Some Thoughts About Flashes
Crop from a photo (c) by Ned Bunnell, original and more photos are here.Ned Bunnell has posted some pictures of the new AF200-FG flash from Pentax that will ship in August (he's the Marketing VP of Pentax USA and has himself an advance unit). Without any sarcasm intended, I actually like the pinkish-tan color cast to the product photos he took on his patio, so he has nothing to apologize for in my mind about the pictures. The flash looks good, if a little more portly than I expected. But the coolest feature I can now see, thanks to Ned's pictures, is that there's a great little dial at the back to immediately dial in -0.5 or -1 exposure for fill flash. Excellent!
Which brings me to a little digression I want to make about the state of consumer flashes. I think it's terrific Pentax has made a new interation of the perennial entry-level hot-shoe flash with P-TTL and that they added some manual control to it. But in my mind I think "entry-level" flashes could be advanced a little bit more now considering where we are with digital cameras and what the pop-up flash already accomplishes. The AF200-FG is a fine flash, yet it's a bit retro considering how similar it is to flashes from the early 80's. And despite being inexpensive, good for illumination, and red-eye avoidance, it's still a flash that conforms to...
Written by admin on June 29th, 2007 with no comments.
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