Well, here I am after a very long absence. For my comeback I have reviewed the Vivitar VP-1 Varipower Adapter. I’ve purchased a couple of these during my time off from photography and I gotta say, I love them. During my absence I also bought a LaCrosse Technologies battery charger which is another cool piece of equipment but that’s another story.

So getting back to the Vivitar VP-1 Varipower Adapter, here’s the logic for buying 2 of these. I already had a pair of Vivitar 283 flashes that I use for off-camera wireless photography but the big problem was that I couldn’t control their power. They do have a thyristor adapter but it’s pretty much useless for practical purposes.

For this reason, I was long since drooling over the Vivitar 285 flash, which has a power adjusting knob and is an iconic workhorse flash for many pro photographers. Thing is, I paid about $30 each for the 2 Vivitar 283’s, from eBay, but a new Vivitar 285 goes for around $100. Even used ones go for more than $60.

However, Vivitar are also making these VP-1 Varipower Adapters that will replace the standard thyristor adapter on the 283. Awesome! One of these is $20. I knew about them for a long time and I figured, meh, they’re too expensive. But later I did the math and the math told me that it’s cheaper to buy 2 of these adapters for $40, plus my 283’s for $60, which gives me a total of $100 for 2 variable-power flashes. If I had bought a couple of 285’s, that would have cost me at the very least $120 for used ones or $200 for new ones.

Here you can see the Vivitar 283’s the way their mother made them: with the quirky and very much useless thyristor adapters. (Notice my awesomely-expensive-and-sophisticated diffusers made out of tissue paper and tape).

In this next one, here’s how the Vivitar 283 looks with the thyristor adapter removed. You can see the 5-hole socket which can also be modded with other stuff, including a home-made variable power adapter. Not being the hacker type of guy, I decided to stick to the real thing and that’s why I bought these puppies.

Here’s how the Vivitar VP-1 Varipower Adapters look like. They are bulkier than the thyristor adapter but that doesn’t really matter. Makes the 283 look even more like a tank. Notice the graduated power scale. The power on these babies can be adjusted to 1, ½, ¼, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 and even beyond that, even though the final position isn’t marked.

The next step is to simply plug in the new Varipower Adapters. I guess they could’ve made them smaller or something but it doesn’t really matter. They fit tightly inside the socket and there isn’t the slightest looseness.

Now all that’s left is to shoot some tests to confirm that the Vivitar VP-1 Varipower Adapter indeed works as intended. Next are the tests, shot with my Canon 30D and the cheapo eBay Cactus remotes. All shots are taken at 1/250, f/5.6 and ISO 100 with my Canon 24-70 L f/2.8 lens.

Full power (1/1)

Half power (1/2)

Quarter power (1/4)

One eighth power (1/8)

One sixteenth power (1/16)

One over thirty two power (1/32)

Beyond 1/32. There is one more dot beyond the 1/32 dot and it definitely cuts down even more of the power. Could it be 1/64? Maybe, but it’s strange that they didn’t mark it.

What also seems to be the case is that you can vary the power infinitely between these marked values since they aren’t keyed, i.e. the dial doesn’t snap to each of them.

Nice. I think that the Vivitar VP-1 Varipower Adapter is the best way to make your Vivitar 283 behave almost exactly like a 285, of course, barring the option of creating your own variable power adapter, but for that you need to possess the knowledge and ability to mess around with electronics stuff. For the rest of us, this looks like the surest bet. Now the only thing that the 285 has more over the 283 is the zooming head but that’s not really a big issue for me.

All that’s left now is for me to get off my lazy ass and actually start using these newly modded Vivitar 283’s

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 27th, 2007 at 1:27 pm and is filed under Lighting, Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.