[dosdan]

I've only had this since Friday & it was raining on Saturday so I've not had a chance yet to use this seriously, but I've taken quite a few shots in the house & in the garden. Here are my initial comments.



The assembly shown on a K20D. The flash is relatively tall. At the top of the flash reflector you can see the lip of a pull-out, spring-fold-down wide-angle diffuser panel. When this is pulled out & down it covers about 85% of the width of the flash reflector and allows the flash unit to go below 24mm (Film)/16mm (DSLR) coverage to 17mm (Film)/11mm (DSLR).

The zoom flash head has 7 FL steps:

Code:

Film  DSLR
24      16
28      19 
35      23
50      33
70      47
85      57
105     70

With an F or later lens, the flash will automatic track the lens FL. The display always shows the film FL. For example with a DA 16mm-45mm zoom it shows 24mm & 70mm at the two extremes of FL on the flash's display. I would prefer it to have an option to show the DSLR FL instead.

Below the flash head you can see the red AF Auxiliary Light. As well as flashing briefly in LL situations to help the AF (its range is 0.7m-9m (2.3'-29.5')), it also flashes slowly & regularly in off-camera slave mode to remind you that the flash is operating in this mode.







Here is a side view with the battery compartment open. I find the compartment lid a little fiddly. The slanting design, the long flash head & the relatively high & forward battery compartment location means that there is a lot of weigh to the front of the flash mount. This tends to pull the front of camera down when you carry it on a neck strap. Li batteries, an upright shape & locating the battery compartment lower would have produced a better product, in my opinion.

You can bounce the light up or to either side. Vertically, there are indentations at -7 (depressed a little for close-ups), 0 (straight ahead), 60, 75 (inline with the slanted body), 90 degrees (straight up), but puzzlingly, not at 45 degrees. You can still set it at the approx. intermediate position, but a click stop would have been appreciated.






The LCD layout is a bit sparse & seems illogical. Above you can see a "P". This means the flash is currently running P-TTL. The "P" should be up next to the "TTL" indication. On the left you have the flash EV indicator showing that EV is applied and on the far right the value of EV (+1) applied. They should be next to each other. Also I can not understand why there is not an option to just show metres or feet. Showing both just wastes screen space and makes the display a bit harder to interpret.

When I first tried the flash on a K20D it was far too under-exposed. I found I had to use the maximum of both the camera's flash EV & the flash unit's EV compensation (+1.0 in both cases) meaning that overall the unit needs about +2.0 EV to correctly illuminate. However once I applied this, the exposures seem good. This may be correctable through rechipping, but I bought it from O/S and don't want to go through the expense & delay of sending it to Sigma for alteration. I'm prepared to live with it as long as the EV adjustments are sufficient.

The flash unit will hold the settings for at least a few minutes so you can turn it off, have it auto power-down or change the batteries and still keep the EV setting, but you will need to reselect it after a longer delay, like leaving the unit unpowered while recharging the batteries. Swapping to a 2nd set of batteries would alleviate this minor concern. It's better this way then losing the settings more quickly.

So far, I've also tried out:

HSS (high speed sync) - using the flash unit with a camera shutter speed faster than 1/180s - the unit calls it FP (Focal Plane).

Slave mode - using the Sigma 530 on a stand away from the camera and relying on the camera's built-in flash to trigger it. (Wirelessly).

Multi mode - stroboscopic multiple flashes during one longer camera exposure to show multiple steps in an action.

M (Manual) mode - I tried this with a Pentax-M 50/F1.7 and got a correct exposure after 2-3 attempts. I used the distance display on the flash's LCD to estimate how much I had to change the flash's output level (e.g. 1/16th of full output). I was rather pleased that I got this result with a few different photos so early in the learning curve. I consider that, with experience, Manual mode should not be too difficult to work with. Perhaps the experience I gained struggling using the built-in flash on the K100DS & K20D with Pentax-M & M42 lenses has helped a bit.

Followup: I just tried a series of night-time shots of the same object with this M lens: ISO200, F5.6, 0.3s, 1/10s, 1/60s, 1/125s 1/180s. I decided to set the flash output level to 1/16th full output. The distance graph shows 13m (40') - instead of a range of distance bars, it just has a sole bar at the matching distance. All shots were correctly exposed. I thought I would need to adjust flash output level in each case, but no. I then tried it at 0.3s without flash. It was about a stop down. This indicates that when the exposure from the flash (very fast) is much larger than the contribution from ambient light even with a much longer exposure, then the overall exposure is determined by the flash output level (and lens aperture), not by the shutter speed. I've still got plenty to learn.

The unit was not that expensive ($220 USD) and I got it from 47th Street Photo NY.

By, the way the shots were taken with a K100DS with Mk. II kit lens, and holding that compared to the K2D0 + DA 16-45/F4 + Sigma 530 Super makes my old camera feel almost like a toy in size & weight.

Dan.

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Last edited by dosdan; 02-15-2009 at 12:49 PM.

[mattdm]

Well-done mini-review — thanks! Everything fits pretty well with my experience, although I didn't have the exposure issues you mention.

I have a quick, small comment, and a question.

The comment is simply that the zoom head stops are basically industry-standard (although not all units go to 105mm EFL). Pentax and Metz can show the dSLR focal length, by the way.

And the question is: the show-stopper issue I had with this flash is that the annoying low-light focus-assist strobe from the built-in flash would falsely trigger the Sigma flash in wireless P-TTL mode about a third of the time. Does this happen to you? I asked Sigma about it and they offered no help, but it's possible this has been fixed in firmware.

[dosdan]

And the question is: the show-stopper issue I had with this flash is that the annoying low-light focus-assist strobe from the built-in flash would falsely trigger the Sigma flash in wireless P-TTL mode about a third of the time. Does this happen to you? I asked Sigma about it and they offered no help, but it's possible this has been fixed in firmware.

I'll have to try Slave Mode a lot more to answer your question. Hopefully, I'll be able to do it sometime this week.

I've added a comment to my post about using Manual mode.

BTW, are you aware of any key sequence that will show the firmware level?

Dan.

[dosdan]

And the question is: the show-stopper issue I had with this flash is that the annoying low-light focus-assist strobe from the built-in flash would falsely trigger the Sigma flash in wireless P-TTL mode about a third of the time. Does this happen to you? I asked Sigma about it and they offered no help, but it's possible this has been fixed in firmware.

Matt, I got false triggering in remote wireless slave mode but not as much as you experienced.

My setup:

Lounge room without main light on so it was semi-dark.

Built-in flash on cam - test flash only, not full firing.

Camera - 4m from subject

Sigma flash - wirelessly slaved - 60 deg. off cam-subject axis & 2m from subject

DA lens & AF.S

Half-pressing shutter release to generate cam's built-in test flash to assist AF.

Out of 34 1/2 presses, the Sigma falsely fired 4 times. 2nd run: 5 false flashes out of 36. So in this particular situation & orientation the err rate was about 1 in 8.

But if I changed the Sigma to 30 degrees off-axis, still 2m, the false flash rate dropped to 1 in 34. It may even have been lower as I purposefully fully fired the camera on the 35th go to ensure the the slave would respond - it did.

Dan.

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Last edited by dosdan; 02-18-2009 at 03:11 AM.

[mattdm]

Thank you very much for the experiment. My "a third of the time" number isn't based on anything so scientific, just my impression, which was probably overinflated because it's so annoying to miss a shot when it happens.

[jv.pentax]

Hi, dosdan
I also have this flash and with my K100D works fine in PTTL
I agree with you with the weird settings, and I wonder if there
is a really comprehensive user-manual or if someone has made a
user guide to help undestand the menus and options.

You mention you used it in FP mode ¿did it really work? I tried it
but it seemed not to work: it underexposed. Perhaps I didn't know how to
make it work, because I'm newbe. . do you have any advice?

[Idanz0r]

hello friends.
first of all - great review dosdan!

I have a little question.
There is any way to fire wirelessly the flash without triggering built in flash?

[dosdan]

There is any way to fire wirelessly the flash without triggering built in flash?

You can have the built-in flash only contribute a "test" flash, but you can't have the built-in flash not fire at all - the "wireless" signalling to the the remote slave flash (Sigma) is done by light reflected off the subject from the camera's test flash, not by radio.

Look at the two shots below:




The Sigma is set up on the floor pointing up at about 30 degress and to the left of the speaker. I'm standing up & to the right of the speaker. In both shots the built-in flash was up. Camera set to Wireless flash mode.

Left shot - both fired.

Right shot - the camera only contributed a "test" flash. In the K20D, this is done by Custom setting 29. Flash in Wireless Mode - Off (option 2).


So the camera test flash is either too weak or too early (or both) to illuminate the final shot, but it is still flashes.


Dan.

[dosdan]

You mention you used it in FP mode, did it really work? I tried it but it seemed not to work: it underexposed. Perhaps I didn't know how to
make it work, because I'm newbe. . do you have any advice?

When I tried FP flash mode at 1/180s, 1/750s & 1/3000s with the Sigma on the camera, I found the faster shots were brighter, rather than darker. This was on a static subject. Camera running flash EV +1.0, no flash EV set on the Sigma itself. I've haven't had a need to use this mode in normal shooting yet.

Dan.

[jv.pentax]

Thanks Dan,

I'll test it again, I'm just testing and playing with it and all
its features to understand how it works and what I can
do with it.

Regards.

[Idanz0r]

Thanks for the answer dosdan!

[adammm]

I've just purchased one of these flashes, and was really disappointed with the manual. I'm a read-the-manual sort of guy, and found it frustrating. I'm sure the fault also lies with the interface. It just doesn't make sense. I can sometimes get it to do what I want, but sometimes it seems impossible.

I agree with you with the weird settings, and I wonder if there
is a really comprehensive user-manual or if someone has made a
user guide to help undestand the menus and options.

Does such a guide exist? Can someone here shed some light on what it all means? The thing that bugs me the most right now is that I'm trying to shoot wirelessly. The manual says (pp18) "1. Press the [MODE] button to Select the P/TTL/Z---z/SL mark."
Pressing the mode button cycles through various modes, none of which show the collection of symbols described, and none of which work.

Any help?

[adammm]

I turned it off, pulled the batteries out for a while and then tried again. The mode I wanted is back, but I don't know where it went before, so I'm still not happy.

[Eruditass]

Can you do wireless slave/master in both p-ttl and manual power mode?

Can you do manual power mode in all camera exposure modes? (P,Av,Tv,M)

Also if anyone knows the answer for the Metz flashes, thanks!

[adammm]

Eruditass I think you are able to but I can't even tell what I'm doing when I get it to fire, let alone work out how to deliberately get it to do something. Gloom.
Does anyone have straightforward instructions, or a clear explanation of just what it all means?