Spy Black said:
The solution is simple. Turn the Sunpak on and take a voltage reading of the hot shoe terminals using a voltmeter. If they're in the 6 volt neighborhood, it's probably safe to use. My old Nikon SB-7E for instance, reads 23.4 volts, not a good candidate.

If you're still in doubt after whatever reading you get, simply use a radio trigger. You can get a trigger for around 20 bucks at Amazon, such as the CowboyStudio NPT-04. The only limitation that will give you is that you typically can't use them above 1/200-sec.

The use of 'probably' made me laugh! ;-)

As observed, the voltage seen at those terminals isn't very representative of anything much really, it may just have floated up high off load. It is the current that flows when triggered that would destroy your camera (possibly) so the radio trigger is a good idea.

The number of batteries won't clue you into the sync voltage, it a product of the internal circuit. My SB-7E uses 4 AA batteries.

Radio triggers also allow to do off-camera lighting setups, which yield the best lighting scenarios you can get, so I highly recommend getting one regardless.

Interesting idea... the Sunpak battery holder takes, I believe, six AA batteries. So that makes, what... 9 volts? Don't know... the radio trigger is intriguing, I'll have to ask the local camera shop what they think, if that's a viable alternative.

The solution is simple. Turn the Sunpak on and take a voltage reading of the hot shoe terminals using a voltmeter. If they're in the 6 volt neighborhood, it's probably safe to use. My old Nikon SB-7E for instance, reads 23.4 volts, not a good candidate.

If you're still in doubt after whatever reading you get, simply use a radio trigger. You can get a trigger for around 20 bucks at Amazon, such as the CowboyStudio NPT-04. The only limitation that will give you is that you typically can't use them above 1/200-sec.

First, I’d like to say that I DID do a forum search on this topic before posting it, just in case anyone’s feathers get ruffled. That being said:

My Sunpak Auto 555 “potato masher” is all that is left from my old FE2 setup. I’ve been told by one professional photographer that using this flash will “fry the chip” in the new cameras. A local camera store told me, no, it won’t “fry” anything, per se, it just won’t work at all because flash synch speed isn’t right.

Can someone explain to me, in plain English, whether or not it will work and why? Thank you in advance.