When I retired I owned a reasonably humble camera and accepted that my pension would not support profligate spending on new gear. Then I was lucky enough to start earning some cash with my camera and was able to establish my “camera fund”, whereby earnings would be deposited and retained for future camera upgrades. After all, there was no point in standing in a hot field all day taking photos, followed by days of eye straining processing; just to earn some cash for groceries. There had to be the promise of more gear to make it worthwhile.
And it worked pretty well, such that I could upgrade to a Canon 1D and acquire my monster 300mm lens without having to dip into what I call “my savings” but what other would regard as “loose change”. Once the camera gear was up to date, the name of the fund was changed to “Spike’s toys fund” by a unanimous vote by the fund management committee (me). A Mac Pro followed and I think the iPad was the last acquisition by the fund (bookkeeping is virtual, somewhat foggy and not subject to audit; so I can tell she who must be obeyed that I am buying something using fund resources, when in fact there is bugger all left in the kitty).
Photography jobs have been somewhat sparse of late, so the gear wish list has been growing, awaiting cash to pay for my desires. The sale of some of my Canon lenses recently has topped up the balance nicely. What to do with the cash? Decorate the condo? Buy some urgently needed new underpants? Take she who must be obeyed on a nice holiday? No way; more gear please.
So far there has been the wide angle Olympus lens and the Contax 45mm; but that was just the start. Next on the shopping list was a better flash for the GF1.
Like many cameras, the GF1 has a pop-up flash; but it is rather feeble and will not cast light very far. I needed something more substantial for those times when I needed something more substantial. My Canon had a monster clip-on flash, sufficient for lighting a large area in the dark:
But the Canon flash was too big to sit on top of the GF1, and anyway it had already been sold in the great Canon equipment purge of 2010. In addition, the hot shoe on top of the GF1 where you would normally stick an external flash was occupied by the electronic viewfinder which I did not really want to remove. A bit of searching and I found this alternative:
No sign of a supplier in Thailand; and none of the usual suspects from Hong Kong on eBay had one, so with some trepidation I placed an order with B&H Photo in New York, which I understand is a city somewhere in America. Goodness knows how long it would take to come.
I pressed the order button on a Friday night, and on Saturday they advised they had shipped it. On Monday there was a knock on the door and a smiling man gave me a box with a Flash in it. Amazingly quick service.
Enthused, I ripped off the packaging and inspected the flash. Let’s give it a try. Slide open the battery compartment to insert some batteries and… nothing happened. The cover would not move. More fiddling and still no movement, so onto the web to seek instructions. Mr. Google offered a comment from another proud owner: “I have had this bloody flash for a week and I am still unable to get batteries into it.”
This was not looking good, so in desperation I turned to the rather chunky user manual. Metz is a German company, but are known all over the world for their flash guns; so I expected the manual would be in English.
But I was met with “Dieser Blitz wird gefickt, geschieht dir recht English Schwein”, which I decided must be German.
Oh well, turn to the next tab which would certainly be English. But:, “Je tiens à vous lécher l’anus, grand garçon”. Looks like the French are favoured by the Germans, possibly because they were so cooperative in the last war.
Never mind, must be English next. But: “Uw hoofd is gemaakt van aardbeien”. Bugger me, it’s the Dutch, presumably being favoured for involunarily donating all their bicycles to the German war machine.
Finally, in fourth place, there was a rather badly translated English version, which provided no additional help regarding gaining access to the battery compartment. This was followed by the Italian translation (didn’t try hard enough and ran away too often in WW2), and finally the Spanish who rarely buy flash guns anyway.
In the end I gained access to the battery compartment using the same technique that I use with all precision devices that refuse to be precise; I forced open the cover with a screwdriver. While doing so, I pondered why an international company would provide documentation where English was placed below German, French and Dutch.
Metz was formed in Germany by Paul Metz in 1938.
Comments 🔗
2010-08-30| Ray saysGAS (gear acquisition syndrome) is an incurable disease and although it can strike at any age photographers in their latter years are particularly susceptible to it. I was initially infected in the early 70’s and despite much counseling I have failed to repress the symptoms.
There was an early attempt at cure by my two ex-wives with the ultimatum of “me or that”, but despite being lovely ladies the uncontrollable nature of GAS won!
Live with it!
2010-08-30| Spike saysI don’t believe the bit about counseling.
2010-08-30| biggrtiggr saysFor you, ze var is nicht ofer
2010-08-30| Hershel K. Waldner saysLOL! An enjoyable read! Thank you for your kind mention of B&H Photo. On behalf of all of us at B&H Photo, please accept our warm thanks and deep gratitude for your patronage. We look forward to earning your trust and continued business for many years to come. I invite you and your readers to check out our new informative and entertaining blog at www.bhinsights.com
Hershel K. Waldner Supervisor, Online Marketing Department B&H Photo-Video-Audio 212-239-7500 ext. 2893
2010-08-31| Spike saysHershel, Must take some stamina to trawl through the web looking for references to your company. Good news though; I shall append the words “B&H Photo” to every future blog, thus doubling my readership!