I just recently picked up the pretty wicked awesome Vivitar 285 oldschool full manual flash.  I played with it a few times just goofing off at the home, but on Monday night, I went out to Midtown to hang out with my good buddy Ivan, the ever sweet-yet-scary-yet-sweet Krissy, and some other awesome people.  The goal was a Christmas photoshoot for Ivan and his amazingly awesome girl, Eliza.  That didn’t happen.

What DID happen was the rest of us getting drunk, and I broke out the camera gear for a shoot with the others.  Krissy got all dolled up, Ivan was being my test dummy…  I took three shots in front of Jeff’s house, and it started raining.  So we got the gear back inside.

Decided to move the party to a covered parking area between Jeff and Ivan’s house.  Set up the 285 on a light stand about six feet up with a shoot-through umbrella, again having Ivan be the test dummy after I metered the flash.  Raise the camera to my eye, and then I hear yelling.  And then I see a stand, with an umbrella–MY umbrella–and a barely-been-used Vivitar 285 on a Cactus v4 trigger fall to the pavement.

The Vivitar’s hotshoe mount snapped off, stuck in the Cactus mount.  Oh how this (almost) ruined my night.  I picked it up, looked at it, and slammed it back down on the pavement in anger.

It still fires, and the sync port works.

So now I need the cable to go from the proprietary Vivitar plug to an 1/8″ port for my trigger if I want to use this flash.

And a ball bungee cord or three.  How sad.

This is the last photo I took with this flash.  I’m still pissed at myself for not sandbagging the stand, or at least making someone hold it.  Plus, I missed out on getting some cute pics of Krissy all psycho’d out!  Bummer indeed.

This shot is of Ivan, doing what he does best.  Drinking.