Off camera flash

I've got a Pentax SuperA and a Cobra D550 dedicated flashgun. I'd like the get the flash off the camera. I was pondering just using a PC sync lead but I'd quite like to keep the TTL dedication working.

Any suggestions for a cable or wireless solution that would do this? I only need a 5m reach.

Thanks

HI,
Assuming you want the flash to be 5Mtrs away from the camera, you might consider a slave trigger attached to the remote flash, and a smaller flash (to trigger the slave) attached to the camera. That'll do 5Mtrs easily but both guns will contribute light to your compostion. There are radio flash triggers available too where you fit a transmitter to the camera and a receiver to the flash. Search ebay for flash trigger, they mostly come from Hong Kong for about £10.

If you want a pseudo-hammerhead arrangement, where the flash is still attached to the camera, but moved a few inches away to avoid red-eye, the Pentax hotshoe grip is what you need. It comes with a bracket and connecting lead.

Regards,

Hi

Thanks for your reply. Just to clarify, I want to get the flash head up to 5m from the camera.

I've just had a quick look at the wireless kit in ebay, I'm a bit dubious about it as it is so cheap but it could be worth a go. Has anyone here tried one?

I've seen the pentax hot-shoe adapter but I was a bit surprised that they were £30 each and a long cable was £50! Over £100 to move my flash seems a bit steep!

I guess then you need to determine how much you are prepared to pay to achieve your aim. In making that decision you'll need to balance the frequency of use in this configuration against ease of use when you need to.

The radio triggers are not all cheap, I'm sure if you look around you can find some that cost many hundreds of pounds. I'd have thought that around £10/£15 for one of the chinese ones was worth the risk and ought to simplify the deployment of your flash when you actually need to.

If you wanted to go the hot shoe grip route, you'll also have a psuedo-hammerhead which might be useful.

I would have thought, though I haven't done it myself, that it is easy enough to make an extension cable of just about any length you want as long as the signal voltages don't drop too much that the flash doesn't work.

The hot shoe grip comes with a cable having I think 4 conductors. Companies like Radio Shaack, RadioSpares (RS Components) probably can supply a male/female 4 connector in-line plug/socket of small enough size. Then you need 2 pairs of these, cut the hotshoe grip cable and rejoin it with one pair of plug/socket. Make you extension lead with another pair, then simply join them all together when you need to mount your flash remotely. Ethernet cable has 4 shielded/twisted pairs of wires in it. You could use one pair for each contact to reduce the overall resistance of the cable. If you can find a 5Mtr Ethernet Patch cable, it'll be flexible enough.

Personally, I would go for the radio trigger but I doubt that you would keep the TTL functionality that you would retain with the hard-wired solution.

You can pick up most of what you need from Ebay, if you are not in a hurry. I got all mine that way for not too much money.

You need an adapter F, a 5P cable, and a hotshoe adapter F or Fg. Plus a soldering iron and some telephone cable to extend the length of the 5P cable (these come in various flavours, max length three metres). If you use DIN plugs/sockets you can make up cables of various lengths.

Although the 5P system was designed for AF cameras, it will work with the Super A, according to Boz. But I'll try it later on and let you know.

G

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Your help is much appreciated. I think I'll go for a cable solution as I would like to keep the TTL dedication.

On another forum I was pointed to http://www.paramountcords.com/ they make customer cables but don't seem to do anything for Pentax. I've emailed them to check and if I hear anything I'll let you know.

Thanks

Perhaps if anybody on here has experience of radio triggers, they could confirm that the TTL function is lost when using them.

Although it would no doubt be possible to build a fully functional radio trigger for Pentax TTL, I don't think it has been done. Such a device would obviously need 5P connections at both ends.

My radio trigger definitely does no more than trigger.

Incidentally, I have tested the 5P set-up with my Super A and an AF400FTZ flash. There was no film in the camera, so I cannot give you a cast-iron assurance, but it seems to work. At full aperture, the flash recycled instantly; at f22 it took an age to do so, so the flash is obviously working to the camera's instructions.

G

All bets and options considered, the cost of a hotshoe adaptor, for the body, and an adaptor for the flash, and a set of long and short cables, is going to add up. There are no ttl radio triggers for generic flashes that I'm aware of.
you may find thst a pc cord and shoe along with an inexpensive flashmeter (polaris- if they still make them) will be your most veritile option.

Don,

In my opinion it's not quite accurate to tag your flash with the generic label. As far as your camera is aware, the 'dedicated' module appears just like a Pentax badged flash unit. It follows then that any flash trigger/receiver would treat it, or need to treat it, the same.

Now I've been giving this radio business some thought and it occured to me that, if it is simple enough to transmit a signal to cause the flash to fire (send start signal), it ought to be equally simple to send the quench signal (send stop signal) too. After all, both signals are initiated by the camera.

Taking that further, as third party flashes need a 'dedication' module to suit the camera they are used with, so would any radio transmitter/receiver solution.

I haven't found one . . . yet.

In fact, its occured to me (OK, you all new anyway) that flashes only ever receive command signals, they don't transmit them. About the only signal I can think of that a flash sends is its readiness to operate, which in radio terms can safely be ignored . . . I think ! ! !

quantim has a wireless ttl flash unit (with pentax dedicated modual I believe), compatible with thier radio slaves. be prepared to sell your car.
;0)
http://www.adorama.com/QTQFT5D.html

Mannesty, I agree, I see no reason why the wireless triggers can't relay the "stop" signal. It should be easy enough to home-brew something but I'm not sure I've got the time these days (sadly I have a business to run...grrrrr....it always gets in the way of having fun...)

Don, thanks for the link to the Quantum unit. It's slightly out of my price range but at least I know such a beast exists! And thanks for the flash meter suggestion, that hadn't occurred to me but I can see it having advantages.

I bought a long PC-cord and hotshoe adapter at the weekend just to give it a try. It might be that the sort of 'home studio' setups I want to do will come out just fine with the basic kit.