Vivitar 285HV Auto Professional Flash

Took a little soldering and a little work but I have my vivitar's hard wired to my ebay triggers. This solves alot of problems. These things are BRIGHT. Really great output for a flash running on alkalines. There built like a tank. Shipping was extremely fast. I do plan on purchasing a few more in the future.

This flash is a good value. For less than $100, you get 4 levels of manual power, 3 levels of autoexposure (which do work well) a tilt-zoom head, a pc sync socket, and relatively fast recycle times. I would love to see this flash with a swivel head.(that's why only 4 stars)
It looks a little boxy compared to the canon and nikon flashes, but the light looks just as good! If you need TTL you're going to have to pay for it. If you shoot in manual mode, this flash will give you control and consistency.
Over all I am very pleased with this flash, in fact, I just bought another one!
For more info on using this flash, visit strobist.com

I've had this flash about a month now. I've been pretty happy with it and it does everything I need to do with an off camera flash. Great price.

I purchased an Olympus E510 DSLR as my first step out of non-SLR digitals. I just sooooooo missed using an SLR, I finally took the plunge and after a lot of comparisons I chose the Olympus for various outstanding reasons (although I must admit I had a hankering for Olympus all along after owning the same brand a number of times before). The pop-up flash, as only to be expected, was not always going to be up to the full game, so I looked around for an external flash. I went out with the idea of an Olympus dedicated unit at first..... but ouch..... the price. Then I stumbled across the Vivitar 285HV. I read a heap of previews, by far and away mostly good. There were, as expected, some less than glowing previews BUT, I was amazed by the number of previews that indicated that they were on their second or third unit over many years (the 285HV has really been around a long time) and had no hesitation in buying again. I am just a mug who likes simplicity in ease of use and instructions, which allows me to concentrate on my photos more than the technicalities of the equipment and the Vivitar 285HV fits the bill superbly. The only drawbacks I have are that it is relatively large and that I must mount it on the camera because the Olympus will not take a lead, allowing me to mount the flash on a bracket. You do miss out ever so slighly by the unit not having side-to-side swivel. ....BUT.... on price and outstanding simplistic performance, the WOW !!! factor is huge. I am very, very pleased with my purchase.
Brendon RUTTER. Australia.

This is an awesome vintage flash for today's digital SLR's. I like that it is compatible with my Nikon D-80. The only thing I wish it had was a swivel-head. But with a hot-shoe cable for off-camera flash, it doesn't really matter.