Rest in Peace SB600 known as ‘Flash B’

10:36 am, November 23rd, 2008 | No Comments »
Posted in boythings, geekery, photography by Jarod

I never did post the final chapter in Flash B’s short life. Apparently the damage sustained by the fall was too much for the repair shop man to fix. He suggested sending it to Nikon Australia for a more thorough autopsy, but I declined knowing they charge like wounded bulls.

So Flash B is now sitting on my desk here at home. His only purpose is to weigh down paper and as a constant reminded not to let light stands topple over.

Rest in Peace Flash B. You served me well.

Update on the Dead SB600

8:00 pm, October 14th, 2008 | No Comments »
Posted in boythings, geekery, photography, whinging by Jarod

Liz dropped it off a week or so back, and the eta for a quote was 3 weeks. Sometimes I think I’m in the wrong industry. Camera repairs always seems to cost a fortune and demand is always high. Hmmmmm.

In other news, I’m obscenely disenchanted with photography at the moment. So much so that I haven’t picked up my camera in a few weeks. It happened about the time that I smooshed the SB600, which I fail to see as a fluke.

An update on Flash B

7:18 am, September 30th, 2008 | No Comments »
Posted in boythings, geekery, photography by Jarod

Thanks to a comment or two in my flickr stream and a few google searches, I still think it’s the flash tube that’s dead on dear old Flash B.

For those that asked, the series of events that took place on the night where everyone had an alibi but me was
– The SB600 crashed to the floor and the batteries popped out.
– I chucked them back in and the unit charged back up.
– LCD Panel turned on and was fully functional.
– Charged ‘ready’ light was red as usual.
– The slight whine of the capacitor charging was heard when the test flash button was pressed.
– No bright hurt your eyes stuff coming out of the light making end when the test flash button was pressed.

At this point I shook the flash and was pretty sure I heard the sound of expensive to fix broken xenon tube. But with my continuing efforts to poke and prod it I adjusted the zoom setting. My thought is that this wedged the broken tube between something** and something** causing it not to rattle anymore.

So yes, my assessment is that it’s still a busted tube as the capacitor still charges and I swear I heard broken glass before fiddling with the zoom setting. It’ll most likely go in for a service/free quote later this week. Which will probably be after I order another SB600, SB800 or SB900. The juries still out on which I’ll be getting.

** Highly technical terms, don’t feel bad if you don’t understand them.

Oh FLASH-B, how I barely knew thee

9:21 pm, September 27th, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Posted in boythings, geekery, photography by Jarod

The short story is that my second SB600 dropped from about 1.5 metres on the end of a lightstand and now won’t fire.

The slightly longer story is that I’m fairly pissed off at myself for letting go of the light stand when it wasn’t properly balanced. Oh well. Live and learn and such. Google has told me that if it’s just the xenon tube that’s dead then it can be fixed. Fingers crossed on that one. Whether it’ll be cost effective or will be the question.

Perhaps it’s just a convenient time to shell out the extra cash for a SB-900.

*runs off giggling into the sunset*