Buying Sunpak Marine 32

[Bordiver]

Hi everyone!

I have the oportunity to buy an old underwater flash, SUNPAK Marine 32, at a cheap price, here at my country...

I do like underwater photography, but I´m not in the mood to spend a lot, so I´d like to know if it´s a good deal to use with a point and shoot camera.. Is it a enough flash for an amateur to take pictures of people and fish on the caribbean waters?

Thanks a lot!

 

[KeithG]

Probably not.

They key things to determine are
- how can you trigger the strobe?
- if it is "optical", is the strobe compatible with the pre-flash of your camera.

In general P&S cameras do not have a hotshoe and can not support wired sync cables. So optical fiber cables must be used. The camera also normally does a preflashe(s) before taking the picture and you need a strobe that will ignore the preflashes.

I think the strobe in question is a wired sync with no preflash support? a little googling on these concepts should get you a definitive answer.

 

[Larry C]

The Sunpak 32 is a cord type flash. It will need to connect to your camera by cord. It is a model that dates to 1983. It is doubtful you can get a new cord if it doesn't have one, and the camera would have to be designed for the same cord. If it has a proprietary battery, you'll have to figure out how to rebuild it as you won't find one. If the strobe is really cheap (like almost free) you could try it, but if the cord connection fails it could ruin the sync port on your camera housing.
You should probably look for a more current model strobe, new or used.

 

[Bordiver]

Thanks a lot!

---------- Post added March 6th, 2014 at 09:40 AM ----------

The Sunpak 32 is a cord type flash. It will need to connect to your camera by cord. It is a model that dates to 1983. It is doubtful you can get a new cord if it doesn't have one, and the camera would have to be designed for the same cord. If it has a proprietary battery, you'll have to figure out how to rebuild it as you won't find one. If the strobe is really cheap (like almost free) you could try it, but if the cord connection fails it could ruin the sync port on your camera housing.
You should probably look for a more current model strobe, new or used.

The cord is there, and everything looks well cared...

One doubt... Is this "cord' actually a fiber optic cord, sync cord? Would there be a possibility of adapting this "cord" to act as a sync cable? Even so, would then using this cord as a sync cable, the flash would ignore the pre-flash of any point and shoot camera?

Thanks!

 

[Larry C]

The cord is an electric sync cord. You would need a hot shoe on the camera and a sync port on your housing unless the strobe has a slave setting. If it has a slave setting, you would have to cap the sync port on the strobe to keep water out with the cord removed. Your camera would need a slave setting that negates the preflash. Strobes designed for film cameras will flash at the first signal if they are designed as slaves. They will only work on digital cameras if the camera has a non preflash setting. My Olympus has such a setting, but cameras vary.