The 2nd one has a great humour to it! Good to see you enjoying the new kit as well Peter. A flash meter, that does sound very pro!

The light really pulls the attention straight to the eyes, and you've brought out the blond hair below as well. Its beautifully soft yet sharp in the right places as well ....great work!. I'd like to see a colour version as well, if you were planning that.

Yes, I would like to have a wide aperture autofocus lens, ideally a zoom, for this sort of thing, it would help you're right Stub.

Hello, no, P-TTL is only compatible with autofocus lenses. Your best bet for automatic flash exposure with Manual Focus lenses is 'auto-thyristor' mode, where the flash measures the returned light itself. The older 'MK1' AF-540FGZ flash has this mode ('A'), but you should find some older third party models that will be OK on Pentax DSLRs .... Vivitar is a well used type over the years. But you should specifically check the voltage is OK for your camera whenever using old film era flashes.

HSS is normally associated with P-TTL mode, so its a no no again with standard Pentax Dedicated System flashes and old M42 lenses ...... however, in theory, using a radio trigger system that offers Manual Mode HSS (such as the Cactus V6II) should work OK with manual lenses. However I've not seen any specific reports from actual use (most High Speed Syncers have got all the most modern gear!), so it is worth asking more widely about this..... the Cactus Community Forum would be a good place to try.....

link

Thanks Don, Gareth and Philip. No 2 it is then! I included the others because I liked the way bits of the green foliage around the flower pop into sharp focus....

I have to say that some of the stuff I get out of this D FA28-105 (supposed FF 'kit' lens) really doesnt look like it came from a zoom lens at all!

well knowing our retiring man there I think he would prefer his beers left in!. But I'll certainly do a cropped version too, thanks for the tip, it will bring the focus in to the character more.

Thanks for the points about the contrast ...I can try some more pop with the processing. These were actually from camera JPEGs, with the Portrait pre-set and default contrast, and so they did not go through the Sagelight RAW software, which usually does it's stuff to my DNGs automatically, and certainly adds punch, so I can boost things in PhotoShop more with these.

The challenge here was the lighting, with absolutely nothing inside the canopy, just awful deep shadow and the glaring brightness outside, so I've tried to limit contrast and I pitched the flash exposures low, both for contrast reasons as well as the black skin tones. I don't think my AF-549FGZII has ever experienced such a lot of twisting and spinning of the head constantly in such a short period before!

An irresistable photographic temptation, these richly coloured flowers were buried deep within the forested area of Canazarro Gardens in Wimbledon. They seemed the ideal subject to show off the capabilities of the D FA28-105 and its close focussing, which I find really useful and extremely accurate with autofocussing as well ....

Pentax K7, D FA28-105mm, ISO 400, F6.7, 1/25th sec ......(handheld with SR active)















I just had a look at them again, and I wonder if they're more pink than purple!! Too late to change the title ah well, purple / pink, whats the difference

I envy you with your easy access to the coast .... so many opportunities for your beach low light images! There's a peace and serenity to these photos, it feels like the place was yours.

A colleague asked me to attend a works 'leaving do' recently, and to take the role of 'official' photographer. It was an informal situation, although in a nice hotel garden. I had to be prepared for outdoor shots, but in the end with some rain around they all opted to stay under a white canopy. This was a bit difficult as there was limited room to move around, but the white material was a good surface for bounced flash with no colour issues to worry about. It was an uneven shape however, meaning I had to specifically adjust the 'aim' of the flash for each shot in order to get a good coverage and the right direction for the light to hit the subjects at decent angles ....

All with the K7, D FA28-105mm, Pentax AF-540FGZII (On-Camera P-TTL), mostly shot with ISO400, F5.6 - F8, 1/90th - 180th sec ......













































Thanks for your views, and any discussions on event photography! (questions often seem to come up about this situation)

Bold and colorful, you're really seemed out some secrets in the thick of it with that long zoom. The smoothness of the OOF areas and crystal clarity of the subjects is all impressive!