Old flash accessories

I never had much luck with flash on the K5 to the extent I gave up using it altogether. However the K3 seems to handle flash correctly so I have dusted off my old (1980s) flash gear to see what may be usable.

It looks like the old stuff might work in Auto or Manual mode (not TTL) which is a lot less convenient than something like an AF540FGZ. So maybe the AF400T should be discarded. If it is worthless, transplanting its camera bracket to the 26 year old Hot Shoe Grip (Part No. 37126) with a new style flash unit would allow the old 'hammer' arrangement which I used to find very convenient. Looks like it will fit.

Something that I certainly have no use for is the LX dedicated three pin X sync lead which connected the AF400T. I expect it is quite rare but maybe an LX collector would have a use for it.

I picked up an LX lead in a job lot and sold it for a surprising amount of money (cant remember how much exactly) so maybe eBay is worth trying.

I have two AF400Ts still in use in the studio and they work perfectly well in M or A mode with modern DSLRs. For wedding photography I find them far more accurate and usable than P-TTL flashes which cause people to blink due to the the pre-flash pyrotechnic display.

You can use the bracket and grip combination link

Modern flashes like the AF540FGZ have an extra electrical contact on their shoe which shorts to the metalwork of the unmodified Hot Shoe Grip (HSG) causing it not to work.

Mattmatic and I were working on a modification to the Hot Shoe Grip at about the same time. He documented his efforts which were similar to mine except I didn't make the hole for the locking pin, neither did I dismantle the HSG to make the hole for the extra contact, but it works.

After modification you can mount a AF540FGZ atop the HSG and connect it back to the hot shoe on the camera with the appropriate cables and hot shoe adapter, of which I believe there are third party products available that are much cheaper than the Pentax branded products. I stuck to Pentax. You cannot use the cable that would normally be used to connect the HSG back to the cameras hot shoe, it doesn't have enough conductors in it.

Essentially it gives you a PTTL hammerhead flash.

See this topic for images of the mod.

Bought this link

on a whim after quickly reading this thread.

Only seeing now that the sync cord doesnt look to be what I'm after for hook up to a DSLR? Do I need to get a hold of a different cord? I could google, but you guys just know this stuff

I think you might need one of these to make that work.

the male pin alignment doesn't look right to me on that adapter. Am I missing something?

If your cable looks like the one below, a Pentax 4P synch cord C, that adapter should work fine. A PC synch socket is universal to all cameras.




However, looking at the link you provided I think you may have a 4P synch cord A which is for the Pentax LX camera.

What you really need is a Pentax 4P synch Cord B like the one below




Here's one.

There are links to all of the Pentax 4P (4 pin) cables here.

It was an "A" cable, so that "B" cable had to be purchased

Thanks for your help Peter. Looking forward to using it and comparing with my sigma 560dg super

Sorry not to have come back sooner. Thanks for comments and links Peter and Ken.

The fact is, I have been messing around with cameras for sixty years and use high grade stuff because I don't like working with anything less. Whether I actually need it any more is a different matter entirely.

The K3 in P-TTL mode is proving good enough for me and I'm not seeing the shut eye problem I got with the K5. So I'll probably never seriously use the old flash gear.

I think I was really fishing around to see if anything was too valuable to throw away or take apart, experiment with or bodge! Seems to me that nothing is worth a fortunate so maybe I will announce on Classifieds that it's available to anyone who can pay enough to cover postage and maybe a bit more.

I still have five of those weird LX flash socket covers in the original Pentax accessory bag. According to the other forum I am sitting on a small fortune.