Josh, I just tested with my own *istD and AF500FTZ, and from the camera display, there were marked difference between no compensation and -2. I tried both f/8 and f/16. Focal distance was about 2.5m and the lens I used was a Sigma APO EX 70-200/2.8.
There is a chance that your flash or camera is faulty, but there are a few more factors you should check for first. One thing I really dislike with the 500FTZ is that it's sometimes difficult to insert all the way into the X-shoe. If yours is like mine, maybe it's not properly connected? The 500FTZ is a powerful flash, and the flash pulse is quite long lasting. Longer than eg. the AF400T. For this reason, I have had problems with it for closeups. How close was your subject? If your subject is close, then the flash may have difficulties quenching the amount of light emitted. hth, Jostein ----- Original Message ----- From: "Josh Goodman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Pentax Discuss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 8:57 PM Subject: Using the 500ftz flash with *ist d... > Bruce, > > I was testing this indoors. There was almost no ambient light (it was at > night with all of the lights off). I set the shutter speed to 1/125, > aperture was f/8. I did it like this b/c I just wanted to test the flash > exposure compensation. When I was in Manual mode and I used the internal > pop-up flash, the flash compensation worked great (the image was over or > under exposed by whatever amount of flash compensation that I set). When I > tried the exact same thing with the 500ftz, it would work as it should if I > was setting flash "over" compensation (the image would be brighter than > "correct" exposure) but when I tried "under" compensation (-1, -3, etc), it > would do absolutely nothing. In other words, an image taken with no flash > compensation had the exact same exposure (looked exactly the same) as an > image taken with -3 dialed in on the camera. > > > > Could you provide a little more detail, such as in manual mode, what > is your shutter speed and aperture set to. And what do you mean by > looks the same? Once you subtract too much the ambient light takes > over. How bright is it outside where you are trying this? > > -- > Best regards, > Bruce > > > Thursday, March 18, 2004, 10:35:30 AM, you wrote: > > JG> I'm having a problem getting flash compensation to work properly. I > read > JG> that if I put the camera on "M" that I could use the exposure > compensation > JG> function to act as flash compensation. This works fine with the pop-up > JG> flash, but when I try it with the 500ftz, it only works if I am adding > JG> compensation (+1, +1.5, +2, etc). When I subtract it (-1, -2 -3, etc), > the > JG> shots look exactly the same as they do with no compensation. Any ideas > on > JG> why this is happening? BTW, I'm using firmware 1.11 > > JG> Thanks. > JG> Josh >
