[CWuestefeld]

I sent SIGMA some photos with exposure leaving a lot to be desired. They claim camera should work if you do the following:

"Set the flash menu on the camera to fill flash not redeye reduction. Set your ISO on the camera to 100, not 800. By increasing the ISO you are cutting the duration(power) of the flash greatly. If the camera is set to auto flash it will give a false reading on ambient light. Do a reset on the flash itself by pulling the batteries and then put them back in and mount the flash and lets try that first. You should see a world of difference in the results."

I will try that tomorrow and see whether it works (note not sure there is a fill flash setting on the K-30).

I tried this advice myself, since I'd experience the exact same problem. Sigma's advice doesn't work (at least not very well), but it gave me a clue that helped me get to a better result (even if it's not to the level of "works" imho, since it's completely defeating any automatic function from the flash).

You'll note that the flash has its own manual ISO adjustment. I found that if you adjust this value way down (like to 50), you can then use the camera's ISO setting to affect the exposure. So having set the flash at 50, cranking the camera up from 50, to 100, 200, 400, etc., gives increasingly brighter exposures: the flash is still relying on the manually-entered values, giving you the freedom to adjust the camera.

I don't think this is a good solution, since it's a pretty blunt instrument to deal with, and rather inconvenient -- not at all what I expect given what I paid for the flash itself. But it does allow for us to take flash-illuminated photos.

Given the right situation and equipment, a better solution to this is probably to just take the flash off the camera altogether, and use the built-in flash (dialed way down to -2) as a trigger for the Sigma flash as a remote slave. But that requires a flash stand as well (not to mention the opportunity to set it up!), and a layout of the shot that will allow for it.

(I moved this topic out of a general flash discussion, so it can get better attention)

[Pheo]

I'm having some issues with my Metz 58AF1, I'm wondering if something has changed about this camera vs the previous Pentax models which has confused the third party flashes.

Its rather frustrating, as I can't easily just resort to manual flash mode in dynamically changing situations.

[CWuestefeld]

UPDATE: it turns out that the Sigma flash is compatible with the K-30.

After contacting Sigma, they asked me to send in sample photos, and eventually to send the flash in for them to check it. They found that the consistent under-exposure was not due to mis-communication between the camera and the flash unit, but because there was an internal component loose (the thing that senses when the diffuser card is pulled out), and fixing this allows the flash to work again.

I haven't tested all of the features yet with the K-30, but at least for basic operations, it seems to be working OK now.

[SteveB]

My Sigma EF-610 DG Super works,shall we say, predictably. I bought it part-ex against an EF-500 DG Super at a good price after they couldn't update it for the K-30. This was direct from Sigma UK service dept in Jan 2013 so it would have had the very latest firmware.

I can't get HSS to work properly, it lets me use fast shutter speeds but seems to have a more or less fixed uncontrolled power. I think I can use it at a pinch though with a bit of trial and error for the few times I'm ever likely to use it. P-TTL works OK but I have to tweak things a bit. I adjust it to -1EV for bounce and then it's reliable, for direct it's a bit underexposed so +0.5EV works best unless I use a small softbox (the white bit is about 6"x5") and then 0EV is fine with direct. Another weird thing that may be a K-30 issue is that the wireless master/controller options seem to have the opposite effect to what I expect but that could just be my interpretation is awry.