Regarding Sputnik upgrades:

>I am also looking for a flash shoe mount.

Rather than going to a lot of trouble to mount a flash on top of your Sputnik I'd suggest
that you consider getting a flash bracket. I bought a $15 KALT flash bracket for my
Sputnik from B&H.

http://tinyurl.com/hko7q

This one is listed as being for "35mm cameras" but it works fine with my Spud. There
are heavier duty ones available for more money. This bracket allows me to position the
flash to avoid red eye and have some control over shadows, and also serves as a nice
handle to carry the camera around with. Before I started using the flash bracket I had a
few instances of Sputniks falling off of tripods while I was carrying them around. I
managed to pop out both the flash connection and the shutter release on various cameras
this way, they aren't designed to be dropped.

Incidentally I have permanently attached and hot glued down both the shutter release and
flash sync cables on my Sputnik to provide stress relief.
It is very frustrating to lose these connections and they pop out readily.

Jim Harp