New Weather-Sealed Flashes by Pentax

AF360FGZII and AF540GFZII

By PF Staff in Pentax Announcements on Aug 27, 2013

Pentax have just announced the AF 360FGZ II and AF 540FGZ II flashes, updated versions of their two main off-camera flashes.  While we were expecting this news following unveiling of new prototype flashes at the CES and CP+ trade shows, what comes to us as a surprise is the fact that both of these flashes are fully-weather sealed thanks to an AW (all-weather) design.

	AF 360 FGZ	AF 540 FGZ
Mark II
Original

Apart from the addition of weather sealing, the most notable change is without a doubt the fact that the new AF 360 flash now has a swivel head, a feature that was previously only available on the AF 540 and third-party flashes.  Furthermore, it looks like the AF 540 flash, the more powerful of the two, has been made much more compact.  Both new flashes now also have a built-in LED video light.

Over the past several years, our users have been posting complaints about the flimsiness of various parts of the old flashes.  Given the weather-sealed design of the Mark II versions, we would expect these issues to be resolved, but we will have to get our hands on both of these flash units before such a conclusion can be made.  Therefore, stay tuned for an in-depth review of these flashes soon!

The new AF 360FGZ II flash is launching at a price of $429, and you can already pre-order it at B&H Photo.  You can also pre-order the AF 540FGZ II for $629.

The full specifications of the new flashes are available in our Pentax flash database.