This isn't exactly specific to Pentax, but it is marketed on their website to Pentax SLR and DSLR owners, so I thought it might be worth keeping tabs on. For $29.95, the circus sounding "Professor Kobré's LightScoop™" is a satisfying-looking little doohicky that you can use to bounce your pop-up flash (ie. get more diffused shadows, control light direction, etc.).


I've played around with ideas like this in the past. At one point I made a pop-up bounce out of a toilet paper roll tube, and later on tried using a white microphone foam wind cover pulled over the popped-up flash on my *ist DS. Surprisingly, both worked at diffusing alright, but I think the LightScoop looks a little more versatile if you're looking for something that won't make your subjects laugh at you and your camera. But unfortunately it doesn't dispense any Pez. (via Digital Raingefinder)


If you're looking just to diffuse light from your pop-up, a little less expensive option is to try using a transparent film jar, coffee lid, construction paper, vacuum bags, or a sliced ping pong ball. Or for a few bucks you could get the LumiQuest Soft Screen Flash Diffuser for Pop-Up Flashes. It looks...

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...

June, 2007 is Pentax's month for special editions. Announced today, the 6.1MP K100D Super ($595 w. 18-55mm lens, $519 body only - official announcement here, fact sheet here) is a small fusion of K100D technology with 2 features borrowed from the K10D. Essentially, it's an update to the entry-level K100D just in time for Pentax's new lenses and a tweak to introduce some hardware updates; it's not a much different camera the way the Pentax ME Super was to the original Pentax ME back in the late '70s*, but it still deserves the "Super" name because the enhancements are the kind that K100D users will wish they had. Pentax has also debuted the AF-200FG flash ($149, fact sheet fact sheet here) they've been promising for a while, which is a clip-on flash that has greater power and reach than a pop-up flash, won't cause as much vignetting with wide angle lenses, and is less expensive than the bounce FGZ models. Both will ship in August, probably alongside the new DA* lenses.


The K100D has essentially been a retail hit for almost a year, which is a long season in camera years, but the new K100D Super, with a nearly identical look to the K100D, does not have the upgrade to a 10MP sensor that people have been wondering about. With the D40x...