[Russell-Evans]

Sweet! It worked! Not 100% of the time- I guess I'll have to work on placement.

Since the head rotates, try pointing the front of the flash towards the camera. The receiver is on the front so this should help quite a bit.

Edit: This is a bit of bad information. The receiver is actually under the battery door on the Metz 48. You can see it has its own little window. Point this window towards the master/controller.

Thank you
Russell

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Last edited by Russell-Evans; 01-13-2010 at 11:47 PM.

[ikonographics]

I'm so glad I found this thread. I had exactly the same problem. Thanks for the great advice!

[schmik]

I'll chime in on this thread too... no need start another one for the same flash and same newbie questions.

I got mine yesterday. Had a long play with it last night. Love it but i have a few questions.

Is it possible to use the flash in Manual mode and as a slave. ie have it off camera and use the + - buttons to adjust the output?
Obviously you can do it in PTTL mode and use the Flash EV + -. I guess this would be roughly the same thing.

Is the sync speed set to 1/125 permanently? Can it be changed? People complain about pentax having a limit of 1/180? Why? Isn't that what HSS is for?

What's the story with 'pre flash' and PTTL mode? I understand what it's for and how it works but why do people complain about it? with K7 + metz 48 it seems pretty fast.... ie barely able to notice it.

Cheers
mike

[SOldBear]

I don't have the Metz 48. So I just attempt at your general questions.

People complain about pentax having a limit of 1/180? Why? Isn't that what HSS is for?

The duration of the flash is very short, 1/10000 sec is not uncommon.

The plane shutter is essentially two curtains traveling in the same direction, one after another. The opening (slit) between the curtains determines the shutter speed. During exposure, this slid travels across the sensor. The sync shutter speed is the highest speed at which the sensor is fully exposed.

In general, the flash has to fire when the sensor is fully exposed. Otherwise, only part of the sensor is illuminated by the flash, the other part will be dark.

When the sensor is fully exposed, the camera body sends the sync signal to the flash to fire.

In HSS, instead of one powerful strobe with a very short duration, the flash emits a series of less powerful strobes over a period of time. The length of this period is slightly greater than the time it takes for the slit to travel across the sensor. This requires accurate timing and power output management. Thus in order to support HSS, the flash needs to be "dedicated" to the body, not a generic flash.

People complain about Pentax having a limit of 1/180 sec because not everyone uses dedicated flash.

What's the story with 'pre flash' and PTTL mode? I understand what it's for and how it works but why do people complain about it? with K7 + metz 48 it seems pretty fast.... ie barely able to notice it.

In P-TTL or the like, the pre-flash strobe and the main strobe are very close to each other, but are still two distinct strobes nonetheless.

1. If you use optical sensors to trigger slave flashes, the slaves will fire at the pre-flash strobe and miss the main flash. There are optical sensors that can ignore the pre-flash strobe but they are fairly new and not very common.

2. There are people who react to the pre-flash strobe. As a result, their eyes close during the main strobe.

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Last edited by SOldBear; 10-27-2009 at 10:51 PM.

[simico]

Is it possible to use the flash in Manual mode and as a slave. ie have it off camera and use the + - buttons to adjust the output?

No, at least not in (optical) wireless mode. It works only as (P-)TTL wireless slave. If you use it with radio triggers then you can use it in M mode, of course.