My well-used Nikon SB26 flash came via UPS today and I was pretty pumped. In the Strobist world the 26 is just about the be-all, end-all of flashes. It’s almost 15-year-old technology, but it has a built-in optical slave that fires when it detects the light from another flash. Unfortunately, the Strobist craze has driven up the price on these babies. I almost opted for buying the current generation SB600, but the 26 was $75 cheaper and the 600 won’t fire wirelessly with my D40 camera. The little pop-up flash on the camera will fire the 26 if I don’t want to use the big Vivitar. The 26 won’t do the fancy through-the-lens-exposure control that tells the flash when to stop putting out light when the right exposure is reached, but I want it for manual use anyway. I dusted off old Abe and fired light at him from two sides.

Now I can get on Flickr and say things like: Vivitar 285HV into a silver 43″ umbrella on 1/4 power camera right with a snooted SB26 at 1/64 camera left and little behind model for hair light and a white card at lower camera left for fill on model’s face. 285 fired via poverty wizard with 26 slaved.