Sigma EF-530 DG Super Electronic Flash for Pentax and Samsung DSLR $222.94 Available from Amazon on 11-23-2008

Included in the Box: This flash works on my Pentax K10D, but not without some caveats. First, the strengths: + It's certainly more flash power than you can get for the money from the official Pentax line-up. + Tilt and swivel head. + It does a good job working with the K10D's TTL system -- exposure seems generally to be correct. + Wireless P-TTL slave mode works great. + Focus assist lamp is nice. And then, the negatives: - This is a huge flash. It's almost bigger than my camera body. The comparable Pentax AF540FGZ is big too, but I'd trade off some flash power for the feature set in a more compact size. - The tilt head has a click-lock point at straight forward and at something like 70°-up and a few more between that and straight up -- but nothing at 30° or 45°, and I'm a bit worried that over time it'll get loose and not hold its position. (The Pentax flash has these midway click points.) - It feels plasticky. doesn't look bad, but doesn't feel solid. - High-speed sync only works if you disable AutoISO. You probably want to control ISO in your flash shots anyway, but Pentax tech support tells me their official flashes don't have this shortcoming. (Sigma tech support, by the way, wasn't able to explain this to me -- I had to figure out why it wasn't working on my own.) - Mounting onto the hotshoe is a bit fussy; I'm not sure if Pentax's own flash is any better, but I kind of think it must be. - The user interface panel is a confusing mess of barely-comprehensible icons and acronyms and poorly-labeled buttons. - The manual is even worse, and not just because it was clearly not written by an English speaker. So, that's a lot of negatives, but I'm still giving three stars because while the list of positives is shorter, they're all very strong positives. I had some initial buyer's remorse and was considering an exchange for the AF540FGZ, but I think I'll keep it in hopes that Pentax adds a swivel feature to the next version of the AF360FGZ, which then would be my use-most-of-the-time flash while this would be a wireless slave or option for when I need more power. Comments (2) | Permalink | function showYesNoCommunityResponse(uId,result,value) { var msgLayer = getElement("thanks" + uId); if ( result == "SUCCESS" ) { msgLayer.innerHTML = "Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided to other Amazon.com readers and reviewers. Your vote will be counted and will appear on the product page within 24 hours."; } else { showVoteErrorResponse(msgLayer,result,value); } } (Report this) Sigma EF-530 DG Super Electronic Flash for Pentax and Samsung DSLR $222.94 Available from Amazon on 11-23-2008

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