Vivitar 283

Is the 50 year old Vivitar 283 strobe still relevant in 2024?

Introduced in 1970, this Japanese-built flashgun became a world leader with pros and amateurs alike earning the monicker 'The Workhorse'. The strobe was made until around 2000 when Vivitar finally retired it. Officially they replaced it with the 285 in the mid 80s and later with the the 285HV but photographers wanted the 283 and so it was re-introduced. Twice, such was the popularity. The 285 is a great unit with a zoom head to focus the beam of the flash, has more aperture options and it had a similar range of accessories. But in my opinion it was too big (see the image at the bottom of this article) and there was little real advantage over the older 283. Although most of what I write here will apply to the 285. I'll highlight the differences at the end of this article.

What made the Vivitar 283 unique in 1970 was its auto-exposure system, its power and accessories, making it a 'system' flash.
Auto exposure wasn't new in 1970 but this baby had power. Lots of it, giving the photographer four apertures to choose from and of course full power manual control. The flash was the first, or at least one of the first, units to use thyristor control, this innovative feature recycled any unused energy back into the capacitor shortening recycle times considerably, allowing pressmen to use their motor winders and get a flash every time.

In 1978 when I went into the trade, the 283 was well established as the market leader. Costing around £39 (that's £200 in today's money) What impressed men when I first saw one was the choice of apertures: f4, f5.6, f11 and f16 with 200 ASA film. Amazing. The popular Sunpaks and Nationals offered only f5.6 or f4 & F5.6 at best. This was a powerful gun. Pros had the big spud-masher strobes like the Metz Mecablitz 45 series (GN45@100ASA) or its predecessors. These were big and did the job, but the guide numbers were only a stop higher than the 283 (GN 36 @100ASA). The 283 was smaller than the Metz, could fit on the hot-shoe or with the optional grip it could be held like the Metz units. And it had the thyristor which, in the 70s the Metz didn't. Recycle times could be too long with the Mecablitz. And the Viv was cheaper. Much cheaper. I know this from personal experience. I have used both. Stupidly trading my first 283 in for Metz because it looked more pro. After waiting 15-20 seconds for the Metz to recycle between shots at one particular wedding, I went back to the 283.

The 283 had the tilt head for bounce flash and the power to use it. In addition to the tilt head, the 283 had its super-power, the BCC, Bounce Compensator Circuit. A sensor detected how much it was tilted and increased the power the more it was tilted up. Something no other flashgun did.

As I said, the 283 was a system flash, so a range of useful accessories were made for it. The most unique of which, for me anyway, was the sensor extension lead SC-1. This had a male plug and female socket at the ends, the sensor could unplug from the front of the flash and the SC-1 would go between them. A useful accessory is the variable power adapter VP-1 which replaced the sensor. But these are hard to find and many users have hacked their 283s to add variable power. See images further down.

The idea was to have the sensor pointing at the subject while the off-camera flash could point anywhere. At the ceiling, the side of the subject, above it, into a softbox or into a brolly or other diffuser. Anywhere you wanted to basically. The front of the SC1 had a hot shoe and socket for the pc cord (supplied with the unit or the longer PC-31 coiled cord) so it could be triggered from practically any camera. There were different power options with the 283 too, it came supplied with an AA battery pack but a NC-23, rechargeable NiCd pack was available as an extra. There is a socket on the side too for the SB-4 mains supply if the unit is used in a studio situation. I had one back in the day when I had a 'mobile studio' and two units.

Other accessories included a wide angle flash diffuser, coloured filters FK-1, lens diffusers LK-1, and a range of diffusers that held a white card BD-1, BD-2, BD-3. The BD3, being the smallest was quite useful when doing weddings or in small spaces. There were two grips too, both designed for the left hand side of the camera and perfect for medium format. The PG-1 had a hole running through it through which a cable release could be pushed allowing the user to fire the camera from their left hand, the cold shoe onto which the flash fitted could swivel 360 degrees allowing bounce flash when a 35mm camera was used in portrait orientation. The thing I like about the system is that the accessories are solid, well made, well thought-out and useful (maybe apart from the coloured filter set).

During its lifetime the 283 was made in Japan, Korea and China. With film cameras there is effectively no difference between the three, but if you wanted to use a 283 with your Mirrorless or DSLR you need a Chinese or Korean unit as the trigger voltage is lower. Mine are 6v and 8v for the Korean and between 100v and 200V for the Japanese ones, use the high voltage ones on your DSLR at your own risk.

Some people say that modern cameras can handle the high voltages, but I've never heard of anyone putting their money where their mouth is and risking bricking their £2000 camera with a 200v strobe. So be careful. I use the 8v model on my Sony A7 and Pentax DSLR with no problems. The higher voltage one is used for off-camera. Look online and there are hacks to reduce trigger voltage, some simple, some complicated, but to be honest I'd ask a seller if theirs is Japanese or Korean/Chinese then buy the Korean/Chinese version. The label is on the bottom, next to the foot.

So how is the Vivitar 283 relevant today in 2024 when we can have TTL and dedicated flash?
The answer is simply that it's good at what it does, will work with almost any camera, is fully automatic, is simple to use. And it's cheap. Looking on ebay I have seen literally dozens selling for between £1 and £15.

How does the 283 work with any camera?
Auto flashes, before TTL, worked autonomously. The user set the recommended aperture and the flash calculated the exposure. The 283 gives a choice of apertures. The sensor has a rotating collar revealing four colours and M, each colour represents an aperture. With 200 ISO film, Yellow is f4, orange f5.6, blue f11 and purple being f16. At f4 the flash will comfortably illuminate something 12 metres or 40 feet away, I've done it and the 283 is quite capable of it.
So, choose your aperture, set the shutter speed on your camera to the strobe (flash sync speed) position and the appropriate aperture. If you are using digital or a fully automatic camera, put it in manual and make sure that the ISO is set manually to 200 (in this instance).

When the flash is triggered, the sensor on the 283 measures the light output by the flash tube, when enough light has bounced back from the subject, it cuts off and any unused power is recycled into the capacitor. All in 1/5000th of a second or quicker. Nothing needs to be changed as the 283 deals with any situation. There are no in-finder signals like with TTL flash, but then not all cameras have that feature.

Last, more nice features. The 283 has a test button. When the flash is charged up and you are using a diffuser, it's good to know that there is enough power to take the photo at the selected aperture. Set up the flash and press the illuminated orange button, if the light next to it flashes green, you are good to go, if not change the colour on the sensor (and aperture on the lens). The dial on the side lights up green, perfect when you are in dull light. The foot has a locking lever, not much of a thing but really useful when attaching it to a camera or bracket with a 'loose' shoe.

What are the cons of the 283?
1 Large, the 283 is a chunky beast (though the 285 is bigger).
2 Can be of limited use if the special PC cord is missing.
3 Longer recycling times when using diffuser or over long distances.
4 40-50 years old electronics can be unpredictable. I've had my share of dead strobes, but oddly, never a dead 283. Just buy another or send it back.

In conclusion, you could do worse than buying a Vivitar 283 in 2024

So what about the 285, that's got its fans too.
That's true, it's a little better specified than the 283 because it was originally to be its replacement.
Here are the main differences:
Zoom head
Variable power built into the sensor (rather than an accessory)
Guide Number of 37.
The GN of 37@100 compared to the 283's 36 isn't much different, about a quarter of a stop, and on auto, the apertures are the same. Something you must know is that there are two versions of the 285:

The 285 and 285HV. The 285HV is a later model made for electronic cameras and is safe for digital, having a trigger voltage of just 6v.
The sensor of the 285 is removable, like the 283, but it has a different pin arrangement to the 283 so it needs cable SC-3 to mount the sensor remotely. The PC cord is the same.
While researching the 285 I am reading everywhere that the 285HV is unreliable compared to the earlier 283. Maybe it's build quality, I don't know.

Both are excellent units when working and cheap enough to replace when they're not.

Instruction manuals for 283, 285, 285HV here at Mike Butkuss' excellent manuals page:
https://www.cameramanuals.org/flashes_meters/vivitar_283_larger.pdf
https://www.cameramanuals.org/flashes_meters/vivitar_285.pdf
https://www.cameramanuals.org/flashes_meters/vivitar_285hv.pdf