AF540, AF360 or Jessops 360FGZ

Hi - could anyone offer some advice to a complete novice, please.

I have a K10D, and do some low-light and night time wildlife photography of animals visiting a partly artificially-lit garden feeding station (not very bright light). I currently use a jessops 300 flash on camera, which produces ok results, but often the animals have "green eye" and the photo looks quite flat. I can't really bounce the flash as this flashgun only tilts vertically and there's nothing above the camera to bounce off outside!
I was considering upgrading my flash unit, and was looking at the options - possibly using off-camera wireless flash (but suspect I'll need the IR focussing beam on the flash to help out the camera AF in the dark, so this may not work), or using on-camera flash bounced from the side whitewashed wall (therefore needing swivel head).

I'm a bit of a beginner and as I'm photographing animals moving round within an area (with potentially varied natural lighting at dusk / in moonlight) I would want to use auto-exposure modes as much as possible, though I realise I will have to experiment a bit if I am bouncing flash. I'm not expecting miracles - I know this is never going to be easy to light well, but would like to see if I could improve my photos a bit.

Is it worth my trying the AF540 to swivel bounce the flash off the wall. Would the Jessops 360 do just as well, or would the 540 be better due to the possibility of experimenting with wireless off-camera flash? Would I be better with 2 Pentax 360's?
Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Welcome to the forum, Amber.

This is a common problem with direct flash you may want to try a flash deffuser such as the Omni-Bounce diffuser. Though using this will reduce your flash output requiring compensation of about 1 stop on the flash output, though you will need to experiment with this to find the right setting.

Before you try one of these, you may want to try greseproof paper or tissue paper over the front of the flash head atached with an elastic band.

Hope this gives you some ideas and this is much cheaper than getting a bigger flash that will only do the same thing, just at a greater distance!

I'm always in search of the holy grail, in one form or another. Having given up the search for the perfect woman (spent too much), and for the perfect inexpensive Chardonnay (drank too much), I have more recently been looking for the perfect cheap flash diffuser.

Omni do a nice one called the Omni Bounce. I have a couple.

Recently I have bought a couple of these:

http://search.ebay.co.uk/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=...

This seller sells a variety of diffusers, but avoid the inflatable one (too fiddly).

The Stofens are OK, but expensive for what they are. The socks that fit right over the gun are OK, but not the best, and fiddly.

They all work, albeit with the loss of some power, but the camera will handle that.

G

Hi Amber,

I am no expert in this forum, but I do own the AF360...

Just to clarify, It does have wireless off camera (infrared) facility, so in this aspect it doesn't differ the Af 540. This wireless is set off by the on camera flash, and it works brilliantly if that is the type of photography you need. Otherwise, you can buy a small radio trigger (ebay £10/15 +/- ) and only use the off camera flash.

I am honestly not sure what the exact differences between the 2 (360 vs. 540) are, but I can tell you that I recently bought a second flash (jessops 300) and this little (quite useless) flash is in another world compared to the Af 360.
If, as you say, you are a beginner, I see no need for the pentax AF540 which - apart from the higher guide number - provides more or less the same features as the AF360 (and tiltable head) and looks seriously complicated. Already the 360 is a whole new experience to a flash novice, and will give you many many days of studying before you're able to not use it in full auto (P-TTL).

Hope this helps,

Cheers,
Nathan

If you are planning on photographing animals, I would tell you to not bother trying wire less flash. Any animals I've tried to photograph have quicker response to light than most people I've met.

A lot of people don't seem bothered or even notice, but with all the pre-flashes required for metering and wire less flash communication, you'll need a pretty dumb, slow, blind and/or tame animal in order to get a photo with its eyes open. (or with the animal still in the frame)

I would even recommend staying away from the 360/540 simply because I don't believe you can turn off the pre-flashes for metering. Anyone know if Manual mode bypasses metering - does it behave differently than the pop-up flash in this regard?? (I believe even manual still causes pre-flashes. Always caused troubles for syncing studio strobes, so I suspect pre-flashes even in full manual).

You may need to get a pc-sync cable and adapters in order to bypass any PTTL comms and force only the single flash required for lighting. But then you have to manually calculate or practice to get the right amount of flash, etc... May not seem the easiest route for a beginner, but may be less frustrating than wondering why so many of your shots are of the tail end of your subject. (Will likely give more consistent lighting/exposure anyway)

I like the radio remote triggers because they work like PC sync. Again, no metering pre-flash, so I get much less response to the flash when photographing dogs, for instance.

The AF360/540 will flash once in the "M" mode (that's "M" on the flash).
Additionally, if you temporarily switch the camera to "M" mode, you can select the "A" mode on the flash - which will stay when you switch back to any other mode. Again - only one flash there

Perhaps it's a bit fiddly, but I reckon the Pentax flashes do more than some of the other "compatible" flashes

Matt

Thanks for all the advice - sorry I've been a while replying - been away!
Sounds like it may be worth my trying a diffuser first, with my existing flash, to see if that works. Will let you know!

I don't want to put Sto-fen out of business, but an Ecover washing up liquid bottle is practically identical, once you cut off the top and remove the label it's a perfect smooth fit on a Metz 48 AF-1 and is probably good for all flash heads.

Have been reading up a bit on Gary Fong's Lightsphere. Seems good, although not cheap, but would quite happliy spend that if it is good (have a wedding to do soon!). Anyone had any experience with one?

Have you had a look at his Whale Tail product. Looks awesome, so does the price.

Yeah, there are a couple of videos on his site too, all seems to make sense. Would pay the money if they are as good as they look, reviews are great, but recommendations from here would help!

If no one here has any experience with them, I will take the plunge, and let you know!

My girlfriend's uncle has both the soft and the clear lightsphere and swears by them. I have been looking at them for a while and just came up with a replacement that works just as well and costs about 2p.

I have been very pleased using the Gary Fong Lightspheres when I've borrowed them but I can't spend £50 on a cast piece of transparent plastic.

What you need:

Elastic Band
Bubble Wrap
Glue

Make a cylinder out of the bubble wrap and glue it together. Leave it to dry for a few minutes. Slide the elastic band over the top of the flash then place the now dry bubble cylinder over the top of the flash which has been rotated to the same 90 degree angle Gary Fong recommends. Move the elastic band over the cylinder and hey presto, lightsphere equivalent for 2p!

Sounds like Blue Peter...

Here is one I made earlier:




The great thing about this is you can also build a whole range of accessories go with it just as cheaply

PS. The contraption I made is very tall but you can roll it down to change the hight and how it diffuses the light.

Clever idea.

What glue do you use to stick bubble wrap :

PVA, prit stick type stuff, superglue... Doesn't matter as long as it sticks...

BTW I have the seam at the back of the flash where it won't affect the image as there is an overlapped tab for the glue.

I used a dual layer bubble wrap with the flat side of the sheets against each other. You can use a single layer with the flat sheet inside or outside. There are a lot of ways to modify the light output, the more layers of wrapping the softer (and less powerful the light).

That's funny. I'm gonna try it...

Getting back to the flash, here's one nutcase deal from Jessops:

http://www.jessops.com/Store/s68308/1-132-182-183/Home/Accessories/Flash/Flashguns/Jessops/360AFD-Digital-Flashgun-for-Pentax/details.aspx

Google for a discount code and you might get another 25% off it too.

I've got a huge bruise on my head and a hole in my wall since I bought the (pretty good) 300AFD for the same price a couple of months ago...