[Killieman]

Hey all,

I have been looking at getting a flash for my K-30 and have been looking at getting the Yongnao YN-560 III (about £60/$100) but I saw a used Pentax AF 330FTZ for £20 ($30) in my local camera shop yesterday which seemed to be in good working order. I am wondering if this flash is a good buy and if it works on a K-30?

Cheers!

[elliott]

That is a TTL flash, which is the system used by the older cameras, so the automatic exposure won't work. It will only fire at full power (MH) or 1/16 power (ML) on a non-compatible camera. It is also pretty low power and has no bounce or swivel capability. The Yongnuo is easily worth the extra money.

There are some older Pentax flashes that are worth using on a modern camera, the AF280T and AF400T come to mind. They have a form of auto exposure that work with any body along with some manual controls.

[SteveB]

An old auto thyristor flash will give decent exposures automatically, the main downside is that you can only use a few aperture settings. I have a new Sigma 610 P-TTL that works fine, but my standby is a Nissan 360TW that has 3 auto power settings, so there are 3 apertures that work (well) in auto, it cost £15. It also has a switchable fill flash so it's better than most and has a low trigger voltage (watch out for that one, some oldies can fry a DSLR with hundreds of volts on the flash terminals).

[Killieman]

Thanks for the help. Decided against it as I think I want some more features (eg. bounce & swivel).

[SteveB]

Thanks for the help. Decided against it as I think I want some more features (eg. bounce & swivel).

The 360TW has got bounce and swivel. There should be lots of old flashes like this that can do a decent job.