Some quick help (I hope)

I apologise in advance - I am being lazy and hoping someone can refer me to some cheap kit that will let me use an AF400FTZ off camera without using the pop up flash as a trigger.

Cable is fine and radio thingy is fine but cheap is essential!

Many thanks.

Mike

Here.

Looks good - pity about the exchange rate!

Thanks for the link.

Mike

What about this?
link

Thanks Gwyn.

I actually came round to looking at

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/4-Channel-Wireless-Flash-Trigger-F-Canon-580EX-II-430EX_W0...

after Hefty's advice. If the one you refer to is free carriage then I'll go for that but I'm struggling to see the delivery fees.

Mike

I don't think carriage is free, but you do get a discount as a PU subscriber.
Personally I'd go for something UK based over something Hong Kong based, but that's just me.

In fact postage is £3 so I'll probably go with the Chinese option. I've had stuff from China before and indeed got into mild negotiations with a manufacturer of some excellent cleaning products with a view to importing them. But the up front cost of about 4k put me off, large minimum orders.

Mike

I have a flash bracket coming and would prefer some sort of wired solution but to be honest I am totally lost as to what I need.

Any advice would be appreciated.

How about this..?

That's more than I want to spend but I am seriously tempted as you know where you stand with a cable the darned thing will work and not be fussy.

I wish I could find a simple extension cord that would just fire the flipping flash and let me sort out the exposure.

Mike

Mike,
Assuming you are talking about a dSLR and the AF400FTZ, then since you can only use "A" or "M" on the flash then a simple "PC" cord will do the job.

Often camera shops will have a bucket full of them for next to nothing
You will need the hotshoe adapter (I got one thrown into an ebay camera kit I bought and sold the parts on), and one for the flash - but these are easy enough to come by. Hama make modern versions of them.

e.g. Camera hotshoe adapter
5m PC lead
(Can't find the PC-to-flash adapter at the moment)

There's also this (but may be for studio flash units only - not sure).

Hope that helps!
Matt

Matt - it sort of helps!

Right re-reading your post I think I get it:

The cord is a crappy simple cord easy to get.
The hot shoe adapter gives you a hole to plug the simple cord into
What you can't find at the moment is the thing I'd plug into the 5 pin socket on the flash gun.
Is this 5 pin connector Pentax specific or an industry standard?

At £34.50 your other suggestion is ruled right out!

At worst I'd use a radio one from China at £13 or so.

Hefty's suggestion would be ideal except it does all the complicated PTTL stuff as well which I really don't need or want or want to pay for.

I'm wondering if I can't butcher something and make an extension cable.

Thanks to all so far.

Mike

Mike,
The flashgun end should be the simple PC plug to hotshoe. You won't get PC-to-5pin
The Pentax flashguns will work with "dumb" cameras that only have the centre pin - ideally you'll need a plastic adapter since shorting out the Pentax-specific pins can cause a little havoc

But again, if you know what you're looking for you can often rummage around in a camera shop.

Matt

I haven't got a simple hole in the gun!

Which I assume means I need a hot shoe adapter for the gun to slip onto which does have simple hole plus the same sort of thing camera end. I'm being dense I know I am. I think I need to go to a shop and rummage.

What does PC stand for?

Mike

Prontor-Compur, a standard connector type for photographic flash synchronization.

Hope that helps