*istD and studio flash

I was over the moon to discover the x-sync socket on the *istD that I have just bought but how exactly do I get it to work?

Connecting with a lead and setting camera mode to manual and leaving the on-board flash down nothing happens. If I pop up the flash then the studio lighting works but this is probably the pre-flash on the on board flash setting it off.

I cannot find this covered anywhere in the manual so if anyone has practical experience then I'd love to hear!

Thanks

Scott

First, check your sync lead and studio flash settings - maybe your studio lights are triggering off the popup's light and not the sync lead.

You can short the pin to the outer case of the flash lead (ie unplug from the *ist-D and short with a ballpoint pen or something similar). The studio lighting should trigger.

You may also need to set the shutter speed to 1/180s or lower to get synchronisation. I haven't tried it, but I thought it worked in all modes - I can try tomorrow...

Hope that helps!
Matt

When I had my old Courteny units I had to reverse the polarity of the sync cable. Assuming that your sync cable has a 1/4" jack into the flash unit make a short cable with male and female plugs and cross the wires.

Alternatively you can get rid of the cables if you want using the following method, I'll assume you have a hot shoe flash (I use my AF-360FGZ for this) and the stobes have magic eyes. Attatch the flash unit to the camera and set it to manual, addjust or dial it down to its lowest power setting, if its can point it straight up or angled away from the scene, now you should be able to fire your strobes upto 1/180 or faster if you set HSS (only with Pentax P-TTL flash units). If I remember correctly you only get 1/60 with the PC sync setup but I honestly can't remember.

Hope this helps.

P.S. if they are old strobes I would recommend you use a weinsafe.

When I use studio flash with the *istDS I set the shutter speed manually to 1/180sec and set the aperture manually after checking it out with a flash meter. This means that zoom lenses should ideally have constant aperture value as you zoom.

The pop up flash is always set to manual use, and in fact I never use it.

Thanks Matt and McBrian

In fact I muddled through and it now works. I set the flash setting to 'red eye reduction'!!!!! on the camera - in cycling through flash settings, the normal flash symbol just never shows up as an option.

I had tried both WeinSafe on hotshoe and regular sync socket - latter shold be safe with any lights should it not? Anyway mine are newish Bowen Eclipses.

All the best

Scott

Scott,
I tried the *ist-D and the PC socket syncs only when the shutter speed is <= 1/125s.

So, you can leave the pop-up down, set manual mode, 1/125s and the PC socket will sync

Matt

Hello
I have the same problem. *istD with the latest firmware (maybe that is the problem?).

studio flash 'bulb' attached to pc-sync socket via cable. Flash and cable are fully fuctional (checked with Konica-Minolta A1). With *istD however, just not working at all.

I've checked the shutter speed, even changed the polarity of the cable's plug. Still no effect. Any other ideas?

ps.
Studio flash has some photo-cell, so i can optionally triger the flash with build-in flash, but how to switch it to manual on *istD? In KM A1 i have manual mode so the shutter goes with flash in the same time, without any p-ttl/adi lead flash. I don't see any clue of that in manual/menu in *istD...

pps.
I've made some discovery... This procedure works: plug the flash cord to pc-sync, pop-up internal flash til "lightning" icon appears into LCD, then close down the internal flash - the lightning icon will not disappear, and when you push the shutter release button, the external flash will fire...
Is there any easier and quicker way to achieve the goal?

ppps.
You know what the funny part is? I've attached my Metz44AF-3P and didn't switch it on - and... surprise! external flash on pc-sync started to respond! So... i have the studio flash working at last... With slow shutter speed of 1/125 (better this than nothing, i think...)...