[smcook99]

So you wouldn't say it's the lack of power on the 360 that prevents you from choosing it but instead the inconvenience?

[aleonx3]

To me it is because I seldom use the flash in full power. The limitations as DAZ and others have pointed out are true too if that applies to you. My AF360 is used primarily as a slave flash when I need to use it in multiple-flash setup situation. Also, in some cases, I use reflectors to augment the lighting as well especially in outdoor situation.

[Peter Zack]

It is going to give you less distance for fill flash as well as the swivel.

The guide number of the flash is 119 and 178 for the 540. Ts is the output power rating.
The following will give you some understanding of guide numbers: Demystifying Flash Guide Numbers

But suffice to say that you will be fine with the 360 in most situations as people tend to use fill flash for fairly close sbjects.

[aleonx3]

Using the examples from DAZ, you just have to aware of the limitation of the AF360 flash, and make the necessary adjustment by moving closer to the subject that you want the fill-flash to reach. With the AF540, you just have a few more head room/feet to play with (keeping in mind that PTTL will take care of that). If you are tight on money, AF360 flash makes sense, otherwise, as some may have suggested, go for the AF540, which gives you the most flexibility.

[jboyde]

The Metz 48AF might be a good compromise. Its over $100 less than the 540 and you get the same features, including swivel. The rear panel might not be as intuitive but its not much of a problem. The guide number is 138 at 100ft so its definitely powerful.

I'd aslo suggest the Sigma 530 DG Super but you might not be able to sync up to 1/180 sec with some wireless triggers. I'm using the Cactus V4s and the safest is 1/125. At 1/160 I get a black bar at the bottom of the pic 80% of the time.

Just throwin' it out there.

[smcook99]

I ordered a 360 from bhphoto yesterday, free ground shipping and just received it this morning. WOW fast shipping!

[Lowell Goudge]

Thank you, this has been most informative. I am just left with a single question before I make my 360 purchase. I understand the power is greater on the 540 is greater, is this mostly in terms of low light photography or would it give me another 20' in daytime fillflash?

I have both 360 and 540 flashes but I use the 360 sparingly because of the lack of swivel head especially when I need to take the photos in vertical orientation. Another way of overcoming the lack of swivel head is to use the off-camera sync cord which I find it to be quite useful as well. Good luck with your decision.

For me there are 2 reeal limitations with the 360, flash power, and flash power is flash power, you will get more distance with the 540 because it has more power, whether this is for fill or for low light situations.

Aleons3 has hit the second real issue,. lack of a swivel means that the 360 can only do a ceiling bounce with horizontal frame, not vertical. That is a big big limitation in my opinion. you can compensate by zooming out and cropping but you give up on loss of resolution. might be OK for snap shots, but not for serious work.

[smcook99]

Dam Dam Dam. Now I'm second guessing my purchase LOL. Not so much about the swivel, but about the power. LOL. I guess I'll shoot this for a week and if I encounter any situations where it lacks the power I'll return it and upgrade to the bigger unit.

[DAZ]

Oh don’t do that. Just buy more stuff! You can go out and get an inexpensive (or if you like an expensive) flash bracket that allows you to point the flash anywhere you like. There is more than one way to shave (the kinder gentler but still annoying to the cat even if more difficult to do way) a cat.
DAZ

[smcook99]

No DAZ, I wasn't referring to the swivel ability (I don't do vertical shots). I meant the power limitation lol.

One of the greatest photos I've ever taken was done by my 3MP camera phone. The lighting, the saturation, the position, range to subject all perfect. So if 3MP can give me an 8.5 x 11 print out that is crystal, I figure there is no harm in rotating and cropping a 16MP image. So I don't waste the time taking vertical shots for my needs. My only concern is power (distance) of the flash because like I said I'm constantly navigating around these huge playgrounds.

[smcook99]

Ok, so I got my 360 today and started playing. I haven't gotten to try fill or HSS yet but I've used it indoors at 45degree bounce. I found that in GREEN,Aperture Priority the camera jacks the ISO up to 1600 (which is noisy on my k20d). If I fix the ISO at 800 the flash lights up the room nicely. If I fix the ISO at 400, again, pretty nice but starting to go dark without increasing the EV compensation (correct term?). 200 and 100 are out of the question.

[ Please excuse me if another thread touched on this because I couldn't find it, also feel free to suggest reading on this. I read a lot (including the manuals but none cleared up these questions) ]

1) If I had the 540 would I be able to take the same shot at ISO200 and ISO100?

2nd Question) As the hotshoe flash: If I increase the flash +.5 or +1 on the flash or the camera body it doesn't show the new value on the other but clearly increases the light output, and doubly so if I increase on the flash and camera. So am I correct in thinking, on my flash itself I can increase +1 and then go into my camera settings and increase flash output even more on top of increasing the camera's ev?

3) The unit has a pullout diffuser and bounce card. Are they meant to be used at the same time is it prudent to use only the bounce card sometimes? Are there any tutorials on when to use which angle, or item on the flash for which scenario?

Thanks,
-Shawn

[MrApollinax]

Post some pictures for us to take a look at what might be going on.

[DAZ]

I going to try and answer in reverse order as the questions are easier.

The diffuser is not a diffuser in the classical flash approach. What the pop out is doing is widen the beam for when you are using a wider lens so you can have it cover this bigger area. This will not make the light any softer. A classical flash diffuser will widen the beam and make the flash bigger to the subject. This would make the light softer. You would generally only use the pull out for direct flash not bounce flash as the thing you are bouncing the flash off of will diffuse the light.

The pull out card is used when bounce flash. The idea is if you have to point the flash almost straight up to hit the ceiling and if you are close to the subject this will tend to make the eyes look dark like a doll. The catch card will put a twinkle in there eyes. If the flash is pointed more down so some of the light is getting directly onto the subject you don’t need the card. As you can see there is not much use using both at the same time.

OK next the controls.

First the metering. When you use the EV control what you are telling the camera is what ever the camera thinks is its guess on what you will want the expose to be change it +- this much. This will affect the over all look of the photo but in green mode (as the camera has been told by the engineers that you don’t totally know what you are doing) to play is safe and try to not let you over expose.

The next is on camera flash control. As the mode you have it in now is called P-TTL. This is Pentax Through The Lens. What this means is that the camera will tell the flash to put out a weak per photo flash. This will illuminate the subject bouncing off back to the metering points in the camera. It will then compare and make its guess programming the flash output power. If I remember correctly in green mode it will ignore this control see above.

Next is flash output. This is the simplest as all it will do is take whatever power it is told to put out to just +- this. Of course the flash will only go up to its full power or down to minimum.

You can use all 3 controls together as long as you keep in mind that each control has its own bias and you don’t confuse yourself.

As to if you use a 540 could you take the photo, if have every thing exactly the same then maybe. I know why can’t this guy gut say yes or no. This is because you are using P-TTL and green mode. I don’t know if the system is just thinking you don’t need the light or if the flash is out of power. If the flash is out of power then yes if just is telling the flash to not put out the power then it would look the same. Green mode in P-TTL tends to under expose. There are just a lot of variables.

DAZ

[smcook99]

Thanks Daz,
Can you clarify these two points a little more.

Topic 1) Why, if I get a perfectly exposed shot at ISO400 (forced) does the camera select ISO1600 in auto (If I let it go that high)? Why isn't the camera (said to under-expose) happy with a lower ISO?

Topic 2) You said the Flash setting in the camera is a "weak per photo flash", do avoid sounding stupid at the obvious that I know the camera flash is per photo, I'll make the assumption you are referring to the pre-flash that it uses to meter the scene. Going on that logic, are you saying if I increase that value than the pre-flash is brighter? And if the pre-flash was brighter wouldn't the camera think the scene is brighter and use a weaker exposure flash? When I increased that value in the camera the photo was brighter not darker. So I have to assume what I witnessed was accurate and not the assumption I just made. If what I witnessed is the correct of the two logic, than when do I use the Flash Output control on the flash and when do I use the camera flash output setting?

[DAZ]

Thanks Daz,
Can you clarify these two points a little more.

Topic 1) Why, if I get a perfectly exposed shot at ISO400 (forced) does the camera select ISO1600 in auto (If I let it go that high)? Why isn't the camera (said to under-expose) happy with a lower ISO?

Automatic systems are a wonderful thing. They try to take care of all of these perimeters for you so you can concentrate on other things. The problem is they end up hiding where the edge of the system is until you are on the wrong side. Think a car going down an icy road with all wheel drive, traction control and antilock brakes. When you end up upside down in the ditch going around a curve what happened? You don’t know how fast you should have taken the curve all you know is how fast you were going is not it. With out know all the settings I am guessing a little here. In my experience with the K20D it picks some parameters over some others and that it will add flash the last of all. So with that in mind it will try to use ambient light first. It will increase ISO to the max you let it and then look to flash. At ISO of 1600 it should have not needed much if any flash and it probably commanded the flash to minimum power. As you decrease the ISO you get to the point where the system needs to add flash but now there is not enough ambient light and system is biased against add to much flash so it under exposes.

Topic 2) You said the Flash setting in the camera is a "weak per photo flash", do avoid sounding stupid at the obvious that I know the camera flash is per photo, I'll make the assumption you are referring to the pre-flash that it uses to meter the scene. Going on that logic, are you saying if I increase that value than the pre-flash is brighter? And if the pre-flash was brighter wouldn't the camera think the scene is brighter and use a weaker exposure flash? When I increased that value in the camera the photo was brighter not darker. So I have to assume what I witnessed was accurate and not the assumption I just made. If what I witnessed is the correct of the two logic, than when do I use the Flash Output control on the flash and when do I use the camera flash output setting?

Yes pre not per. I apologize about the typo. In my defenses I was trying to get it out so I could go to bed.

AFAIK the power out in the pre flash is the same (although different flash units may have different outputs) no matter what the settings are. This is a weakness in this type of system. It only gets one bite at the apple. When you change the cameras flash bias it is just that. Biasing what the camera thinks it needs for flash.

The EV bias is what the over all the camera thinks there is from the meter before the pre flash and the flash power out is what ever you tell the camera to bias it this way. Now if you think about the process you can see how this would work. If you tell the camera to change the EV of the metering, as it is darker then it thinks it is then it could try to up the ISO. This means that it may not add much light from the flash. If you leave the EV but bias the flash +- then only what flash it thinks is needed will be changed. This kind of control allows you to balance the ambient to the flash. This will give a better looking photo. How to do this takes some experience and practice.

The K20D to me is like a teenager, it works better when it is given some limits. So telling it more what you want it to do give better results.

What it looks to me you are trying to do is just see how much light the 360 can put out not how the over all system works (at least at this time, the system can come later). To do that you have to bound your unbounded variables and eliminate as best you can any variables you can’t control. To do that I suggest you try the following experiment. This is a brick wall type photo not how to get a good photo.

Set the camera to X mode. This will lock the shutter speed to 1/180 and get rid of as much ambient light as you can. Usually you would want to balance the ambient to the flash but this is brick wall stuff. Set the ISO to 100 and the aperture of the lens as fast (small numbers) as it will go. On the flash set it to manual full power out. If you are using direct flash set the flash zoom the about the same as the lens. You don’t want to waste power off to the sides.

Take a photo. If it is too dark (not likely unless the room is really big) add ISO until you get what you want. The difference is how much more flash power you need. If it is too bright (more likely) then decrease the power out of the flash. This difference is how much flash power reserve you have or power you need.

But a more practical test is turn the flash off. Set the camera to take the photo you want getting as close as you can (with out going over 1/180) with out the flash. You may have to set the setting in manual in the camera. Next add the flash in manual keeping camera settings the same. Add flash power until you get the photo you want balance the ambient to the flash. Less flash is usually the better side to be on. Look and see how much power the camera has left to give you. This will let you know more what you can do.

DAZ