Broken Hot shoe on your AF540FGZ or AF360FGZ? Peter Zak has the solution.

Hi Pentaxian friends,

We all know how fragile the Pentax hot shoes on the AF360FGZ & AF540FGZ are. I received this email from Peter Zack, and since he had to change the hot shoe on his AF540FGZ, he wanted to share this with all Pentaxians. So here it is:

This is so simple that it's almost not worth posting but I just thought it was worth showing everyone the replacement fix of a broken shoe. It's something anyone could do and save the shop charge for the repair. I got the part through Pentax in about 3 days. All you need is a clean spot to work so you don't loose the small screws and a jewelers screwdriver in Philips head. Some slide show pictures are on the bottom of the post.

Just remove the batteries when if the flash shoe breaks and allow the capacitors to drain for a few days (just to be safe).

1) Then remove 4 screws from the bottom of the broken shoe.

2) Unplug the broken one. At this point you can see the locking pin that some people have reported will cause the flash to lock on the camera body if it fails. You might want to remove that pin which is very easy. Try doing it on the broken part first. You just loosen the 4 screws inside the shoe and remove the pin quite easily.

3) The white connection plug only fits in one way. Just check the orientation of the guide tabs and plug it in.

4) Replace the screws and you're done. 60 seconds.I only posted this in case someone wants to remove the locking pin and wanted to see what it looks like before opening the flash.

Picasa Web Albums - Peter - Flash shoe

Thank you Peter.
I'm sure this will help some of our readers.

Yvon Bourque

How to use the Pentax AF-540-FGZ & AF-360-FGZ in wireless mode.

Hi Pentaxian friends,

A while back, I wrote about Pentax tutorials on flash and multiple flashes photography. Pentax has recently updated their website and I couldn't find the tutorial anymore. In fact, the link included in my previous post does not exist anymore.

I talked to Michelle Martin at Pentax and she gave me the new location of the tutorials. Michelle is the Public Relations & Events Manager for Pentax. She's the nicest person you can ever meet. They don't have people like that at Nikon and Canon. We're all thankful to have her on our side.

Anyway, the tutorials are located in the Accessories section of the Website, in the Flashes sub-section. Here's the link.


It's by far the best tutorial about Pentax flash photography I have seen. You owe it to yourself to watch it.

Thank you for reading,

Yvon Bourque

Pentax Flash Photography tutorials.

Hi Pentax friends,

I'm not sure if I am the last person to discover the excellent flash tutorials offered through the Pentax USA website, but I am impressed with the tutorials, especially the wireless flash section.

I look at the site often and I never saw these tutorials. There are (3) three tutorials:

1. On board flash
2. Hot shoe mounted flash
3. Wireless flash

At the time of my post, I noticed that tutorials # 2 and #3 seem to be the same wireless flash tutorial. I will contact Michelle Martin at Pentax to verify if this is correct. However, I think that tutorial # 2 was omitted.

Click on the picture below to view the tutorial # 1 (On board flash):

Look who I found posing as model in the tutorial # 1. Yes, it's Ned Bunnell, President of Pentax USA. If you follow Ned's blog, you will recognize other familiar faces as well. It's great to see that Ned is involved at all levels of the Pentax USA organization.

Click on the picture below to view tutorial # 3 (Wireless flash):

I found the tutorial # 3 excellent and very easy to understand. You can set your DSLR/wireless Flash or flashes by following the video, stopping it while adjusting your equipment, then resuming.

This is an awesome tutorial. I found that more questions are generated on the various forums about wireless flash than any other technical questions. This tutorial shows how to use up to three flashes in wireless mode.

As usual, thanks to the Pentax team for a job well done.

OK1000 Pentax Blog also had a good article about wireless P-TTL flash with the AF360FGZ and AF540FGZ flashes.

Best regards,

Yvon Bourque