Help needed with Pentax 500 FTZ

Hi fellow Pentaxians...anybody of you figured out the way how to use dSLR with PENTAX FTZ 500 flash in Manual mode? I have this flash attached to K-5, when I switch it on, I set in the Manual mode on flash, so I can have full control. But as soon as I touch the shutter button on K-5 the flash mode automatically changes to auto TTL mode. Is there any settings in K-5 menu, which I need to change or what am I doing wrong? How do I prevent K-5 from changing to ttl mode whenever I touch the shutter button?

Setting the camera to M (manual) or B (bulb) exposure mode will allow you to use the AF500FTZ manually.

Hi Mannesty, I tried it....it doesn't work at all....every touch of the shutter buttons sets flash back to TTL, tried it also with 540FGZ aand the same problem happens.

I have both K-5 and K-5 II bodies and 2 x AF500FTZ and 2 x AF540FGZ flashes.

It all works as I have stated.

Q: Which lens do you have fitted?

So, there is a problem either with your flash, or your camera. Given that you have tried two different flashes with the same result, the problem points to the camera.

First, ensure your camera firmware is up to date.

Download version 1.14 from here, then try the flash again.

Next thing to do is clean the hot shoe contacts and the flash contacts.

Try that and report back.

PS: When I tried the K-5 + AF500FTZ combination, as soon as I set the camera to M, the flash followed suit and set itself to M.

Will it work with the flash set to Slave i.e. slide the on switch
to the other side. I always use mine set to that because the flash
times out otherwise. I always use mine as a slave though with an IR
trigger.

Also try it on something like 1/2 power.

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