AF540/360 in wireless Manual mode

I have now got a AF540 II in addition to my AF360, so I have been practicing with wireless flash on my K1. All going well with P-TTL.

So I thought I would try manual flash control. Neither the 360 nor the 540 will accept the setting of Wireless-Manual together with Master or Control. The 540 will not give you any option other than Slave, and on the 360 (older version with the buttons) if you move the slider out of slave setting to master or control the mode immediately changes to P-TTL

So is the correct way to proceed to use the off-camera flash in Manual-Slave mode, and the on-camera flash in PTTL Master/control mode ?

Or am I missing something very basic.

Hi Peter, what you're seeing is normal ....Wireless Master/Control only offers P-TTL mode. If you only want to have your slave emitting light then use 'control' mode with the on-camera flash, which you can combine with Manual mode on the slave flash.

If you want to have light output from the on-camera flash also, then its more logical to operate that manually also. To do that then switch out of Wireless mode and operate the on-camera flash in 'normal' M mode ... Then operate the slave flash in 'dumb optical' SL2 slave mode (remaining set to wireless M also). The two will then sync ok.

Remember that you need to use the camera in Manual exposure mode .... You can't use M flash mode combined with an auto-exposure mode.

Thanks very much Nigel. I did see the SL2 mode references in the manual, but couldn't make very much sense out of it.

Appreciate your help.

No problem Peter, I'm glad to hear you've got your two flashes working together. I mix the older '540' model with the newer one, and despite the interface differences it's not difficult to keep finding the way around because essentially the functions are the same.

I have not yet covered the slave modes in the 'Pentax Flash Guide', but that is being addressed with a detailed new section in the Guide Supplement which will soon be published. The SL2 mode is for use with any manual triggering flash ....it could even he triggered by another nearby slave flash. It's very handy also for adding an extra flash if you don't have enough triggers. The normal 'line of sight' principles apply.