In the last couple of months, I have managed to break a fair bit of gear. I broke both of my bounce umbrellas, and I managed to severely damage a speedlight. Not a large amount of gear, not like last years Crystal Falls incident but more than a little annoying. The good news is the umbrellas were cheap and really needed to be replaced, plus it taught me to be more careful with how I place ballast on the light stands when outside. The speedlight, however, was a more costly mistake but at least it was my Nikon SB-600 not my SB-800 that broke.

This week I replaced the broken light with two SB-600’s. I could have bought Nikon’s brand new SB-900 (a more powerful replacement for the SB-800) but what I needed was more light, not a shiny new gadget. I now have three speedlights which if your a speedlight fan gives you a lot of options for lighting. As a Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS) user, three lights is not quite enough I will have to get a fourth light at some point. Maybe then I will be able to afford a SB-900 or I could stumble over a good used SB-800 (discontinued and becoming rare).

Just taking some quick test shots yesterday was a revelation with the three lights. I am so looking forward to learning how to light with three sources. Sam will be annoyed as she is my principle target for testing. I do manage to take a good quantity of bad shots of my wife.

I may get some practice this weekend with the Facebook photography group, No Compacts Allowed!! and on Monday with the tri-City Photography Club.

I wonder if Sam will let me spend more money on gear so I can replace the broken umbrellas with some nice 46 inch convertible umbrellas? No, I guess I should pay off the new SB-600’s first.