Flashgun advice please

Jessops "360AFD Digital Flashgun for Pentax" is reduced from £99 to £69. I have been following the price for a few weeks now hoping for another reduction. In view of Jessops suspending trade with Pentax - and that the flashgun has now disappeared from the Jessops website, what do you think – buy the only one remaining in my local store, wait, or consider another flash? Is there anything comparable for the money?

buy it

Get it..

Get it before some other Pentax forum user does

Its not the Pentax 360 gun though is it, just Jessops own make which they have called the 360AFD.
Not sure it is even P-TTL.
They make versions for Canon, Pentax, Sony, Nikon .. etc etc

Yes that's the one.
Thats why I wrote Jessops "360AFD Digital Flashgun for Pentax" and not Pentax AF-360FGZ. Mebbe I should have explained in more detail - it all seemed so obvious to me in my eagerness to post!

You say "Not sure it is even P-TTL" like that is a basic function?
I seem to remember reading somewhere that P-TTL is no big advantage? Or was that on the Pentax 360? Or the K10D?

i'm not a flash expert, but i believe P-TTL is an advantage. It allows camera and flash gun to communicate and set the level of exposure and light output required for the shot

I was just mentioning it incase others were unaware of this gun and were telling you to buy it without knowing the model.

Sorry

Can anyone comment on any issues around PTTL/Pentax AF-360FGZ/K10D?

For the use it would get from a newbie such as I, is no PTTL an issue?

Spec of Jeesops flasf BTW is:

Dedicated TTL flashgun for digital and film cameras with the following features:


Guide number 36m/ISO 100
Bounce and swivel adjustment
Built in diffuser and reflector
Backlit LCD display
Autofocus assist light
Auto/manual Powerzoom settings
24/28/35/50/70/85mm Head Settings
5 Level power ratio : 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16
Requires 4 x AA batteries

Personally I would either buy the Pentax flash or a Sigma version with the P-TTL
It depends what you are going to use it for, If you are looking for the best image quality go for one that I mentioned or one of the other brands that has P-TTL.
Cheap is not always the best way.

You K10D doesn't support TTL metering, only P-TTL. This means if you want the camera to control the exposure you must use a P-TTL flash.

You can also use a flash with an "auto" mode (which the Jessops doesn't have either but the Pentax 360 does) whereby the flash itself calculates the amount of light required.

Finally you can use a manual flash - this would be the only option available to you if using the Jessops flash with the K10D and is OK if lighting conditions are fairly constant as set-up will probably involve a bit of trial and error on both the camera and the flash.

In summary, the Jessops flash will only work as a fully manual gun with your camera and to be honest you could get a good quality second hand Pentax manual gun on eBay for half the price and which will probably be better built and / or more powerful. If you want automation you need a modern Pentax / Metz / Sigma gun with P-TTL of which I'd personally go for either Pentax or Metz (ducks down and prepares to be pelted by angry Sigma fans).

Sorry I misunderstood your post in my eagerness to reply. I've read that the light quality from the Jessops 'gun isn't too great with dramatic fall-off and a hot spot in the centre. P-TTL, although I don't use it much myself is very good. I took some snaps indoors at a birthday party and the balance between ambient and flash was very good indeed. Definitley worth having.

I've got the cheaper 300AFDP and it does do P-TTL. Either that or it pre-flashes for no reason whatsoever and accidently gives far better results than the built-in unit every time.

Thank goodness I didn't pay the original £100 for it, though. It's as simple as a bounce flash gets

I don't own a Jessops flash so I can only go by their advertising blurb where it states it's a "dedicated TTL flashgun". Of course, that doesn't mean it doesn't support P-TTL but if it did I'd have expected them to mention the fact..?

Still, this is Jessops, I'm probably expecting too much to think they'd actually know their own products.

Bought a Jessops 360 flashgun last year with my K100D and have to say have been very dissappointed with the results....very under exposed and 5 shots taken in same conditions, i.e indoors, have varying degrees of exposure. To the best of my knowledge it does not have P-TTL or Auto. Have decided to but either Pentax or Metz.