How to Break your SB-800's Little Neck Like a Chicken
UPDATE: Thanks to Eric, in the comments, for the surgery-based workaround (see comment at 11:58 a.m. on 8/13/08). And yes, I know the vid was way too drawn out. Which is why I told you where you could skip to...
Peter Gregg spends two minutes and 40 seconds admonishing you not to do this. Then shows you exactly how he strong-armed his Nikon SB-800 speedlights so that they will now go 135 degrees to the left. (Clarification: When you are looking at the flash from the front.)
The SB-800s of normal photographers only go 90 degrees to the left.
Many CLS-ers lament the inability to turn the signal receiver window to any angle needed when shooting multi-light, off-camera. This (insane) little mod would seem to rectify that.
FAIR WARNING: I am not going to do this to any of my babies. In fact, I get a little squeamish just watching it. But if you arestupid brave enough, it might give you access to every click-stop through the 360-degree range.
Or it might get you a $320.00 paperweight.
-30-
Peter Gregg spends two minutes and 40 seconds admonishing you not to do this. Then shows you exactly how he strong-armed his Nikon SB-800 speedlights so that they will now go 135 degrees to the left. (Clarification: When you are looking at the flash from the front.)
The SB-800s of normal photographers only go 90 degrees to the left.
Many CLS-ers lament the inability to turn the signal receiver window to any angle needed when shooting multi-light, off-camera. This (insane) little mod would seem to rectify that.
FAIR WARNING: I am not going to do this to any of my babies. In fact, I get a little squeamish just watching it. But if you are
Or it might get you a $320.00 paperweight.
-30-
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Posted at 1:00 AM.
68 Comments:
You have a small but very important typo in your entry, twice at that. The SB's are limited 90 degrees to the right, not the left
Has anyone tried this to a SB600?
135 degrees to the _other_ left.
yeah dude....no thanks.
My father has done it to his SB-800 and it worked fine. It took more force than is shown in the video though, I think he secured his in a vice before giving it a twist.
I'm not game enough to try it on my SB-600s yet, has anyone experimented with them?
Wonder if anyone has *not* done this with a 430EX ?
I have done this "modification" twice now. I feel compelled to tell you, only ended well for me once.
i can't recomend doing this again.
-cheers
Cool mod :) He have too many flashes or too much money though, since he attempted to twist the neck of his flash in the first place :)
And yikes, why does Americans have to be so cautious not to be sued? ;)
Or, you could take your flash off camera and put it on a stand or clamp it and angle it anyway you like anyway.
I like mods in general, but I don't think I'll try this one at home.
yikes . . .
i'm definitely gonna pass on this one
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
LOL. Very funny.
First response. LOL
"We're sorry but this video is no longer available."
Anyone else getting this?
What a great video - part of me wonders if it will work on the SB-600 too!
HEH:) Crazy, I like the fact that it looks like it is simple and possible and as well the fact how many times during this video he did say:" Don't do this!!":)
Another way how to have the flash with 135-180 degrees to the right side is sb900:)
**** this guy is so annoying. 5min video for a 20sec show.
man, thats crazy... i dont think i would do that..
I 'didn't' do it on my DAF 42 (Nikon) and it works perfect. Real easy and just moderate force.
/BonneSwe
Okay, I admit it, maybe I'm a bit of a thrillseeker, but this was not at all like breaking the neck of a chicken. I expected gore. Pure violence. A screaming Nikon flash begging for the violator to stop twisting it.
But no sound. No blood. No begging.
But what the heck, perhaps it's useful for the people out there owning that flash (don't do it!). I'll just sit here and wait for my Vivitar. :)
Uh.. that really send chills to my spine! :O
I wouldn't do this to my flash if i had Nikon:)
I kinda felt sorry for the lil SB when i saw that video :( Isn't something like this called murder? I think that every photographer should respect their gear.
Don't you mean 90 degrees to the right?
(I'm sure glad I use Canon!)
I have to agree with you: Looks frightening...
Ouch...I would never ever do that to my SB-800. Watching him turning the flash head like that makes my neck hurt. My SB 800 is a voodoo doll for me, if you hurt it I will really get hurt.
- only go 90 degrees to the left?
Our left, his right, right? :-)
Wow....that guy has some big ones. I'm not sure I would have ever done that without someone showing me it would work. Wait, did he say not to do it?
and who is the chicken David? ;)
"If he was a real photographer I might almost take it seriously, but this is just some random pathetic guy".
Peter Gregg is actually a well-known, well-respected photographer in the pro-wedding and portrait photographic community. He did this, as he says, because for his purposes he needed the flash to do more. I don't know for sure, but I suspect it was either this or spend several hundreds on new SB900s. For him it was worth the risk. If you don't have a major need for more range, then, of course, don't do it. But do be nice to him, eh?
More importantly, what kind of light modifiers was he using on them? they looked like rubber. Anyone had any experience with them?
mike
I'm thinking that if my SB28's don't go to 135, and my SB600's don't go to 135, and my SB800's don't go to 135 then the designers at Nikon must have a reason for that... kinda like how the person who designed my house put a steel "I" beam across the foundation to hold the place up.
I'm not about to knock a piece out of the structure in my home... and I ain't gonna break any Nikon necks today either.
As has been mentioned by someone here already... if you're using your flash OFF CAMERA (which is what Strobist is, right?) then you can point it anywhere by using stands, clamps, bungees, your hand etc... and firing with CLS, a cable, radio triggers, or an SU800.
"Don't do this." OK. I won't. Zoiks!
John - Ottawa Canada
David, I just heard about you and the Sun, I hope things are well and your new venture goes well for you. I miss the idle bantor from the sidelines on the high school tour. Take care
Billy Dixon
Lifetouch
Thanks for the radio poppers tip
@Scott Simon: It's a B-L-O-G.
Any reason you can't just take the flash apart and shave or break off the stop on your own that way without running the risk of breaking the wires (whole unit)?
Seems to me if you took it apart and did it you could see if you ad enough wire available as well and see how far you could go around....
this idea just seems stupid, when you want something to do something you use force instead of your head and do it the "right" way?
I just tried this mod on a broken SB600 I had laying around... (so I can't test if it still would fire, it didn't work before) but the head swivels just the way he described it. Seems like if I tried it again it may break the plastic, but it seems fairly successful this time.
wow. just wow. might I suggest actually doing it right.
separate the front cover from the back cover, the head will come away as well. 4 screws on top hidden under the head when it is forward. 6 on the bottom freely accessible. the unit comes apart very simply. two small metal screw plates will probably drop out when you pull them apart unless you are holding the back of the unit toward the floor. in any case don't worry they are simple to put back in place at reassembly. disconnect the blue and gray (on my units) AF assist light wire so you have more room to work otherwise the front cover won't move very far from the back one. file, chisel, sand, or grind away the plastic stop on the front cover that prevents rotation. it is the one closest to the cord connector. I removed both stops so my units now rotate through 900 degrees from -360 to +540 or so. I left a little hint of the stop so that I still feel mild resistance passing the negative 180 position to remind my of what I'm doing.
macro of plastic stops before:
http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/3870/sb800mod1re7.jpg
and after:
http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/4871/sb800mod2il2.jpg
and finally an overview with the work done, the wire disconnected (don't forget to reconnect it), and the screw plate in the background.
http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/1332/sb800mod3hw6.jpg
forgive the poor pictures I wanted to get this up before any unfortunate person decided they needed this functionality badly enough to actually try this with unfortunate result.
David feel free to use this info as you like. thanks for this site by the way, I'm more informed than I used to be when it comes to light...
Eric Grenier
I just tried it on an already defective SB-80DX, so it was no risc at all. It is possible to turn the head to the 135° Position like mentioned in the video. Maybe I'll do this to one of my SB-800s, but I think I save this trick to the moment it is really necessary.
Yeah, you could do this... OR you could use a 580ex since you're gonna put it on a lightstand and use a receiver anyway...
eric grenier -- it would seem you could clip just one of the stops and have +-180 degree, and have a stop there? I totally agree, this is a much better way to do this. Any idea why it was not set up for this to begin with? Some limit switch not working properly?
There are many reasons to do this to a chicken (think: fried, broiled, baked, and more) but none for an expensive SB-800. With all the available work-around options at a user's disposal, this choice is just plain stupid.
Just wondering how he found out about this trick. Just imagine a photographer getting very annoyed at a wedding because his flash only turns completely to the left and loosing control... :)
Wow I didn't know the oh so powerful SB800 could not turn 180 each direction. As much as I envy the Nikon CLS system compared to Canons, I'm glad at least in this way that I own Canon 580EXs.
How dare you talk about my chickens that way!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52205665@N00/2696823108/
Debbi (LOL)
Oh yeah, it works great... nice little upgrade to the
sb-800 :)
You resisted embelishing the flash in some kind of chicken suit!! Settled for a batman cape instead....
Holy wow, I seriously felt a little sick watching that. Totally R rated.
Please don't let your kids watch this.
I read his mod weeks ago and tried it with one of my sb800s. Worked great, but I was too chicken to try it with the others. Reading Eric's excellent post, I just took that one apart to see what happened inside. Sure enough the metal plate that's attached to the head sheared off the 90° stop. So it's basically the same thing arrived at with different methods. Don't know if I want to take off the second stop.
omg. That was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo drawn out. I got the point after 15 seconds. that video could have been fully explained, understood, and done with in under 60sec. I want 4min of my life back
I'm confused as to why it took this guy 5 minutes to explain this. He could have done this entire video in like 30 seconds. It's not like he was explaining something complicated...
If you think the video is long and drawn out, try his Better Bouce Card videos...
Peter Gregg is actually a well-known, well-respected photographer in the pro-wedding and portrait photographic community.
Four-time winner of the 24 Hours of Daytona, too. Oh, it's not that Peter Gregg?
Anyway, I'm definitely not doing this to mine. I have to think the stop was placed there for a reason. That was painful to watch. For those who have tried it and then opened up the flash, how tight are the wires when it's rotated to 135 degrees?
That was painful to watch. And I didn't even watched the whole thing. I should have stopped when he called it a "movie" camera.
Here's your $1.25, 5 second solution....
You don't need to twist the neck off of your beloved SB800/600. The solution was found at Walmart. When your strobes are facing the wrong way, an old fashioned cheap 7" diameter makeup mirror with a hinge/stand can easily be hung from your strobe with the mirror pointing at your IR sensor. Worked like a charm in bright sunlight.
C'mon now, how realistic is the need to turn the neck of your off camera flash and break it?
Mount the flash on a stand and you fix the issue...
Some folks just can't leave good enough alone.
Um, to the several people who have said the orientation does not matter when the flash is off-camera, it very much matters to people who use CLS and want to keep the receiver window pointing in the right direction.
Ok, this was a great video. I now have full 360 degree rotation on the 800 (180 left, 180 right). Everything still works.
Great Modification. Worked fine for me with a SB-800 and SB-80DX
I saw this vid like 4 months ago, grabbed my SB800 and twisted it. it wasnt hard at all and it works absolutely fine. i guess i "like to live on the edge" and thanks to that i now have full rotation on the SB800.
I've done it to a working SB600. It's probably easier to just wring the neck on the 600 than on the 800. There's a wide plastic stop in there that you're essentially cutting off by giving it the "neck-twist-o-death" maneuver. It can be modded "professionally" by taking it apart, but it's a lot more complicated than the 800 due to the positioning of the stop. All in all, I would say that the neck-wringing is a better option for the 600, while you should probably use the sugery method for the 800.
Oh, one more thing... I don't believe there is anything stopping you from going past 360 once you kill the stop on the SB600, and the wires are getting to their limit at that point, so don't use the Torque-Master 2000 on it or you will be sorry.
Yeah. Well did it to 2 SB 800s a couple of months ago and they continue to work no problem. Only "more better!" if you're into bouncing on camera flash
Thanks Peter - even if you do tend to go on before getting to the point.
A few models of Metz do this without force. At least my 32 MZ-2 does.
I 'didnt' do this to 2 of my 4 sb800's. works fine. i dont want to push my luck though....
and what is the moral of the story? Why did you not show samples of what you did with this useless information?
too much time on your hands.........go shoot something!
There is a reason why it doesnt turn around all the way , first the internal wiring to the strobe bulb need to have a ring collar so that it can turn freely in any directions and will still have contact to the main board without ripping the wiring from the stobe bulb. Before doing this procedure I would open the the body of the flash and inspect. Andy insure that its ok to do this stunt.
that's what i would do first or if you can get a diagram or schematic from nikon it would also help.
I did the "surgical" method tonight --- very simple and very effective. A couple of things to note:
1) The metal plates, when they do fall out, require tweezers to position correctly and a bit of patience to re-attach. It is better to never let them fall out by removing only the four screws on the bottom and two on the top that face the "Nikon Speedlight" sign (the AF illuminator). The other four screws (two on top and two on bottom) can remain fully screwed in without affecting the procedure.
2) After removing both tabs I now wish I had done only one. Now if I don't pay attention I am in danger of twisting the wires off the head, because once you are past the tab there is no way to tell which way you should go... so tread carefully.
i did the mod on my new canon 430ex II and it works !! stopped at 135 degrees ... not willing to go beyond
cheers mate !
Thanks to pics made by Eric Grenier I decided to do the inside-surgery (I've melted the redundant plastic with soldering iron) and it works great. No Superman's power needed. I don't really understand the guy from the video - have you seen how thick is the part he broke?
OK< I am sure that I'll be able to figure and perform the surgical procedure, but just to be sure, which of the two tabs is the one which removes the 90 degs stop and which is the one which removes the 180 degs one?
Just did it to 3 of my SB's without a problem. Not much force needed and they are all working fine. Should have done that a long time ago.
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