Dear Ebay, sometimes I want to punch you in the face.

I have been researching lighting lately and stumbled upon this blog.  My friend Matt told me about it a couple weeks ago but I forgot all about it until my searching exploits landed me there.  The Strobist movement is pretty simple, basically you use a camera mount style flash off the camera to create a dramatic lighting effect.  It’s quick, easy, light weigh and makes for some rockin photos.  You have to have a couple things like manually adjustable flashes and some talent to really make the whole thing work.

I ordered a dirt cheap manual flash from Ebay and figured I would just experiment with it.  I’m not doing this professionally, I just want to have some fun.  The flash arrived and I soon noticed that the shoe mount was different than the picture on Ebay.  The strobe seemed quality enough for the price and I decided that I was going to make it work!

Since I was just going to mount it on a light stand or clamp it to something I could rig my own mount with some epoxy and the right fitting.  I took it out to the shop and started unscrewing stuff.  It came apart pretty easy and the circuit looked simple enough.  It would be really easy to rig up a jack to trigger the flash so I had a hope that things would work until I dug a little further…

I noticed that there was a distinct lack of wires running behind the battery pack and it just so happens that the control switches for the flash are located directly behind the battery pack.  I checked the switches and confirmed that there were in fact no wires attached!  Apparently they are just there for show and all the flash really does is flash…  A flash that flashes technically is doing what it is designed to do.  However a flash that is non variable is near useless to a Strobist.

Despite the lack of capability and the disappointment that this little sunpak brought me not all was lost.  I fortunately was able to learn a new fun game during my experience.  It’s called the “Fun Fun Spring Game” and I recommend everyone try it at least once in their life.  It goes like this.

1. Remove the screws that hold the foot together.
2. Allow the 7 minature springs inside to shoot all over your shop.
3. Cuss.
4. Spend a really long time locating the springs because you’re going to try to put the unit back together and return it.
5. Attempt to put it back together only to have a couple more springs shoot out on to your floor that you never clean and is covered with all kinds of goodies that look a lot like miniature springs.
6. Cuss.
7. Locate Springs.
8. Re Assemble.
9. Vow to never do that again.

Just remember to have Fun Fun!

Cheers