Its an adjustment wrench for the Turbo Encabulator.
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXJKdh1KZ0w )

Not a food photo expert, but some comments on appeal...

For the first, get your color balance correct. If color balance is correct, stay away from strong yellow / green light and light reflecting from such colors..
Additionally, if its something that is going to melt and sag into a less than appetizing slump, serve it cold (or less hot). i.e. Would be better if you could see the layers or at least a more structured display.

For the second, beyond the reflection in the glass the lighting is nice except you need to increase exposure a bit and maybe fill the shadows slightly. The dirty plates in the background do not add to the appeal.

Been using my K7 and K5 for years in heavy downpours, and even cleaned after events by rinsing with water under the tap (low pressure). Finally sent the K5 in for repair of sensor stain issue (minor enough I lived with it for more than a year).

When it came back and the thing essentially filled with water under a single light rain. (DA* 16-50 lens attached -- a combo that should be, and was up to that point, quite WR).

Obviously the seals were damaged during the repair.

Naturally, Pentax found no flaws and stated the camera was only meant to be water resistant "through mist and light rain". (er, ANY camera , WR or not, can withstand mist or light rain!)
Regardless of the videos of sales reps pouring water over it, Pentax "never heard of such a thing". Yeah, they actually told me that.

Anyway, had to pay for repairs since water damage is not covered under their warranty.

Just be aware that Pentax will not stand behind their product, and be ready to take responsibility if it gets water damaged.

With other brands, you can stretch the sync speed a bit as long as you are aware of the limitations and effects of doing such a thing (ie. the black bar on one edge due to the way faster-than-sync-speed is achieved).

Sadly, Pentax disables the hotshoe and PC-Sync port, if you have one).
Only PTTL compatible flashes with HighSpeedSync will allow this to work on Pentax work -- but then the reduced output is also quite a limiting factor.

Luckily the actual need for higher sync speed is actually a pretty niche requirement.
You can often get away without it. As others have requested, let us know what it is you're trying to achieve and we might have workable solutions.

I guess I'd have to agree, if behavior was consistent and made sense for three years and is different now, sounds like a problem. The only thing I find that affects the shutter speed and might lock it at 1/90 is the trailing shutter-sync switch. It may be that the switch is faulty.
Although if that were true, the LCD on the back would probably have an icon for ">/" (arrows then lightning bolt) rather than the normal "/>" (lightning bolt then arrows)

At least repairs are fairly less expensive than a new flash. Just sad to be without it for the number of weeks to get repaired.

Is the left switch (over the word SYNC) in the far left position? If not put it there.
There is a contrast mode that will limit the shutter speed. I don't think that is your problem, but double check the switch isn't perhaps slightly one click over when it looks/feels like it is where is "should" be.

I'm not hat familiar with P mode, but I'm surprised it would fire at 1/180 in the first place.
For me, the shutter speed changed with light conditions whether the flash is on or not.
It might be the camera's MTF Program Line mode might have changed? (Camera menu #3 "Program Line").
This will change whether shutter, aperture, or some combo will be affected.


Perhaps it may be time to get out of P mode, and try Av or Manual mode.
P mode really results in a lot of guesswork by allowing the camera to do its own voodoo magic.
If you start taking control of the camera, the flash might respond in more predictable and sensible ways.
Although honestly... PTTL is pretty much a crap-shoot to begin with. But it seems much better in most cases with the K5.

I think the conversion of #2 might look good with image #1. At least as far as the building and sky are concerned. The ground looks better in #1.
Something about the image#2 that seems to lack detail. Dunno if its the conversion, that is it different focal length, or just soft but I don't know if I'd say our of focus. Just that #1 is better to begin with.

Seal the entire camera, lens and all still attached, into a ZIP-Lock bag. The moisture will condense on the bag instead of on/in the camera. Once it has all warmed up after a few hours, you can open the bag.
Putting a desiccant (moisture sucking product) or some white rice in the bag will help, but isn't really necessary.
(btw, rice tends to be dusty, so I would probably only do that with a dust resistant camera).

Blarhg! Upgrade price for PSE 11 is more than what I paid for v10 itself.
Thats a lot of upgrade money for some Instagram-style filters.

I'll have to tell my friend who thinking about getting Elements to look for v10 though.

This is a long winded and in-depth explanation, but the following might be helpful if you're going to do these sorts of photos quite often;

http://photo.net/learn/dark_noise/

In short (very short), take a "dark frame", and use Photoshop to blend with "Difference" mode to cancel out noise from your images. The dark frame should match your exposure time, but can be re-used for future photos.
You do NOT need to take one for every photo (that is basically what your camera does when you turn on noise cancellation and is why you want to make sure it is turned off!)