Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Carry On: Vivitar 283


2011 © Brian Adams

This tasty old recipe was handed down to me from my dear friend and mentor Clark James Mishler. Clark once told me a story when he was working at National Geographic in which he and his colleagues gathered all of the top flashes and tested them for recycling time and consistency. The Vivitar 283 came out on top, and he has been shooting with it ever since.

The Vivitar 283 was first introduced in 1970. It was the #1 flash for photographers from 1970 to 1973, in which time Vivitar sold over 3,000,000 of the flashes. Even though the flash is now discontinued, you can still easily find the flash and it's accessories online.

The photograph above is of my modified Vivitar 283's. The flash on the left has had its hot shoe removed and replaced with a Flash Foot One Household PC plug-in, which makes it easy to plug in household PC cords and radio slaves. On both of the flashes, the original Vari Powers were replaced with VP-1 Vari Powers. The VP-1 Vari Power is much easier to control and a lot more accurate when dialing in the amount of power you want.

In short, the Vivitar 283 is a tried and true flash unit, and I look forward to many more years and shoots with it. It's light and easy to carry, so:

Carry on, carry on...

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