Things I Miss No.3

A PC Socket

Another of the niggling things I miss on many of today's digital wonders. The PC Socket. Now bwlieve it or not this has absolutely nothing to to with your computer nor indeed hooking your camera up to same. It is simply a tiny socket which enables you to connect a flashgun. Four picture in one today.

Top Left : Here we see the side of an old Pentax film camera. You will see two sockets. One is marked FP and was for the connection and synchronisation of those quaint old "flash bang wallop" flash bulbs which came in either clear, or later on in blue variants. Clear worked well with black and white film but as colour became more often used, the blue bulbs were introduced to give a better colour balance. The second socket was marked "X" and this was for use with electronic flash. As time wore on the dreaded "Hot Shoe" was introduced and this when combined with an exterior PC socket probably offered the best of both worlds.

Top Right : It wasn't long before our friendly camera manufacturers began to drop the PC socket altogether in favour of the so called handier hot shoe. Here however we see that my trusty Canon EOS30D is equipped with a PC socket hidden behind a rubberised cover an the left hand edge of the body. Perfect for running studio flash systems off.
In general I would resist buying a camera which is not so equipped if I had serious photography in mind. That eliminates every compact and bridge camera I have ever seen and some of the entry level DSLR's as well.

Bottom Left : On the top of the same Canon comes the now familiar hot shoe. The real purpose of this is a little obscure. The camera already has a small pop up flash anyway so the main advantage of the hot shoe is to enable me to use a more powerful gun. I'm still stuck with it being on top of the camera which as any competent photographer will know is just about the worst place you can have a gun from the point of view of modelling effects with the light.

Bottom Right : If your camera does not have a PC socket then the answer could be to purchase a cable such as the one illustrated. At one end you have a connector for the hot shoe and at the other end a sinilar one for the flash gun. Now you have the ability to hold your light source away from the lens axis. Great for modelling and the right way to get around the red eye problem. Should you ever decide to go down this road though, do remember that it's important to make sure that the cable is fully compatible with both the gun and the camera and while I'm at it DO NOT be tempted to use old flash guns designed for use on film cameras with your digital wonder. The chances are that you will end up with fried electrics. Always have the discharge voltage of the gun checked to ensure that it is not too high for modern low voltage and delicate systems.

The whole thing wouldn't be an issue at all if the manufacturers always fitted a socket in the first place but they seem intent on saving mere cents and offering us expensive workarounds instead.

End or rant. Maybe for fun I might just list another few tomorrow but by then I should be blipping something less technical. Lanzarote here we come... fly out Friday night!