lowcost4dslr

The Braun BVC 370 is a powerfull hammerhead with a good ergonomics. I paid this flash less than 20$

The Braun BVC 370 is an Auto Thyristor flash (also called computer flash) with a Guide Number of 37. It feature manual power reduction.

When I received it, the 2 first things I noticed were:

• The german buid quality
• This is the perfect size (not to big, not to heavy)

Then I opened the battery compartment. 4 AA batteries are located in the bottom of the flash. Thanks to that it is very well balanced compared to other hammerhead with batteries inside the head (e.g. Sunpak 522). The batteries compartment door design is excellent.

The head rotate very smoothly in both direction (for bounce flash using the ceil or unsig the wall). This make a big difference with the sunpak 522 where the rotation of the head makes you fear to break the head of the hammer !

Next step was to adapt it to my DSLR with the provided braket. Once again, the mecanical design is awesome. It is designed to be stable when attached to the DSLR with the braket. This make a great difference with Sunpak brackets (very unstable due to the massive screw thumb wheel under the bracket)

The connection to the DSLR is made with a PC-Sync cable provided with the flash. Or you connect it directlty to the PC-Sync socket of you body if available (e.g. SONY A700 or PENTAX K20) or using a Hot shoes adapter (widely available on ebay)

I measured 21.4 volts when applied to a hotshoe adapted. So if you use a hotshoe adapter, ensure that this voltage is lower than the not to exceed voltage to the shoe of your DSLR or ensure that your hotshoe adapter is a voltage safe one. I mount it on the PC-Sync socket of my Sony Alpha 700 which accept up to 400volts so I have no problems. Read your DSLR manual first.

I only have the flash user manual written in german. The problem is that I don't speak at all german !

There is a manual mode available called varipower. It allows 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 power reduction. To this flash has 6 power mode available.

I mostly use the Braun BVC 370 in computer mode (auto thyristor).

Operation is very simple  thanks to twoo nesteed cursors.

The first cursor is intended to report the sensor ISO you selected on your body.

Then the second cursor allow you to select the aperture you selected on your DSLR.

I would have prefered to start with f/2.8 at 100 iso. In my opinion, this is the main weekness of this flash. If the base sensibility of your DSLR is 200 iso it is worth because you can start only at f/5.6

Concerning the metring accuraty when using the computer mode, I would say that the Braun BVC 370 produce good exposure when used in direct light. Thanks to the Number Guide of 37 meters at 100 ISO and 35 mm focal length, you can use it to light huge rooms.

When used bounced to the ceiling or to the wall, the metering could be sometime sligtly underexposed when looking to the histogram.

This being said, this metering is more reliable than the one performed by modern TTL cobra flash when they are also used bounced to the ceil or to the wall.

I would rank the metering just lower than the one performed by the sunpak 522 which is perfect in my opinion and 100% reliable.

Recycle time depends on the charge level of the batteries. I use it with 4 AA 2500mAh batteries. recycle time is longuer than with the Sunpak 522 which use 6 AA batteries for roundly the same NG (36).

The recyle time being longuer tels you that you will run out of power and you 'll have to charge your batteries.

Overall, this Braun BVC 370 could have be my favorite flash if it was able to compute metering at f/2.8 for 100 or 200 iso. I love the mecanical design, the good ergonomics and the exposure provided by the computer mode is accurate.  But it is my walkaround flash because it is compact enough to fit into my current bag (Lowepro Flipside 400). Before the Lowepro Flipside 400 I owned a Flipside 300 that was to small for the Braun BVC 370.

But this is not a huge hammerhead. See the picture compared to a standard corbra flash: the Braun 340