I just pulled my Sunpak out, and lo, tis the auto 266D. There's a switch labled OT and PT. Must be set to PT (meaning Pentax, not Olympus). Does analog TTL or thyristor on one of two f-stops (2.8 or 5.6 when at ISO 100). Tilt, no swivel, on full manual it cannot do fractions of full flash. Zooms from 35 to 135 with detents at: 35, 50, 70, 135. Has a means of sliding gels in to color the light.
I've used this flash quite often to put eye catchlights into long telephoto shots by picking one of the two thyristor settings (usually the weaker of the two). Works great for that application, and is smaller than the AF280-T, to boot.
The one _bad_ thing about the Sunpack is that it does not properly communicate with a SuperA/SuperProgram in TTL mode. You won't get an "adequate flash" confirmation in the viewfinder. You need to look on the flash itself for that.
If you're having problems, try the flash using one of the thyristor settings. If it won't fire there, you have a contact, hotshoe, or flash problem. If it fires consistently but does NOT always fire in TTL mode, try stopping down a bit and see if the flash now starts firing regularly. Lots of Pentax bodies will NOT fire the flash if they think exposure is adequate without flash.
Kostas Kavoussanakis wrote:
On Thu, 11 Sep 2003, keller.schaefer wrote:
may I ask whether this happens with all lenses you use? It could be that your lens is defective. Remember, we are talking TTL flash here and whether or not the flash is triggered (and with what 'strength') is determined by the camera during exposure.
Is the Sunpak auto 266 D thyristor flash TTL-compatible? Or is there no such thing as TTL-compatibility on flashes?
Kostas (trying to understand flashes recently, but to no avail)
