It probably does, but your flash also has a pull-out catchlight panel, which is more efficient at throwing light forward to produce . . . err . . . catchlights in the subjects eyes.

To use it, extend the catchlight panel, tilt the flash head vertical and try it. You can throw a bit more light forward by gradually tilting the flash head back towards the subject. This setup will give you bounced flash (assuming you are indoors) and catchlights from the reflector. If that's not enough, maybe you should consider the metz 58 AF-1 flash instead which has a second flash tube for fill-in flash (secondary reflector as you called it).

Checkout the spec here. Metz callls it an extendible reflector card (2nd image from top on the right).

I'm afraid red-eye is an 'occupational hazard' when using a cameras pop-up flash. The basic problem is that the angle between the the flash, the subjects eyes, and the camera lens is so tiny that it can't be avoided unless you use the anti- redeye function.

The common solution to this is to use an external flash mounted on the hot shoe to increase the angle, but even that doesn't completely eliminate the problem in all circumstances.

By far the best portable solution is to mount the flash an a flash grip such that the flash head is above, and to the side of, the camera lens.

My own preference is to use a modified Pentax Hot Shoe Grip, either with the necessary cables connecting flash to camera, or set the camera to a wireless controller and trigger the now remote flash from it. It works for me.

I think you m ay have learned a lot from this thread in a very short space of time. Good luck.

Your understanding here is perfectly correct. But . . .

. . . the reason for triggering a remote flash can be, and often is, more complex than you describe here. You've described one of many reasons for doing so.

This means that it can't be mounted on the camera and used as a wireless master/controller to trigger other remote flashes.



The wireless master or controller flash, be it an expensive hot shoe mounted flash or the built-in pop-up uses a sequence of light pulses to 'talk' to the remote flash/flashes.

Your camera manual expressly forbids the use of a hotshoe mounted flash and the built-in flash together (check the note at the bottom of page 180 of the PDF manual). You must use only one. I doubt that the popup flash would fully extend anyway. To put it more simply, if you use the popup, don't fit another flash to the hotshoe. Set it up as a remote slave instead.

You can (depending on the capabilities of your external flash) use the popup as a trigger for a dumb slave if you can manually set the dumb slave flash output power to less than 50% . The dumb slave will then flash on both the pre-flash and the main flash from the popup, but you must then use totally manual everything to achieve consistant results.

Already addressed. To reiterate, don't do it.

I guess you could, but highlights in the eyes is usually achieved more simply with the catchlight panel which your flash has (white pull-out card at the top of the unit), or a piece of white card stuck to the top of the flash, and the flash head tilted above horizontal.

No. I'm guessing that the popup is in AF assist mode, so it's lighting the scene to get AF lock first. The popup flash, when used purely for flash exposure purposes, is in no way sluggish at all, on any Pentax camera body. It's your use of it that is making it sluggish. Try manual focus, you'll see how fast the flash is then. The pre-flash for exposure evaluation is one flash of light. It is then followed by a very fast sequence of light pulses to setup the remote flash, then the main flash occurs. I suspect that what you are experiencing is a rather loud noise accompanied by a burst of several flashes . . . this is the AF assist mode and has nothing at all to do with P-TTL or wireless flash operation.

Finally, have you checked that your flash has the latest firmware? If not, check it, and update it if necessary.

Really finally, if your K10D is at firmware version 1.0, update it. That first version didn't support wireless flash and I don't think there is any reference to wireless flash in the original manual. The updated manual pages are available with the firmware updates.

Hope that explains a bit for you.

Nope. So you'll have to visit both . . . then you can let us know.

Somebody's wife, by now. I suppose just enough time has elapsed for a divorce to be an option but I doubt it.

Thanks Matt.

You really do know all there is to know about the world, the universe, and everything

Cheers,

In digital computing/storage terms The K prefix meaning kilobyte = 1024 and not 1000.

1MB = 1024KB

It follows the binary progression since a bit of data can have one of two states, 0 or 1 (usually). Let's not confuse the issue with tristate devices.

Hence: 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1024 2048 etc

Thanks for clearing that up. It would seem then that you have, for whatever reason, a sluggish iris mechanism which is not stopping down fully before the shutter is released.

This problem is most often caused by oily blades but if your inspection shows them to be perfectly clean, the problem is elswhere in the mechanism.

My advice:-

1: Don't attempt to fix it yourself unless you are prepared to potentially trash the lens.
2: Live with the use of the delay unless you really want to keep these lenses for a long time.
3: Send the lens/lenses away for service/repair. You could try either www.asahiphoto.co.uk or www.harrowtechnical.co.uk if you are based in the UK.

Good luck & regards,

Did you mean under exposed? That would imply that the set aperture is too small and that the iris is stopping down ok. If it wasn't stopping down far enough, your images would be over exposed.

If you meant over exposed, then there would seem to be an issue somewhere.

If you have oil on your iris blades, you'll be able to see it very easily. With lens in hand, select the smallest aperture and operate the stop down lever if necessary to close the iris.
Inspect both sides of the iris. If it looks at all wet, you have oil on your blades and they'll need a service to fix the problem.