Metz MecaBlitz / Pentax Km Help!

Hello,

As the title suggests, have bought a new Metz Mecablitz 48 AF-1 Digital flash for use with my Pentax K-m.......

On the hotshoe - works great - P-TTL just fine, bounce any which way I want.

One very simple question -

I can get it to fire wirelessly (albeit on a fairly narrow arc of transmission/reception) but only if I have the p155y little on camera flash up. Is there a way (and I guess so through numerous menu settings) so I can leave the on camera built in flash off, and use the Metz wirelessly - particularly interested in doing this for some portraiture work where the model wants high contrast over face - i.e. flash positioned to one side of her.

Thanks

Lynton

You will need to look in the custom settings to set the pop up flash to controller. That should stop it from contributing to the overall exposure, well, more or less.

The wireless mode needs a flash to set off the off camera flash.

The only other option is a p-ttl cable, or a radio flash and manual mode.

Simple answer is no, there is no such way.
The pop-up flash needs to trigger the Metz, you can set the pop-up flash probably on controller in a menu and it should contribute little to the photo... depending on camera settings and range of course.

There are of course way to trigger the metz without the pop-up flash but you need some extras.
You need something like an infra-red or radio trigger on the hot-shoe of the camera and a receiver on the flash, that way you can work wireless.

cheers,

so wireless, is only wireless, if you buy extra wireless bits.........

Grrr.......

Maybe leave the on board up, 30 wraps of black gaffer tape!

Ebay here we come!!

Road-Dancer,

Many thanks - just downloaded the K-m manual - quicker than finding it in the study! - and using the moggy as a not very happy subject - works just fine.

Many thanks to all - who helped, and sorry for such a silly Q (Flash is all new to me)

There are no such things as silly questions.

Absolutely not true. You do not need to buy anything else to use your Metz flash wirelessly off-camera.

The term wireless in this case does not mean radio. Pentax/Metz/Sigma 'wireless' flashguns operate communidate using flashes of light, not radio.

You need the pop-up flash or another wireless(ly) enabled flash on the hotshoe to 'talk' to the off-camera flash. The on-camera flash can be set to Master, in which case the flash also contributes light to the scene, or it can be set to Controller and it will not contribute light to the scene (actually it does but the amount of light is almost negligible), but it will still flash during its communication with the off-camera flash.

The off-camera Pentax/Metz/Sigma flash in this setup needs to be set to Slave mode 1 (Pentax) and also set to wireless slave. On the K10/20D (I don't know the K-M) you also have to set the camera flash system to wireless using the function button.

It took me a while to figure it all out too but when you do, you'll find it works fine.

Glad to help, it's not amazingly intuitive to start with, but once you get your head around the wireless options, you open up a whole new realm of possibilities. I have two flashes and some cheap ebay triggers for manual work, and use the pop up flash and my Metz 48 as slave for optical wireless work.