Since my last four posts since my test didn't get through, I don't
expect this to either, but it is worth a try...
I actually have the Sigma flash, and it seems to work well on my K20.
I noticed that it does severely underexpose if the built in diffuser
is pulled out, but it works if I just don't mess with that. I think I
just lucked out with my Sigma working. I did want the 540, but at the
time I didn't think I could afford it (I am not really sure why I
thought this...I make all kinds of exceptions for camera gear ;o) I t
just seems that there isn't a perfect flash solution with a Pentax
camera.
Allison
On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 10:42 PM, John Sessoms<jsessoms...@nc.rr.com>
wrote:
From: Larry Colen
On Sat, Aug 01, 2009 at 11:45:02AM -0400, Adam Maas wrote:
The Sigma flashes have a well-earned reputation for being cheap
junk.
They're both cheaply built and also very rarely actually fully
compatible with the flash protocol they claim to support.
That's good to know.
Metz on the other hand makes superb kit.
If I stick with Pentax, I may well need to find something to replace
my AF540. I swear that I spend more time fighting that POS than I do
with it operating correctly.
Sometimes P-TTL works beautifully, sometimes I just get something
about four stops underexposed. That, however, may be the camera,
someone said that they tried a K-7 and where the K20 metered on the
reflection of the flash the K-7 metered on the rest of the scene.
Since I can't trust P-TTL to work properly, or may have other
reasons
to shoot in manual flash mode, I frequently want to. My AF-540 will
not stay in manual mode. It'll work in manual for a while and will
then spontaneously decide that what I really need is P-TTL.
I even sent it in to be repaired. They replaced a bunch of the
circuitry, but it still decides it knows better than me what I want.
I don't think it's possible to "repair" it so it won't do that. My
experience with the AF-540 is it will stay in whatever mode you set
it in
until it powers itself down to save the batteries.
When it powers up again it reverts to P-TTL and I think that's the
way
Pentax designed it.
So it's broken by design. One reason I love the mode switch on my
Nikon Speedlights. No way for the flash to override hardware selection
of mode.
Another peeve is that there is no manual control over the in camera
flash. I have studio strobes that can be optically triggered, but
there seems to be no way of doing so without putting a little dumb
external flash on my camera. It would be so simple to have a menu
item
to run the flash manually at full power down to 1/16 at 1/2 stop
intervals.
I wonder if setting the flash compensation for the built in flash
to -2EV
and fitting a small deflector to bounce it up to the ceiling would
work?
It might. But even then the preflash will trigger the strobes early.
If the strobes are smart enough to offer a preflash delay option, you
can also use a Nikon SG-3IR panel to block the visible portion of the
popup's firing (this should work for controlling a flash via wireless
TTL as well).
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