The image above isn't a finished product, it's a work in progress. You may see it again later on in a different form. It's a first quick edit of the first shot I am trying to take from a creative concept in my head into a finished image. It's a composite of about 42 separate frames, some HDR, some long exposure, some normal. But that isn't what this post is about. This post is about those rocks you see in the lower right corner and my SB-910.
After we did the exposures for this shot, the plan was to finish the evening with more traditional shots. I pulled my camera off the tripod, and because we were short on time and light, I decided I would just use the tripod as a speed light mount. Threw the 910 onto the tripod, didn't really check to make sure it was locked down before I went into my bag to grab a soft box. Sure enough, in the second my back was turned, the wind gusted and the 910 fell off the tripod and dropped about 4 feet down onto those wonderful large rocks you see in the image above. It made a wonderful shattering sound and pieces of plastic flew everywhere.
I picked it up to take a look and saw this (did you ever want to see your flash naked? If not look away now)
It looked like the damage was only to the red plastic window covering the focus assist lamp. But when I turned the flash on and tried a test shot using the D800 in commander mode, nothing. Thought maybe I had just broken the IR window, so put it on the hot shoe, and luckily, it worked. Figured I now just had a very overpriced on camera flash, and wondered if I was now doing a $500 dollar photo shoot. Still, had no time to waste, so just shot with robo-flash on camera until we completely ran out of daylight and we needed to hike off the beach. I call it robo flash because with the cover missing I think it sort of looks like happy robot about to kill its' human masters... but I digress.
The next day I had another shoot. Since I figured the IR mode on the 910 was shot I pulled out the mitros as my primary off camera for this one. But when I fired off my test shots, the mitros didn't work as an IR remote either. Now I had to really sit back and take stock of what the hell was going on. Luckily I had more time on this shoot so my troubleshooting was more level headed and thorough, and quickly revealed that I was being a dumb ass. The last time I used my D800 as a commander was at the speed light workshop, where I was deconflicting with other shooters so had switched my master to channel 4. All my flashes were set to channel 1. Fixed that issue and not only did the mitros work perfectly as a slave, but so did the busted up 910 when I tested it later that night.
So, what did I learn from this? First off, solid gear is much more durable than I give it credit for. Second, pay attention to the little things. If I had just taken the extra second to make sure the 910 was locked down in the first place, it wouldn't have fallen. If I had taken the time to reset my camera back to its' baseline after the workshop I wouldn't have thought the damage was as bad as I initially did. Finally, I got a good reminder of the importance of keeping going regardless of what happened. The flash fell, it broke, I went to a backup and still got good images and had a fun evening of shooting.
More will come from this shoot later on when I finish processing images. I will probably be going blog silent for a little while, I am getting ready for a summer of travel, there will be lots of shooting but I won't have a solid and reliable internet connection again really until August or September, so I will post when I can, but I'll probably be gone for a bit then back in force this fall. Stay tuned. If all goes well, you may also see my first attempt at a book coming out shortly, since I will have a lot of travel time free to write.
And just to finish it up- turns out the only damage was the red plastic window cover for the front of the flash, $12 plus shipping and handling later, my 910 is good as new and still blasting away.
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