[BirdDude007]

I never shoot with flash and have an indoor shoot tomorrow where flash may be allowed.
I will be shooting a K-5 with a 16~50 f2.8 lens. I will be using an AF540FGZ flash that I rented. I downloaded the manual and from what it says, it should be mostly auto matic within the rangenofn13mm~52mm digital, but no matter what I do, my images are all washed out, ya if I adjust the aperture I can dial it in, but tomorrow I wont have time to fiddle with my flash, I need it to be all auto.
the manual gives no suggestions as to what to set the camera on, so I have a few questions for those of you who have this similar set up and I gotts have answers fast(by the morning please)
1-what mode do I set the camera on? "×" mode? Or program mode,
2-ISO speed?
3-shutter speed?
4-f stop?
What settings work best for you folks, the kind wherr you wont have to worry too much about, set and forget is what im asking.
do I set the exposure compensation lower, if so how much, on tbe camera and/or flash
Thanks so very much in advance folks

[j2photos]

For ease of use I would put your camera in Av mode. your flash will only sync to a max shutter speed of 1/180 which is a large drawback. With the artificial light I would set my ISO lower. Dont forget that aperture is going to affect the distance in which your flash is effective. what are the settings on your flash? You can also adjust flash exposure on the back of the flash but this will also affect the distance. What kind of shoot is this?

[Boris_Akunin]

I never shoot with flash and have an indoor shoot tomorrow where flash may be allowed.
I will be shooting a K-5 with a 16~50 f2.8 lens. I will be using an AF540FGZ flash that I rented. I downloaded the manual and from what it says, it should be mostly auto matic within the rangenofn13mm~52mm digital, but no matter what I do, my images are all washed out, ya if I adjust the aperture I can dial it in, but tomorrow I wont have time to fiddle with my flash, I need it to be all auto.
the manual gives no suggestions as to what to set the camera on, so I have a few questions for those of you who have this similar set up and I gotts have answers fast(by the morning please)
1-what mode do I set the camera on? "×" mode? Or program mode,
2-ISO speed?
3-shutter speed?
4-f stop?
What settings work best for you folks, the kind wherr you wont have to worry too much about, set and forget is what im asking.
do I set the exposure compensation lower, if so how much, on tbe camera and/or flash
Thanks so very much in advance folks

Unless you want to balance flash and environmental light (you would need flash gels to match the colour temp of the flash to that of the other light sources),
1. Set it to X, your shutter speed will be fixed to the sync speed (1/180)
2. That depends on the aperture and distance, ISO80 will do in most cases. You can set a higher ISO just in case (so get the shot if ISO80 isn't enough and you don't have time to dial it up)
3. In X-mode it's fixed at 1/180, you probably won't need a faster speed indoors (and you'd have to use HSS mode). If you want to balance flash and other light sources, use M-mode and lower shutter speeds.
4. Depends on the picture you wan't (shallow or deep DOF), larger apertures may not work at very close range because the flash can't be set low enough, smaller apertures will limit your flash range.

If you still have issues (especially if you use bounce flash), try setting the flash to Auto-mode instead of p-ttl. There are some with bounce flash and p-ttl on the K-5(II), in auto mode, the flash measures the exposure itself.

If you have time, practise a little so you know your way around the basic settings.
regards
Jan

[BirdDude007]

I found that if I put it in AV mode, turn the compensation down on the flash by 1.5, and turn down the compensation for the flash in the camera by 1, then I really get fairly consistant shots, when I put the soft box on I just put all those settings back to normal.
So far that is working for me

[j2photos]

I found that if I put it in AV mode, turn the compensation down on the flash by 1.5, and turn down the compensation for the flash in the camera by 1, then I really get fairly consistant shots, when I put the soft box on I just put all those settings back to normal.
So far that is working for me

Good luck

[Tanzer]

Avoid the combination of Program mode on the body, with P-TTL mode on the flash. The problem is that the K-5 will just follow an algorithm to guess at the correct aperture, based on the focus distance to your subject, and whether the flash is in tilted into bounce mode. The problem is the camera has no way to know how high your ceilings are, etc.

It is okay to use the camera in Manual mode, while keeping the flash in P-TTL mode. This is easier than it sounds, because you can underexpose the image according to the in-camera meter, and the flash will automatically compensate to produce good exposure. You don't have to get the metering exactly perfect, so long as you underexpose a little. So it's not like you are shooting completely manual.

I suppose Av mode, as the previous posters suggest, might actually be easier, but I can't speak to that since I usually just go with Manual mode.

[schnitzer79]

did u have a look at the giude number chart at the end of the manual? wasnt that of any help?
this tutorial might help also
Active Product Tour

[BirdDude007]

did u have a look at the giude number chart at the end of the manual? wasnt that of any help?
this tutorial might help also
Active Product Tour

your link dont work......

I checked out that guide, but it says the flash will give me the same info if it is in PTTL

[mikemike]

I am a flash newb as well and am getting the best results so far by using a fixed ISO (100-1600 depending on ambient light) and using Tv mode usually at a high shutter speed 1/100-1/180.