compose each shot well, you should be just fine. I've been replacing all of my other flashes and standardizing now on the 285HV for my field gear.

I use these for semi-professional fashion and art photography and it often surprises people to see me using such humble looking equipment and yet I get great results from them.

*** LONG TERM UPDATE ***
These flashes only last a little over a year and then they are kaput. I have had a few of them, all purchased around the same time, and in the middle of a shoot they will suddenly flash brightly and then not work anymore. As far as I can tell, these units are sealed up and not meant to be repaired.

I bought my 285 in the early 80's so that's testimony to it's service and satisfaction and it being well built. You can still buy this flash. It's survived even after 25 years have passed. Has refined technological evolution made the 285 obsolete? NAY! Even with advancements in newer flashes the Vivitar 285 is still here holding a respectable position. Why is that?

I have a dedicated flash that has auto focus, TTL and all - but I gave it to my wife to use on her same brand camera. She likes it because you don't have to do anything to it... I don't like it because you can't do anything with it. There are no creative avenues to explore. I can control the 285 to do what I want.

Consider the respectable guide number, 120 on the 50mm zoom setting. You can buy the latest thing on the market but notice the cost for comparable light output power.

My wife in her 3rd semester at Orange Coast JC studying photography, has access to some great equipment including Hasselblad. This school is well known for its photo department. The Vivitar 285 is available for non dedicated camera systems as well as the Lumedyne with a cost in the area of $2000. It's features include an adjustable output, that is you can choose a guide number of 50, 100 or 200 and its recycle time is about 2 seconds because of a large shoulder strap battery pack. Other than that no other features. Given, the Lumedyne has almost twice the output as the Vivitar and faster recycle time but 20 times the price. And, these are not really what you would call a comparison of apples to apples as the Lumedyne has the professional market. Seriously, I think the Vivitar is better made by a long shot. The Vivitar has never given me a problem.

The 285 has a zoom lens to accommodate wide angle to telephoto and as you extend or retract it, it changes the calculator dial accordingly, has a lens receiver for additional filters or extra wide angle, a tiltable head for bounce flash, 4 depth of field selections in the automatic mode, full manual control with 4 stops adjustable output, a ready indicator light, an indicator light that lets you know if the exposure got enough light, and a dial control light that allows reading the setting and calculator in low light. But look at this, with an additional cord, you take off the sensor from the flash and mount it to the camera then shoot off camera flash in the automatic mode. The cost of the Vivitar 285, under $100. If you need the guide number and the recycle times of the Lumedyne, they're only a few thousand dollars more.


Update: July 2007

OK, I bought a new flash. The old one above, it's still working. But now I have 2 Vivitar 285's. What did you expect?

I have been very happy with my Vivitar 285HV since I bought it 2 years ago. What a great inexpensive flash that gives reliable and accurate results time after time. It is being used on my manual focus Nikon FE. I've been using the 4 auto settings most of the time.

Strengths:
Powerful output.
cost only a fraction of a Nikon SB16.
Lots of accessories available; (some are expensive, though!)
Good zoom head.

Weaknesses:
Big and heavy.
No swivel head

Similar Products Used:
Vivitar 550
Achiver

I have also had disappointments with the newly manufactured 285. I purchased two brand new. The first one did not work with my turbo pack, and the second one worked with the turbo pack when I tested it, but failed at a gig. Very frustrating. I returned both for a refund. From what I understand is the new models are now made in China under the brand name Vivitar, and are no longer a Japanese product.

Chris Maness Photography