Yongnuo 560II not syncing with Pentax K-5

[Garnett]

Hoping someone can help me with my first flashgun.

I've just received a Yongnuo 560II which works seemingly fine on-camera on my Pentax K-5.

Off-camera, though, I'm having some difficulties.

The only way I can get the flashgun and camera to fire in sync is if the camera is in regular flash mode and the flashgun is set to S2 (slave 2) mode.

I understand S2 is designed to work with a pre-flash, which is fine, but I would have expected the setup to work with the camera in "wireless flash" mode.

One reason I'm keen to resolve this is so that I can use the setting in wireless mode that allows me to shoot the camera flash as a controller only.

Lastly, can someone help with a very basic question - what it is that is triggering the flashgun in this setup? I presume it is a light sensor that registers the camera flash.

If this is the case then what does "wireless" mode actually do differently to regular flash mode?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Barrysprout]

The Yongnuo flash is a manual flash with an optical slave trigger. S1 mode fires when a flash is detected, s2 fires after ignoring the pre-flash.
Don't know much about pentax but for the full wireless use you want (camera as controller only) you will probably need a pentax flash to make use of it.
So as it is to fire the 560 off camera without onboard flash you will need a cable or wireless trigger.

 

[Garnett]

Ah. Thanks a lot. That makes a lot of sense.