Metz 50 AF-1 Flashgun Feedback

Ahoy!

I've just taken delivery of this flashgun (it's boxed complete and in immaculate condition and cost £180.00 new back in June 2011 - I have the original purchase receipt). I've also upgraded the firmware to v3.0 and you can see the product info and full specs here.

Not having owned this or any other K-Mount flashgun, it seems like a competent intermediate grade flash to me that has a lot of functionality coupled with excellent build quality, but the menu system really sucks as the text is so small and the menu access is far to fiddly. How do other owners of this gun rate it? I have mine set-up in P-TTL with HSS in auto mode, but the distance range displayed on screen doesn't match that of the lens! I don't know if this a weird anomaly with a Sigma lens attached, but I'm puzzled. Any ideas? I'm wondering if it's something to do with the Metz displaying the 35mm length (1.5x, so 35mm on lens is showing as 50mm on the flash), and I wonder if setting it to S-ZOOM would make any difference. See p104 of the user manual.

Yes the Metz uses 35mm focal lengths. S is if you want to use wide lenses if I remember correctly.

What a dumb thing to do!

Seems to solve the problem so i wouldnt. Call it dumb..

I only use mine in manual mode, i find pttl to erratic for my purposes and style of shooting...

According to Metz who replied to my email, you change the focal length output by turning on the SZoom (see chapter 9.9 of user manual). By setting the SZoom function, the flash unit's reflector is adapted to the chip size of camera.

Not yet tried this, but unless anyone has tried this and knows otherwise, maybe they'll post their findings here.

Hi Pirate, ive just set mine to zoom s and fitted my da 60-250 lens. the flash display shows 60mm when the lens is at 60mm but when i turn the lens to say 100mm the flash only changes to 70mm.