Sony a200 with Minolta 4000 AF

[benmajor]

Hello all,

I am a relative newcomer to the hobby of photography, and so I would like to apologise for the fact that my first post here is a question asking for advice! I would certainly appreciate any help that the members here can offer to me.

I have been using my Sony a200 DSLR for some time now, and have always used the built-in flash. However, I decided that it was time for an upgrade, and so I purchased the Minolta Program 4000 AF flash, and the necessary FS-1100 adapter for the unit. The gun and adapter have been delivered today, and since I got in, I have been playing around with it on my camera.

The flash triggers fine, and everything works thereon. Whenever I set the built-in flash to on (i.e. pressing the flash button on the side of the body), everything works well, and the shot is OK (despite being flooded because of the onboard flash). However, disabling the built-in flash still causes the external one to fire, but for some reason the shutter speed of the camera is not adjusted to coincide with the flash (for example the shot is over exposed).

I am using my camera in Aperture Priority mode. I guess my question is three fold really; 'can the built-in flash be disabled, or can priority be given to the hotshoe flash?'; 'can the camera be used in Aperture Priority with an external flash'; 'how can I configure my current set up?'

Any information on the above at all would be most gratefully received indeed.

Thanks,
Ben