Advice #1: practice with it as much as you can, before you need it for real. Setup a test subject and try shooting it with the flash at different angles, heights and distances from the subject to see the effect.
Try P-TTL to see how it behaves. It may work attached to the camera but not wirelessly, or it may work fine both ways, or it may not work at all. When using it wirelessly be sure to disable the K-5's pop-up flash firing in the custom configs or you'll get very confusing results. The pop-up flash should fire to control the wireless flash but not to contribute light to the scene. P-TTL exposure is dependent on light reflected from your scene so it will vary wildly depending on how much reflection happens, and from where. That's one reason why it can be completely wrong and give terrible results. Then test fully manual operation. Initially you can ball-park the settings according to that cheat-sheet I sent you earlier. In M mode on the K-5, set your shutter to 125th or 160th sec, ISO 100. Then for example, if you set the flash 6-8 feet away from the subject at 1/4 power you should be at about f:8 on the K-5. Try bounced light too. Think pool or billiards. Point the flash upwards behind you to where the wall meets the ceiling. This will create a huge umbrella effect. It will also increase the distance from the flash to the subject(s), so you'll have to crank the power up, or the ISO up, or open the aperture more to compensate. (I find that P-TTL works well used in this way, in general.) Note that the shutter has no effect on your exposure from the flash, so keep it at 160th for this. Cheat sheet: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2254722/PDML/FlashCalculator.jpg On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 1:53 PM, Walt <[email protected]> wrote: > Well, a couple of weeks after my little financial windfall at work, I > finally decided I should use some of the money to join the flash photography > world. So, I went down to the local brick-and-mortar camera shop in town and > picked up this: > > http://www.amazon.com/Promaster-7500EDF-Digital-Flash-Pentax/product-reviews/B00125XY28/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending > > Shorty: http://goo.gl/QQ3Kz > > I tested it out in the shop and it worked fine as far as I could tell. The > thing is, I know jack shizzle about using flash units. Still, it seems like > a well-built unit -- good heft and smooth rotation. The wireless signal > worked well as best I can tell, too. So, for the time being, I feel like I > got a decent deal: $169, discounted from the regular $249 price tag. > > When I got home, I spent the better part of the evening watching tutorials > on flash photography. The problem is, they all essentially said, "This is > where you can use flash to get this lighting effect." There was no > nitty-gritty technical detail to speak of -- as though TTL were completely > reliable, which I gather isn't really the case. So, I was wondering where I > might be able to learn more about shooting manual flash in the event the TTL > function fails me -- something to give me an idea of when to adjust the > flash output power, at what distances, etc. I know nothing about guide > numbers, flash modes, or anything like that. > > Anybody got any suggestions to that end? Any guidance would be appreciated. > > -- Walt > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. -- -bmw -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
