Metz mecablitz 58 AF-2 Digital Flash for Pentax Cameras

I used the Metz mecablitz 58 AF-2 side-by-side with the Pentax AF540FGZ for a couple of weeks (with my K-5).Which one is better? They are both excellent and the choice will come down to features vs usability.The Metz has more features, specifically: - The Metz has more manual power levels (25 steps, down to 1/256) The Pentax will go down to 1/64 in 7 steps which is fine for most situations but still slightly less flexible. - The Metz has a second, forward facing reflector. This offers the option providing a "fill flash" when bouncing the main reflector. - The Metz has a strobe mode; useful for stop-motion photos - The Metz has slightly tighter zoom rangeOn the Pentax side, you have a feature set which is still solid plus greater usability. The controls on the Pentax allow for more rapid setting changes with much less "menu diving" than the Metz.My typical setup is either on-camera bounce with TTL or full manual, off-camera, with radio triggers. Although I usually use the radio triggers, I tried all of the flash-triggering modes on both flashes and found both that flashes worked fine.Both flashes have a good build quality and similar power levels as well (a tiny bit more power with the Pentax).In the end, I ended up choosing the Metz for my own camera although 99% of my shots would have been equally served with the Pentax.

This is the first external flash unit I've ever bought. Before buying this one, I always used the small flash unit attached to the camera. My understanding is that this flash unit is made especially for Pentax cameras.This is a German-made unit and that might have something to do with the high quality. I'm using this unit on a Pentax K-5 II camera and I also have a Pentax K10D camera (similar to the K-5 II).In almost every case (except maybe under unusual conditions), this flash gives me perfect exposure. I'm really surprised at how easy it is to use. I can set the flash unit to PTTL or PTTL HSS and the camera to Flash X-sync Speed and then easily fire off one perfect shot after another with little or no effort.I haven't read all the way through the manual yet, but I'm going to do that as soon as possible. However, I was using the flash unit very successfully in a very short time. It seems easy to learn to use.Based on what I've experienced so far, I would say to definitely buy it.Update: 01/26/14: Recently, I tried something with this flash and my Pentax K-5II digital camera that really surprised me and I want to tell about it here. I put this flash on my camera and then went into my bedroom which was totally dark. It was so dark in the bedroom that I couldn't even see the walls. I took several pictures in the dark and they all turned out to have perfect exposure and focus!I'm thinking about buying a second camera and flash like the ones I just bought.Update 9/9/2014: I'm having to reduce the rating to a one star. This is because I found out that the contacts in the battery cover are no good. I noticed after buying this flash unit that the contacts looked awfully cheap, not only because they were extremely thin, but because of the way they are mounted.There are two contacts mounted to the battery cover. Each contact is apparently used to connect two AA cells in series. I opened the cover just now to check and change the batteries and I saw something fall out. On the floor I found one of the contacts that's supposed to be mounted to the battery door. While inspecting the battery door, I see that there are what appear to be two tiny pins that hold the contacts onto the door. There is a raised area, like a channel, molded into the battery door that the contacts fit into, and there are a couple of tiny pins that are molded into the battery door that hold the contacts in the channels and onto the battery door.Besides the above, the channel that's molded into the battery door for the contact that fell out seems to be tapered so much that part of it is flush with the battery door. It's hard to understand why this would have been designed this way or whether part of the channel is missing.Whatever happened here, I can see that the contacts are paper thin and extremely cheap-looking. And it appears that there is almost nothing holding them in place. I don't see any way that I can fix this. I'm hoping if I contact the manufacturer that they will send a replacement unit and that the replacement will have had the design defect corrected. But I'm probably hoping for too much.I also have to say that this flash unit has been used very few times and the battery door has hardly been used at all. I've had the product almost a year, but it's hardly been used. After seeing how cheaply the battery door and contacts are designed and how this can make the product unusable, I would say definitely NOT TO BUY THE PRODUCT. If I find out that the design defect has been corrected, I will update this review again.

I had a chance to put this flash through its paces during the holiday season. I purchased the Pentax version to use on my K-5.My initial experiments showed amazing versatility. With everything this flash can do, it's by far the most useful accessory for my camera. Scenes can easily be made to look well-lit without the horrible "deer in the headlights" look of most built-in flashes. The power output allows this flash to be useful in many situations, even lighting up entire rooms with bounce flash. The wireless capabilities are plentiful, with full support for Pentax P-TTL wireless and even a very convenient "servo" mode. Thanks to this flash, Christmas parties resulted in some of the best keepers I've ever gotten in low-light situations.Build quality is... good. Nothing to brag about. The new metal mounting foot is a nice improvement, and gives the flash a nice, solid feel when mounted to a hot shoe. But when you spend $400 on something that emits light, you hope it'll be built like a tank, and that's not the case. Good luck telling different grades of flashes apart based on build quality alone. Another disappointment is the lack of any weather sealing. There are no weather-resistant flashes at all available for the Pentax line, despite the fact that the K-5 is weather-resistant. Canon and Nikon have weather-resistant flashes available in this same price range. It would've been nice if Metz had followed suit.By far the biggest aggravation with this flash is the interface. Wading through all the menus to change basic settings gets tedious. It breaks down my workflow and makes me miss photo opportunities. I've gotten pretty good at finding the settings I need, but they're still multiple button presses away. I would've preferred some direct controls like on the Pentax AF540FGZ. The menu interface of the Metz probably makes it easier to adapt the same flash for multiple camera systems, so it makes sense. But I still hate it.Also, the super-annoying "first button push does nothing" feature gets on my nerves every single time. When you first push any button, all it does is turn on the backlight for the LCD. You have to push that button a second time before it'll actually perform the function you want. But sometimes, even though the backlight is still on, the first button push STILL doesn't do anything!!! For example if you just selected a new mode and pressed the "Set" button, any subsequent button press will do nothing even though the backlight is still on. I hate this interface.It's a tough choice between the Pentax AF540FGZ and the Metz 58 AF-2. Both of them have their pros and cons. The Metz has more features (servo mode, strobe, secondary reflector, Metz-calibrated Auto mode, etc), while the Pentax is easier to use (direct controls for all features, more overall flash power, etc). In the end, I'm still not sure if I made the right choice. But if Pentax ever comes out with a weather-resistant version of its top flash, I won't hesitate to sell this Metz 58 AF-2 and buy the Pentax instead.