STEP ONE
It sometimes starts with a cost efficient, innocent and strategic move. The budget determines you have to save somewhere and that’s the flash unit.
In your local camera store, albeit a Ritz or independent, they’ll help you into a rebadged Quantaray, Vivitar, Sigma, or Pro Master just to name a few. Many of which are under $130.00, about half of the factory unit.
It's like buyer a starter car. Our hero, Mr. Invincible, at this point, has at least made sure the flash works and the book said it would figure it all out for him. Remember I said there are two parts to being successful...but there are about twelve that can ruin you.
He forgot to scope the Church and poor planning usually leads to poor results. “I walked in and the lighting was really bad, not enough flash power" or "they wouldn’t let me use flash”! Big oops!
Chalk it up to a bad experience, especially since this usually occurs at the first paying wedding for some one other than his sister, cousin, office associate or friend. Debilitating to say the least. He loses faith in the business because he realizes this is not all fun,glory and the tools do the work. It is good business practice and a working knowledge of both business tool and cameras gear.
STEP TWO
When stage one falls apart the photographer joins a forum and asks questions. He or she wants to learn how everyone else did it. We all know "an answer". The problem is we don’t all have the same questions. There is no one right answer for 100 possible things we were not privy to.
Simple, we did not see or sense what he did. Never the less, the written answer right or rightly wrong is right more like “write”. The real problem is any advice is null and void at the next event since it will be different and the game will change.
Our skills and training are different and work-a-rounds are like cake baking. Same basic ingredients mixed and proportioned differently. Took me three years to learn why you beat crepe or pancake batter very lightly and don’t drag out the cake beater and whip it for ten minutes if you want light airy pancakes or even crepes. Eventually I learned, my wife was very patient and my head is very thick at times. Thanks to her, I am a crepe genius.
Enter the brand groupies, in concert they join in and some will say you need the integrated flash unit from the manufacturer of your camera. It wasn't your fault. Nice of them. Thats because they made the same stinking mistake. In a comfortable tone they will tell you, your problems are because you got the wrong flash.
So you need to step up to the N-C-P-S flash of your camera brand. That’s spelled PROPRIETARY. Misspelled it’s really PROSPERITY. The difference, you pay more for the manufacturers flash because of the features. Well thats a HALF TRUTH: All those exotic features are great as selling points but are they useful when the Bride changes the script and you have to improvise. Do you need all those features? Are you paying for what you will never use. are you willing to learn what the flash can really do?
Features and benefits are the hallmarks of the selling process. You are shown the features which sell the benefits to you. Like when you got your last car. The car salesman, tells you the Glitzo 530E- has a Macpherson front suspension! Reality... the car had to have something to support the wheels whether it be an A-frame, Macpherson or Torsion bar. That's features and benefits. Putting a value on the obvious at no cost.
TRUTH: - You pay the difference for proprietary stuff because of the R&D. The aftermarket guys just reverse engineer the product and find ways to make it cheaper with cheaper help, less features, less integration, as part of the equation.
STEP THREE -
A forum guru, self proclaimed offers, "More power to you”. The phrase came from the prison system. It was yelled across the concrete floors and steel bars of death row to the departed heading for the electric chair. Want to be a pro? You need a fourteen hundred ninety dollar battery pack and the Quasitmoronia Formido ZF200Mi head, made by the Gestuffan Battery Company in Deutschland.
This game is about light. It’s about enlightenment, knowledge and the student takes a long time to learn this because there is no reason to expand his thinking. The strobe is automatic isn't it. So just compensate and you solved the problem, you just don't know how. So you sell the strobe.
So the next step is to move up to a more powerful system or add more of the proprietary units via wireless. Great thinking “three is better than one”. If you can’t get one flash to do your bidding when you want it, how are three going to make your life easier during the stress of a wedding? Explaining it another way, you just graduated from training wheels to the two wheel bike and tomorrow you’ll be riding in the Tour De Bankruptcy in France.
With more money than brains and talent, find a used Quantum Turbo FLASH for sale because it’s larger and more intimidating and with a mere few hundred dollars extra get the Digital with the digital module for your camera.
But soon you find you have a strobe which only uses a certain PROPRIETARY power pack and the cheaper model only gives you 200 flashes when new which ends the day you use it the first time. So you really need two or more of them. This will usually end up at the $3000 mark when you are done and you still aren’t getting what you wanted.
STEP FOUR -
Add Alien Bees or Dyna-Lites or some other inexpensive setup that you have to add a Vagabond or other off-site power supply to operate wireless. All that currency spent for tiny units that cost more than the first pro camera you bought or go all out and beyond your learning curve.
The reason for the Vagabond is if you have AC lights with cords and someone trips on the cord; don’t worry about your mono light that smashed into the ground, better to worry about a lawsuit from the tripper.
Hint: BUY SEVERAL ROLLS OF REAL GAFFERS TAPE for the cords.Real gaffers tape leaves no residue, cheap silver duct tape does, it was never meant to come off. Hire an assistant, a second shooter, a beginner, or your wife to help carry all this gear. In step four you start thinking, this is work. Wives are smarter and as long as they are not sleeping with your lawyer you are OK