Do hot shoe contacts provide power, or are they only for flash triggering and communication?
Asked 3/23/2021
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I’m designing a small accessory that mounts in a camera hot shoe. I know the center contact and shoe ground are the standard flash-sync connection, but I’d like to know whether a camera hot shoe can also supply power.
My camera is a Pentax K-5, which has extra contacts in addition to the center pin. Are those extra contacts standardized in any way, or are they manufacturer-specific? I’m looking for general information about hot shoe electrical connections, including whether any systems provide accessory power and whether there are published pinouts or voltages.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
5y ago
2 Answers
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The two hotshoe designs with power supply contacts for small accessory flashes are the newer-version micro four-thirds (Panasonic/Olympus) and Fuji hotshoes. The power contact on both of these is brass-colored.
AFAIK, none of the other camera brand hotshoes have a similar contact. The non-sync contacts are primarily for electronic communication for features like TTL and HSS.
Originally by user27440. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user27440
5y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
The standard hot shoe connection (ISO 518) does not provide a general power output. The center pin and shoe/ground are essentially just the flash-sync switch connection, and PC sync works the same way.
On most cameras, the extra hot shoe contacts are proprietary and mainly used for communication features such as TTL flash control and high-speed sync, not for powering accessories. There is no single universal pinout for those added contacts.
Some systems do provide power on extended hot shoe contacts for specific accessories—examples mentioned include newer Micro Four Thirds and some Fuji shoes, often for small flashes or other dedicated accessories. But those implementations are brand-specific, and in practice the extensions are not generally standardized across manufacturers.
So for a Pentax K-5, you should not assume the extra contacts provide usable accessory power unless Pentax specifically documents it. For a DIY accessory, it’s usually more practical and compatible to give the accessory its own power source rather than relying on camera hot shoe power.
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