Yet another K100d/K10d flash compatibility thread!

{Sigh}... yes I was afraid it might be expensive.

Thanks for that.

They may not be in whatever game we're talking about here, but a huge number of Mamiya and Chinon cameras continue to work. If the implication here is that Pentax will continue be around in the camera business for longer than Samsung then I think that's optimistic.

I assume the issue is that you now won't get customer service or repairs for those Chinons etc... certainly in as many years Samsung won't offer support for today's flashes. But by then do you really think it'll be compatible with any modern bodies anyway? In the meantime it will be covered by a warranty.

Why certainly?

Look I appreciate everyone likes Pentax and knows they make great stuff. Me too. But why keep assuming that anything with the Pentax name on is automatically better than a virtually identical product with a different name? Why continue to take it as a certainty that the Pentax is better made and/or with better components, with no evidence to support this except faith in the brand?

Very strange that it would fit because the two cars have nothing to do with each other...
The VW Rabbit is well, a VW product.
The other two mentioned are French garbage.
(the car was actually developed by Simca, the French division of Chrysler Europe, before that company was sold to Peugeot, which released the car as the Talbot Horizon)
Even the engines weren't the same because VW and Peugeot/Talbot never had anything to do with eachother

[edit]I stand corrected to the fact that they have used a VW engine for a while. Only the engine was shared and possibly the gearbox.[/edit]

I have been looking at different web shops here in the Netherlands and in Germany and I see that in most cases the prices are allmost the same and in some cases the Samsung units are more expensive!

One store is asking 249 for the Samsung 36 and 229 for the Pentax 360 and 389 for both the Samsung and Pentax 54/540 units

(all prices in Euro offcourse)

If you don't want to use the RTF (built-in flash) at the same time, and if you don't mind losing the tripod socket on the bottom, you can use a couple of Hotshoe Adapter Fs (F in the singular). These are probably easier to find.

G

I didn't say the Pentax was certainly better, I only said it was the safer choice.

here is my reasoning:

All evidence seems to suggest that the flashes are functionally the same, therefore there are no compatibility issues. We can extrapolate that they are at least built to the same design, which leaves two possibilities:

1. They are both built in the same factory and some of them get Samsung stamped on them at the end of the line, some get Pentax. In this case they are actually the same flash and will have exactly the same likelyhood of going bad. This is how the Samsung lenses work as I understand it, so it seems likely to be the case.

2. The two companies make their own flashes, but to the Pentax design. In this scenario we have one company with 30 years experience of camera gear manufacture and a very good record, and another company with lots of experience of general electronics but which has never made a flash gun before. This scenario also introduces the possibility that the components in the Sammy might be cheaper, hence less reliable.

We currently have no evidence to confirm or refute either hypothesis, so all we can say is based on probability. In either case, Pentax make Pentax flashes and can be expected to perform as they always have. In one scenario, Samsung are doing the manufacture themselves and are therefore an unknown quantity.

Therefore, Pentax is the safer choice in the same way as a car with a full service history is a safer choice than an identical car which looks to be in good condition.

note also that I don't think the Pentax is safer by far enough to justify twice the price, just that it is safer.

point is moot for me.
yesterday I checked two shops, and found:
k100's (5 at least)
k10's (4)
pentax flashes (both models)
16-45's (at least 5)
70mm ltd (3)
40mm ltd (1)
50mm macro (1)

3 used 28 mm f2 af's ($70,00 each)

no samsung equivelents.

sorry I only looked for stuff I'm looking to buy this summer.
golfdeisel, I'm refering to north american models from Dodge and Plymouth. American made vw rabbits mid eighties.

lot's of companies suorce out parts from other companies/countries.
I'ts even concievable that samsung could be BETTER built than pentax.

I can't afford to find out in the middle of a customers Wedding, either way. There's other places in my business where I can cut costs.

When it comes to work tools, stick with what you know, and buy the best you can afford.

I bought my Samsung flashgun because it was considerably cheaper at that time.
The cost about the same now so there is no reason for buying the Samsung version.

With mass produced electronics I find it very hard to believe that they would use lower spec components for the Samsung branded units and why should they?
To build different quality electronics on the same production lines in the same factory is very expensive because you will have to have a double inventory of parts.

Funny that Samsung don't mention that in the tech info on their website! I'm now very tempted by the SEF-54PZF at £181!

Yes but only the engines were VW sourced in the Dodge and Plymouth. The rest of the car was based on the Talbot Horizon allthough with heavy modifications like McPherson struts instead of torsion bars.
The engines were modified as well, they changed the cylinder heads.
The body work of the cars don't even look like a rabbit (which was the Mk1 Golf for us Europeans).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Omni
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VW_Rabbit

the cars do bear more than a passing resemblence.
I had a couple omnis, my best friend had a rabbit. The engines were swappable.
at one point I had a 2.2 l supercharged engine in my car and called it the "Lil' Dodge Ominous".
but I see there's more to the cars history than I knew about in the Wiki!

do you have reason to believe they are built in the same factory? or is this an assumption?

I ask because I agree with you 100%, IF they are from the same factory then they are the same flash and you should buy whichever is cheapest. To use different components this way would probably cost many times more than it saved.

IF they are from different factories, that's a whole different ball game.

As I have stated before, although I am arguing the case for the Pentax I'm basically being devils advocate. If I was given £181 tomorrow to spend on a flashgun then it would be the Samsung 54, the Sigma 500 Super or the Pentax 360 in that order.


Don, I'd be careful if I were you, there are quite a lot of Golf enthusiasts who would probably be calling for your head for suggesting that their beloved motor resembled a Talbot Horizon!

I'm of exactly the same mind.

I'm working hard on myself, trying to justify finding the money for the Samsung.

So far, I've got:

- the built in flash simply doesn't cut the mustard
- I want wireless
- I've only got a couple of old manual guns
- the Samsung 54 is almost certainly the same as the Pentax 540, and I'm not at all interested in the badge if that's the case
- I've spent a bloody fortune in the last 6 months on camera gear, what's another £250 or so (including the off-camera bits we were talking about earlier) ... poverty is poverty

Any more good reasons to go for it, to push me over the edge?

I'm begining to wish I had never mentioned the Samsung flashguns now as I seem to have stired up a hornets nest of confusing information. In this case I think the old saying "YOU PAYS YOUR MONEY AND YOU TAKES YOUR CHOICE" comes to mind. I think I will have to ask she who must be obeyed if I can have a few pennies from my pension to get a new ??????? flashgun for my K10D.

PS How did cars get into a Pentax forum.[/u][/i][/b]