Originally posted by Bonavista Thanks everyone,
I bought the Pentax AF280T and I think it should be good on my K-50. Did a lot of reading and concluded it was a good one.
Yes, it will work as a safe auto-thyristor bounce flash. Use one of two "auto" modes available with the flash (red or green). Shoot in M (shutter speed below X-sync) or X mode and manually set the aperture based on the scale on the back of the flash. The flash duration will be controlled by the sensor on the flash body.
Edit: Many thanks to pentajazzz for doing an additional post of his video. One can indeed set the camera to M or X mode as I suggested above, but the flash also supports what Pentax termed "Programmed Auto Flash" where the flash duration is controlled using the sensor on the front of the flash, but the flash provides the body sufficient information to allow it to automatically set the appropriate aperture. This was originally intended to work in Sv and P modes on certain film cameras and according to pentajazzz, also works in Tv mode on current Pentax dSLRs. Cool
Translation: In Tv mode the camera will automatically choose an appropriate f/stop for the chose flash mode (red/green) and ISO set on the body.
End edit
I think you will be pleased with its general performance and will probably get more consistent results than if you were using P-TTL with a current model flash.
Steve