The bokeh is lovely
Personally I'd crop out the foreground OOF flowers to concentrate on the focused area

Matt

Certainly, leave the unit unpowered for a couple of hours before starting - that'll lower the stored charge for a start.

On the 'net, some suggest discharging with about a 10k resistor. Make sure you insulate the resistor legs so you don't short on anything else (you can stuff the capacitor with a quick discharge ). I seem to remember one guide would discharge with a high value resistor first (e.g. 1M), then proceed to the lower value to bring the charge right down.

Some insulated wire (or shrouded tip meter probes) going to a multimeter and the resistor should do the trick - then at least you can see the discharge proceed as well

Obviously - caution and a steady hand are both required
(Usual disclaimers apply here - £70 isn't much compared to your life )

Matt

I've had some nasty belts from the little caps in pocket digicams. They're a real pain in the fingers Goodness knows what kind of shock you'd get from the Metz - the energy discharge could be seriously painful or fatal (esp. if you have a heart condition). Obviously manufacturers have to cover themselves.

Somewhere there was a nice guide to correctly discharging flash caps... wish I could find it. Definitely do NOT just short them out!!!

Some flashguns (like the AF540 & AF360) have feet that can be removed and exchanged without having to disassemble the body. The AF540 even has a connector - so it's just 4 screws and unplug! The AF360 has to be desoldered - but that's not hard

Matt

Yup

You'll need to:
1) Put the camera in "M". Select a suitable shutter speed, e.g. 1/60s, and an aperture that suits the scene - say f/8. Set the ISO according to the amount of ambient light - start around ISO400 or ISO800

2) Put the flash in "A" mode.

Voila! No preflash

Note that in this mode the flash is doing the light level metering through a little sensor in the front of the flash body.

If you're taking shots of fast moving objects you may also find that the custom function 'focus on half-press' should be disabled. Then, when you push the shutter it will take the shot immediately. If you want auto focus, press the "AF" button on the back.
(Takes a little getting used to, but it's a definite plus for moving things!)

HTH!
Matt

There's a custom option "Auto EV compensation" - can you check what yours is set to? (on page C2)

I'll have a look later and see if I can create the same symptoms.
Matt

@Don: LOL! I certainly don't doubt that It's flipping slow on my Quad Core Xeon Dell (Generally the iMac 24 walks all over the Dell! )

Thanks for the info Gwyn

I'm looking at switching to Mac... which will mean losing Adobe CS2 Premium (unless I run it in VirtualBox under XP)

Matt

Thought this may interest some

http://video-books.net/buy_elements+mac.htm

Certainly looks like it covers all the main useful photography functions needed!

(There was always http://www.hiddenelements.com/ but v7 is the last one Richard Lynch did... not sure if it works on PSE

Matt

Well, I resisted Apple stuff for a long, long time.
Last year I got an iMac for work - unbelievable! It just works!!
Tried an iPod Classic - brilliantly simple interface and extremely usable for music.
Then invested in an iPod Touch. Stunning is all I can say!
(Admittedly iTunes 'issues' on Windows has been a pain... but I just shifted everything to Mac )

I'm definitely up for Apple stuff Wish I'd migrated ages ago

Developments - yeah, I could do it.... if I had the time There's a cost of $99 per year for Apple SDK and iTunes App Store support (maybe more depending on the development environment - but that's a little in the air with OS 4 and the new EULA :roll.


Alas, I don't think there's any way of controlling the Pentax dSLRs If they had BlueTooth then maybe (though Apple has restricted the kind of BT devices that can be attached by limiting the SDK API). It'd be a neat feature, but I can't see any way of technically accomplishing it.

Other database stuff would be useful. In fact, a combined Pentax app with DoF, Hyperfocal, Sunrise/set, user manuals would be cute (though all these things are available through other free apps). For example, I can have the K7 user manual, plus any other PDFs (including my Flash Guide if I needed it ) with "GoodReader Lite"

But there's no harm in bundling it all into a Pentax-only product. Hoya/Pentax only need to pay an external developer to do the job - wouldn't be much more expensive that traditional marketing campaigns!

Matt

Wow! An absolute bargain - well spotted