I am so glad to get a copy of this flash from my good friend SOldBear. He sold me his flash with both wide and tele-adapters, which usually sold separately. And my friend gave me a wonderful discount. I normally see this in $40 to $70 range. To me, it is well worth the money. It can't replace the more powerful PTTL as in the Pentax AF540. But one thing is for sure, its recycle time is much faster in this flash and it is easier to handle.I am still learning to take flash pictures. With the AF280T, I mainly use it in close distance as in 5 to 10 feet and I use the auto flash setting and exposure seem decent and it works quite reliable on K-x.
Ricoh xr-p next to Pentax AF280T flash
The flash has both adjustment for swivel and bounce features. In terms of metering mode, so far I have only tried the Auto mode and rely on the flash internal sensor. Unfortunately, the flash does have one drawback in its simple design as it only has two settings as in the Auto Green and Auto Red settings where the green setting goes for less power and the red setting goes for higher power. It would have been better if it has power strength setting to adjust from to 1/16 to full power or the like.
Pentax K-x and AF280T
My photo buddy
My photo buddy
My friend and co-worker
I am yet to explore more with the flash. It seems a good low budget auto flash to go with the AF540 flash as a secondary flash.
Notes:
- Pentax Flashes online PDF menu from butkus.org
- In indoor setting, I mostly set ISO to be fixed in 200, 400 and 800
- In Av mode, I estimate the focal distance
- I check against the back panel, adjust ASA to be the same, and examine the distance range in the Green Auto and Red Auto mode.
- I dial in the aperture suggested in the scale for starter
- In bounce position, I usually have to adjust with trial and error on aperture counting about 2-3 stops in loss of lighting in bouncing instead of straight on flash.
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