Wired Off Camera Flash

A cautionary tale
Has anyone else been mislead by the diagrams for using off camera flash setups in the Pentax documentation? Looking at the diagram on page 184 in the K10D manual or the Flash System diagram in the K10 catalogue it looks like you can stack the Hotshoe Adapter F. Indicating that they should have electrical contacts on the bottom.

What I needed was a way of using a Metz 58 AF-1 P off the camera, I had got it to work as a slave using the K10’s built in flash as a controller but as I wanted to use it to light macro shots outdoors so I thought using a wired system would be more reliable. So I ordered two F adapters and a cable from SRS, I was thinking about getting an FG and an F adapter but thought two F adapters would be more useful if I ever bought a second flash.

I was less than pleased when the adapters arrived and I found the F adaptors don’t have contacts on the bottom – just a hole for attaching to a tripod, so I couldn’t mount one of the F adaptors in the camera hot shoe. Fortunately SRS agreed to swap one of the F adaptors for an FG.

So a big thank you to SRS for swapping the adaptors at no extra charge – especially as the replacement FG arrived before they had received the adapter I returned to them.

Not quite Dave.

The Hot Shoe Adapter F definitely has a male hot shoe connector underneath and a female on top. (I have two of them, see them here)

The Hot Shoe Adapter FG has only the male hot shoe connector underneath and the 5P Extension Cord connector on top.

You must have received the Off-Camera Adapter F, which has a tripod mount on it's underside and female hot shoe connector on top.

All three adapters have the 5P socket for cable connection. You can see examples here.

I hope that clears up the confusion.

I see where the confusion has arisen now, on the SRS site they are labelled as Pentax Hot Shoe Adapter F, but in the description it does say they are for off-camera operation. I had missed the significance of that; I guess SRS could clarify things by labelling them more correctly as Off-Camera Adapter F.

It’s a pity Pentax called them both …Adapter F and didn’t differentiate them more clearly.

I recently bought a little cable off ebay.

It was labelled as "Pentax flash P-ttl trigger", and costed £18.

Bought it, from somewhere in Europe i think. I had been looking to buy the expensive hotshoe pentax trigger and cable (£30+£30+£27) for a while, and couldn't justify the incredible expence for such a ridiculous piece of kit.

Right, I received the trigger, and it is exactly like the pentax one, with a 1mt rolled cable, does P-ttl, works brilliantly, and costed only £18.

Perhaps you want to look for it on Ebay, and if you PM me, i can find the seller and the original buy it now auction.

Nathan

Thanks for the offer but the setup I have now works ok (although as you say ridiculously expensive). I have never bought anything off eBay but perhaps it’s something I should look at in the future when I get around to buying a second flash.

It’s a pity that nobody appears to make a P-TTL ring flash which is compatible with Pentax cameras. I do have a manual ring flash but I have never been that happy with the results.

P-TTL Ring Flash is coming soon.....

Got your email Dave!

Chris

Thats interesting. Keep us posted thanks Chris
Is it a pentax brand Flash or third party brand :

If your ring flash has adjustable power output then you should be just fine using "M" mode on the camera too! I'm not 100% sure that you'd get better results just because it's P-TTL...

If you're not sure, show me an example and I'll try and help you find the problem
Matt

It is a Pentax product

Chris

Must remember to tell John McD!

Dan

Cruel Daniel, very cruel.

Matt
The ring flash is ok with static objects where its possible to use a bit of trial and error to get the right exposure, but that’s not always practical when bug hunting outdoors.

I managed to get some interesting shots of a spider’s web last weekend using the Metz 58 off camera – mounting the camera on a tripod and hand holding the flash. Now if it would just stop raining for awhile I may get some more practice in.

Chris,
The Pentax ring flash sounds interesting – I will watch out for that.

Chris,
That's understandable then
Matt