Originally posted by crewl1 Yes I also believe that firmware could sort out the inability to fire manual flash on the hot shoe without contacts, but note this applies to non pttl flashes only. If you use a pttl flash on the shoe such as a Pentax 540 it does fire with no lens or a 3rd party adapter attached, at 1/13 max shutter.
I don't know a lot about flash terminolgy as I just use them on manual for macro but I think my Pentax AF080C is ttl rather than pttl and will not fire under any setting on the Q.
Maybe doundounba is right that the inboard flash has special properties. I have tried to trick the camera by using an optical slave to fire the ring. I hold my finger over the q flash and slip it off between the first and second flash so the second flash fires the ring but the image is still not illuminated.
EDIT -- I have spent a little more time doing the setup above and am now successfully getting the ring flash to illuminate the image (ie it is synched) What I did is changed the flash setting to red eye. This extended the gap between preflash and main flash making it easier for me to get my finger off the q flash in time. I think maybe the q uses the red eye flash to meter and thus the exposure one is a simple flash allowing the optical slave to get it right.
Anyway even though this is not a practical set up I feel it proves beyond doubt that powering the hot shoe should be a simple and successful firmware update.
I gather there are optical slaves that ignore the preflash? That would be another workaround.