A chance to check out an Alpha Flash Stand Adapter
Sold On line…
Just to share some personal experience on a new product that I’ve recently got off Ebay. Its an adapter for use with the Sony Alpha flashes. The photo of the item is shown here. I got three pieces of the adapter – an adapter to mount Sony Alpha flash onto a light stand for setups like wireless flashing This product is an alternative to the flask stand/feet that comes with the Sony Alpha flashes.
I was actually excited to see such product on Ebay and took the dive and ordered three of what look like an adapter that is made from machining a solidpiece of aluminium block.
Room for improvement
As you can see from the side by side photo of the three pieces that I received, there seem to be lots of variation in the workmanship of this item. The depth of the groove in the centre where the contact pins form the flash suppose to be did not have enough clearance on two of them. Resulting in the contact pins actually touching and rubbing the surface of the groove.
Lack of Locking Mechanism
Probably due to efforts in keeping the price of the part own, not much considerations have been put onto the locking mechanism. As of now, the only way to secure the flash – which surprisingly slides in well on to the adapter well on the mounting part – was to use a large rubber band.
Quick Improvement
A quick improvement that they could have done was to implement an open edge for the locking mechanism of the flash to lock on the opposite edge of the adapter. I made a sketch of the idea here…Maybe some manufacturers would like to take this up.
Well…thats all for now. I’ll probably make some modification to the ones I have got and I’ll se if the modifications and maybe post those changes here.
Thanks for viewing…
Alphastrobist….
I actually had an experience with a similar piece of gear. I discovered that the microswitch on the bottom of the Sony/Minolta flash units disables the wireless mode when it’s depressed. The “duck feet” that come with the units have a tiny depression that allows the microswitch to be not depressed. The adapter I received was flat and it appears from the pictures that yours are also. I took them to a machine shop and had a shallow groove cut in one side so the switch could open. I can now use them to mount my flash units on light stands and have the wireless mode work properly.
Just found your site. Great to discover a Melbourne Sony user with good info. Your RSS feed doesn’t appear to work however!
OK. Worked it out. But if you paste http://www.alphastrobist.com/ into a newsreader it can’t find you. Has to be http://alphastrobist.wordpress.com/.
Simon Clement
Mt. Martha 3934
Alpha 850 and Sony Nex5N user.
Hi Simon,
Thanks for dropping by and hope that you would pick up some useful stuff here.
Regards,
Sulhan