[mattdm]

The Promaster is definitely P-TTL - Spoke to a Pentax dealer who sells them and he highly recommended it. He had the 7500ED but wanted $279. It's a nice flash! Now I just need to find it online for cheap!

I wanted to move this discussion out of the knowledge-base thread... so....

I'm curious. What's the appeal of this flash? It seems to have less raw power than the Sigma EF530 DG or the Metz 48 AF-1, yet costs more than either of those. And those have HSS and can be used as a wireless P-TTL slave using Pentax's 4-channel optical system. (And if you don't need those, the non-super Sigma is significantly cheaper and still more powerful.) But I'm really just starting to learn the details here, so perhaps there's something I'm missing?

[mattdm]

So, uh, not much enthusiasm, eh?

[Tom M]

I was not aware that it was less powerful but, I thought it was cheaper at $227. Not to mention Promaster has other P-TTL flashes that sell for between $100 and $169 MSRP..

I liked it because it was cheaper than the AF540 but still had tilt and swivel - Also it has a secondary flash head..

[mattdm]

I was not aware that it was less powerful but, I thought it was cheaper at $227. Not to mention Promaster has other P-TTL flashes that sell for between $100 and $169 MSRP..

Yeah, that's the point of my trying to collect some comparative data.

I liked it because it was cheaper than the AF540 but still had tilt and swivel - Also it has a secondary flash head..

Have you used/seen the Sigma or Metz units? How does it compare in build?

[Tom M]

I have seen the Promaster in the flesh - Photo Zone has it on their shelf here in NJ.. It seems quite nice to me. Of course it's all plastic like every other flash out there but the build seems solid to me. I have also seen the Sigma and Pentax. In my opinion, the Pentax finish looks the best but, we all know that is worth exactly nothing when compared to broken battery doors and stuck flashes.

To the flash manufacturer - make me a flash that just freaking works with no cheap plastic bits to break or fall off with consistent exposure and all the features that should be expected and use the K10D battery for god sakes!!! Making me carry AA's is stupid because then I need to pack more AA's and a charger, or what? A battery pack and charger? Stop it!! Just use the same damn battery the camera does already!

[mattdm]

Tom, you mention in your little review that it works in wireless P-TTL mode. I didn't see that in their specs. Is it really doing the P-TTL protocol, or is it working as an Auto slave that's smart enough to ignore the preflash?

If it is P-TTL wireless, can you change the channel it uses?

Pretty cool if it works, because that gives us four different brand options for this.

[Tom M]

Scratch that- it is wireless slave that is smart enough to not fire on the preflash.

I had just assumed it was p-ttl because it works perfectly but sort of didn't realize that because I was shooting in manual mode and adjusting the flash output for each device manually, that I was not even using p-ttl.

For the flash to be working in p-ttl it needs to be set to the TTL mode, which is not wireless mode.

Correct me if I'm wrong though - Isn't p-ttl really only useful when the camera is set to Green mode, AKA Auto mode? I ask because in every other instance/Mode I always adjust the shutter/aperture/ISO/flash output for each shot. Only in Greenmode do I let the camera do it's thing, which includes p-ttl, correct?

[Tom M]

Very strange occurance..

With the flash ON and in TTL mode but not attached to the camera I fired a few shots with the camera using it's flash. It did not trigger the flash as it should not have based on features of the flash BUT when I reattached the flash to the camera it would no longer sync and was firing on the preflash. How strange I thought. So, I removed the batteries and pressed the flash discharge button, replaced the batteries and it worked perfectly again. So, I repeated what I had done and sure enough, it loses sync every time BUT it shouldn't. If you get what I mean.

Why does the flash lose sync when it's NOT attached and NOT in wireless mode? It leaves me to think that there is the circutry there for wireless p-ttl but not fully implemented.