Morning all!
I'm doing some xmas shopping and want to get a flash for my brother in law who has a pentax K10D. I was going to get the Pentax AF-540FGZ (a little painfully as it's a bit over my budget) but then I saw the Sigma 530DG. Just wondering if anyone has or knows of this camera/flash combo and can let me know if it's fully compatible etc? General comments on the flash features, build quality etc are also welcome. I want to get the best flash i can but if the Sigma is 90% as good as the pentax one I think it might be a good compromise.
I haven't had experience with that specific combo, but I have had experience with the earlier models of the Sigm 500 on Nikon cameras. Based on my experience, I am sure the 530 model is full compatible with the current Pentax. The build quality of the Sigmas I own is close to that of my Nikon SB-600 flash. I have drop tested all of them at one point or another, but the Nikon is the only one I had to send in for repair.
The Sigmas perform well.
The only gripe I have with the Sigma's is that they don't tend to be forward compatible. When Nikon produces a new camera, you can't count on the Sigma's being compatible with it. The flash I purchased to use with my D70 is not compatible with my D200. That is not true for the SB-600 and SB-800 which can be counted on to be compatible with future camera upgrades. The same may be true for Pentax.
I also think you'd want to get the DG Super model to make sure you get all the features in the 540. With that I think there is about a $40 to $50 price difference. If you can come up with the extra change, the 540 is probably a safer long-term bet.
the 500 DG Super was not forward compatible with the K10D. i got it when i still Pentax only had *istD-series digital bodies and it worked with all of them, but when i got my K10D, it flashed out of synch with the shutter. i got rid of it. Sigma tries hard, but there are times when you are going to have to send the unit it for upgrade, assuming they still support the unit. personally, i hated the UI on the Sigma flash units. the Pentax units are much easier to use.
