Sony A77 flash compatibility problem

[meach243]

Recently bought an A77 which is brilliant but for some reason won't fire my flash unit which is a Sunpak pz42x

Borrowed a HVL F36am and that works fine.

The Sunpak always worked fine on my A700 so there's no issue with the unit.

HAs anyone else experienced this or similar?

Also having a few focussing issues with my Sigma lens on the same body

Thanks

DAvid

Message was edited by: meach243

[Mick2011]

Hi David, welcome to the Sony Forums

As far as I know, that flash should work in manual mode but the a77 is more akin to the a300 as far as flash compatibility is concerned. If you also unable to get it to work in manual mode there may be some other connectivity problem; I'm really not sure how you would troubleshoot that, however.

Which Sigma lens do you have?

Cheers

Mick

[Justin13]

It may not be any consolation to you David, but i'm having similar issues myself with my newly aquired A77 and my Sunpak pz42x which had a somewhat troubled relationship with my previous DSLR, an A100.

The flash seems to work with camera set in A mode - but is tempramental. It will not fire when the camera set to M mode, which is iritating as I want use it to trigger a slave flash off camera and set exposure using a seperate flash meter. This worked OK on the A100.

Unfortunatly I can't lay my hands on the manual for the flash at the moment. I've tried cycling through the various flash modes on the A77 without success.

My assesment so far of the A77 is dissapointing, rather than brilliant. Though I do confess I'm still baffled sometimes when a DSLR (or DSLT) doesn't behave like my old film cameras! I'm afraid my version of logic is not in tune with that of the Sony designers.

Have you noticed that the viewfinder goes dark in manual mode when changing the shutter/aperture/ISO combination outside the available light range? I hope to goodness this is overridden when you plug an external flash into the pc socket as I'm going to feel pretty stupid if it doesn't. If I had been aware of this particular "function" I'd have thought twice about going for the DSLT and opted for perhaps a used A900 instead.

I have a very old Sigma 400mm f5.6 Apo which the A77 seems to handle much better than the A100 did, with what I'd call "usable" rather than "sparkling" performance. I also have a Sigma 24mm 2.8 (not quite as old as the 400 but still long in the tooth) which I havn't tried on the A77 yet, but which the A100 had trouble focusing.

I hope I can be of a little more help when I can find the instruction book.

Cheers

Justin

[Justin13]

Setting "live view display" to setting "effect off" cures the problem with the viewfinder when using pc flash sync. Thanks to my.safaribooksonline.com/book/photography/9781133597131/3-setting-up-your-sony-alpha-slt-a77/i30.

Haven't found the answer to the pz42x flash problem yet though.

Message was edited by: Justin13

[Justin13]

I managed to get the pz42x to fire with the camera set in manual mode, by switching "front curtain shutter" to Off. (Cog wheel menu No 5). However, the pz42x will only fire when it's set to "TTL" mode. I would like to be able to use the manual and fractional power settings and this is very frustatrating.

Dave, have you tried setting the flash setting to "fill-in"? (using the "Fn" button)? Which modes have you tried the flash with so far?

[Justin13]

It appears from what I've found on other forums that the Sunpak pz42x may need a firmware update to function correctly with the A77. To check the firmware you switch the flash off (or start from off anyway) then hold down the test button while switching on. The firmware version your flashgun has will be displayed. You need version 0.07, apparently. More recent versions already have this. Mine is 0.06 which I suppose explains the problems I'm having - If yours is earlier than 0.06 then that could explain why yours is not working at all with your A77.

You will need to check that you can get the firmware updated through your dealer or contact Sunpak direct as you can't do it yourself it seems. I've no idea if they'll charge for that service.

Cheers

Justin