Originally posted by brothereye Well, I keep hoping to land an affordable af500 flash so I can use the ttl feature(it really is too bad this was dropped from later models, even though it was only stated to be accurate over a limited iso range), but I can never seem to land a 500 for what I can afford to spend on it... Oh well, maybe my discretionary income can come together with a little luck and I can get hooked up. I guess I need to start looking in pawn shops, etc., I'm just afraid I might spend even more $$$.
Why are you waiting for an AF500FTZ?
The AF540FGZ is a comparable flash, and pentax outdid themselves in terms of compatibility with this one. the flash can work in 4 modes, depending upon the camera and lens combo it is installed on.
For cameras that have no flash metering it can work in manual or "auto" mode using its own internal photocell (just like the late 1970's). For cameras that support TTL, including the *istD and DS and earlier pentax bodies, it can support TTL mode if no apature information is available from the lenses but the camera supports TTL, and for cameras that support either ttl or P-TTL it will support the highest possible technology, for example on my *istD with a K lens it works in TTL but for a KA lens ut works in P-TTL. On cameras that only support P-TTL, you can still use Auto mode on manual lenses
In summary, it is a flash that works on and supports every camera/mode that pentax has made