Yeah, had on tripod with cable release and 2 second delay.

No shake reduction, of course. I am really surprised at the difference even when taken straight as jpeg and not as RAW.
Been hearing so much about how the K10D's jpeg engine is poor, but RAW is quite comparable if not better than competitors.
If jpeg is poor, I'll have to play with some RAW conversions and see how those stand up.

And all this time I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong and why I could not get sharp photos. It ends up that my istD is just much more soft than I realized.

[edit]
I have a couple of good examples from the two cameras. I'll have to find a good place to post them.

I just picked up my K10D this weekend. I am very happy with it.
In fact, using the same lens, lighting and similar settings, the K10D shows so much more detail than the istD.

I always thought it was merely my cheap lenses (Sigma 18-200) that was causing some unsharp photos. But even with my f1.4 50mm Pentax lens, I never really saw much difference in image quality from the Sigma 18-200.

Well, now I see a huge difference! The Sigma is OK, but no where near as sharp as with the 50mm prime. Of course I only see this difference when used on the K10D.

Is the K10D that much better, or do you think I need to have the istD serviced in some way? I would not think going to 10MP would make the difference.

I do hope this thread is real. Having wire-less fire from the built-in flash would make me sooooo happy!

I just bought the K10D over the weekend regardless of the shortcoming, since I have both a 360 and 540 flash anyway.
But being able to use both flashes again without the third dumb flash would be very exciting.

Thanks for the confirmation!
The Feb issue of "Popular Photography"states "The built-in flash can function as a wireless trigger to Pentax accessory flashes -- with or without firing itself. " That is a pretty straight forward contradiction, so I think they were probably just reading some websites for their source of information and never actually touched the camera themselves!


Anyway, I have been doing the same manual setup myself since I have been working with animals a bit and they react too quickly to the pre-flash of the wire-less remote anyway. So that seems to work well. (just would be nice to have PTTL control without the extra flash for stills and people)

I did not know about the sync with pre-flash with the 360/540. I have been using a totally dumb flash as the trigger. Is there something special to do to get the 360/540 to make that happen or do they somehow detect that the master is a Pentax flash?

If I could get the camera to do some of the work for me, that would be great.. I need an excuse to get another flash.

Thanks again.

OK, the K10 is out and about... the manuals clearly state the remote firing of flash requires a second external flash plugged into the camera. Yet I see current reviews saying the built-in flash can wire-lessly fire remote flashes.

Anyone here actually have the K10 and a 360 or 540 flash and can state for a fact if it is or is not possible? I do not yet have any stores nearby that carry Pentax to go try this, so if any kind souls could shed some light on the truth I'd appreciate it.

Thanks

Yeah, $50 is what I was expecting. I've read rumors that it was some sort of standard battery regardless of the specific branding and model number. Hopefully that is true or the prices come down in a while.

OK, now that the K10D is "shipping", whatever that may mean, I've been checking prices for the equipment I'll need.
What struck me was the $200 price tag for the spare battery!!

I planned on getting the additional grip. It does not include a battery, but I can't really justify over $400 for the darned thing!
Is $200 really standard for extra camera batteries? Or are we just being raked over the coals for a new product line?

Without the use of AA or CRV3 batteries, it would be stupid to go out and not have a spare for the K10D. But at $200, I'll stick with my old istD or convert to another brand. For the cost of a few batteries, I can get another new lens!

They seem to be going to about $30 or so for other brand cameras... or are my searches finding the wrong items?

The 540FGZ is a great flash.

The 360 has all the same features except the head does not swivel, it is not quite as bright, and can be found for a great deal less than the 540 now.
They are both quite nice to work with.

I would suggest using the external flash whenever you have a need for flash. You'll probably soon find that you won't even bother with the popup if you can help it.

I initially used a generic (pentax compatible) flash for some time. For 10% the cost of either the alternatives it was worthwhile.
I had to manually adjust the light output but it gave decent results.
After a while I realized how much I used the external flash and felt the upgrade was worth the price.

If you rarely use flash, you may want to go the cheapo route and see if you have the need or desire to shell out more for ease of use.

Yeah, I am getting the axe ready and the piggy bank has an awfully frienghtened look on its face.

Thanks Matt.

Guess we'll just have to wait for the final production model. The magazine had a hands on trial and indicated specifically that wireless flash was available. Maybe the hardware is there, and they're just waiting in software to finalize depending on feedback?? Maybe they had a trial version of software with wireless flash turned on. (one can hope)
Although, more likely the magazine was wrong... like you stated, no images of menus or LCD seem to back up that capability.

I have yet to get studio flashe synch (or 360/540 in slave 2 mode) to work consistently with the pop-up flash due to ttl pre-flash. But with a cheap second hand dumb flash with no concept of PTTL on the hot-shoe, the studio flashes fire flawlessly. (I have the ist-D).
For wildlife and pets photos, this works better than PTTL wireless anyway, as they react much quicker to the pre-flashes than humans do. (are we that daft, or just more accepting?)