Pentax-A with a flash - Lensd setting when taking a flash

I just bought a Pentax 1000 for my daughter. It's been a while since I had one.

Question:
When using an automatic flash, I know to set the speed at 1/60. But I seem to remember, that you also set the lens’s aperture to "A". Is that correct? The flash I am using is an old Vivitar Electronic Flash 2000. It has an Automatic and Manual setting. The lens is a standard Pentax-A 1:2 50mm lens. I seem to remember that the camera really worked well with those configurations with the flash in it’s automatic mode., but maybe I’m mistaken.

You cannot use the A setting on the lens with the Pentax K1000, which is a fully manual camera.

You are correctly setting 1/60 which is the flash-synch speed. On the automatic flash gun there will be some colour coded settings for automatic operation. For example, one of my guns has a red and blue setting. Let us assume we are using a 100 ASA film. The red setting then indicates an f/stop of f/2.8 and this would be set on the camera, offering automatic flash exposure from 7.6 to 40 feet. The flash gun will cut off when enough reflected light has been received by its sensor. The blue setting indicates the use of f/4 and offers automatic flash exposure from 5 to 30 feet.

This is only an example and your flash gun may have different colour coding and may be more powerful than the one I have quoted, but the principle remains the same.

Hope this helps!

and camera and don't really know how to use it appropriately either..

Read all about it here:

http://www.bdimitrov.de/kmp/technology/hot-shoe/index.html

G