The rubber grip ring is different (less chunky/aggressive grip pattern) on the Samsung which might account for it being slightly lighter.

Yes, it looks that way. AF360FGZ here I come (in a month or two!)

I don't quite know why it's underexposing now, except that I've thrashed the batteries a bit doing the testing! But clearly it is unreliable whether it is going to manage to flash for the actual exposure every time, so not worth the risk.

Further to that - with red eye on, I can see _two_ flashes from the slave flash (green filter on still) through the viewfinder, so in fact the popup flash must go off three times. The last two must just be too close together for the slave to react

Cheers again

Pete

Yes. tried what you said. Clearly the flash is firing on the P_TTL preflash and not the actual picture taking flash, at least some of the the time. Unreliable, therefore not much use. In fact, doing that test, I can actually see the other flash firing (I put a green filter on it) through the viewfinder, and the resulting picture is underexposed.

Oh well, never mind. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up.

Thanks for pointing that out, no doubt it would have caught me out when I tried to record something that couldn't be repeated, a friend's party or something.

I tried with the red eye on, and clearly the slave flash does fire twice, but the picture is still underexposed - don't understand that.

Regards

Pete

Ok. I didn't know that was how the P-TTL worked. I hadn't noticed the pre flash, so it could be the case.

On the other hand, the Chinon normally will fire off three or four times when fully charged before it runs out of energy, I've used it in the past with the power winder on my MEF. I've been trying out all my old stuff with the K100D 'cos I don't have to pay for film

I'll do some tests when it gets dark with a tripod etc and use the timer to fire it off while I'm in front watching. I assume the flashes are far enough apart that I'd be able to see them? I'll report back anyway, I'd hate to mislead anyone.

Regards

Pete

If you are going to use a slave flash and money is tight, you don't need an (expensive) Pentax one - I have an ancient Chinon flash (p190C I think) that fires off my K100D's popup and seems to give reliable exposure set on auto at distances that are too much for the popup alone. This is presumably because exposure is still measured by the P-TTL process with the popup in use?

I assume any other flash that has a slave setting would work the same way. It's not on the hot shoe, so voltages don't matter.

But you'd still have the popup shining in the kid's eyes, albeit from further away.

And yes, I would like to replace the Chinon with a nice new Pentax AF360 thingy, particularly for the AF stuff - my wife gets really annoyed by the popup's strobing as it tries to autofocus - but that will have to wait until enough pennies are saved.

Regards

Pete

um, no I don't think I'll swap.

But it's saved me second guessing my decision to go for the K100D - which was really all I could afford anyway. I just wasn't sure that I was understanding the correct way of using it - there's a lot to learn.

Regards

Pete

Hi, I'm new around here. Sorry to jump in, but I'm a bit confused.

First, my camera is a K100D, not a K10D, and second I'm definitely not a professional photographer. For the last 20-odd years I've been using an MEF (which incidentally came with a KA 1.7 lens - probably they'd stopped making the AF lens by the time I bought it).

I have mainly M and KA lenses, and I haven't had any problem with either of them, once I found out you can't use old polarizing filters.

Now, with the M series lenses I can use them three ways,

a) aperture priority. which gets set regardless of what you set the dial to except manual, where as said they stay wide open but you get the right exposure within that limit

b) manual using the AE-Lock which gives an 'instant' exposure setting locked until the meter times out. This will expose correctly providing nothing moves (and will correctly close the aperture when the shutter is fired)

c) manual using the DOF on optical. zero in on the right exposure using the EV display, aperture is closed normally when you press the shutter. This produces right exposure within normal level - by which I mean errors I get are the normal sort of error I can easily commit on the old MEF. Plus, you can check round different parts of the area of the picture to check highs and lows, i.e the difference to b) is the metering is dynamic rather than a single snapshot.

Now, is there something that I am missing, or is it simply that all this works on the K100D and not on the K10D - in which case I'm pretty glad I didn't wait until I could afford the K10!

Regards

Pete

Also just got the Samsung version for £49.99 from Jacobs. I was going to perservere with my old F100-300 (the power zoom one), but couldn't resist . Quite apart from the lens quality the size is a big factor - if I'm on a 'non-photographic' trip I can stick it in my pocket.

I'm not in the market for DA*'s etc and I don't think there is any way you can get a better lens than this for the price, even S/H. I paid - slightly - more for the 100-300 off eBay than this one.

Hmm. Well, if you look at what we have been progressively able to pack on a chip and with the demand for smaller and smaller devices other than high end cameras, then the cost and pixel density of small devices will be where the investment goes. And I'm sure they'll solve any interference problems - we are good at this electronics stuff - ask Intel

Mind you, I don't suppose the manufacturers with the bandwidth for some small volume production will object to selling a few very expensive large cameras for those who feel they need them. And fair enough for the wide angle enthusiasts (I'm a tele fan, 300mm is my favourite lens) with what is available at the moment.

Maybe some lateral thinking on wide angle lens design is what is really called for, rather than going back to a larger physical camera size. For £800 a pop some real innovation would seem to be called for!