Wednesday night at Cedar Lake my flash batteries gave out after approximately 170 full power flashes. I use a Nikon SB800 with the Nikon external battery pack. The flash holds four AA's and the external power source an additional six AA's. Normally I will shoot a hundred or so outside the track shots without flash from various vantage points. On NASCAR night I needed to use flash quite a bit during the course of the entire evening. I took more than my usual number of test shots on NASCAR night and that uses additional power. Running out of flash power kind of caught me off guard and I didn't have any spare batteries. I use 15 minute rechargeable batteries and the ones I'm using are going on four years old so I'm going to have to replace them after the season. In the meantime I'm going to carry eight backup batteries in my camera bag. If I run out of primary flash power I can disconnect the external battery pack and put four of the backup batteries in the flash head. My recycle times would be a little slower if I have do to that but at least I'll have an additional 140 shots. Four batteries in the flash head supply the user with approximately 70 shots and I've got eight spares. In addition to that I'm going to make a change in my flash settings when using fill flash that should conserve some battery power. I'll be prepared next time so I don't miss any important shots. The batteries must be losing some of their ability to hold a charge. Actually, I'm glad that it happened because that way I got some advance warning that I need to be thinking about getting fresh batteries.
My backup plan will get me through the season then I'm going to take a look at all of my photo equipment to see what needs an upgrade. I'm working with a limited budget (just like racing) but am attempting to make one key purchase each off season. Last winter it was a new lens so this year it will include flash batteries and possibly several more items. I did an indoor photo shoot the other day for a friend who wrote a book and wanted some photos for the cover. We did the shoot in the Black Dog, a wine restaurant located in St. Paul's lower town artists quarters near the old Gillette factory. I did the shoot hand held with flash which isn't the preferred method for the pros. To do indoor work justice it's essential to have portable studio lighting along with umbrella diffusers and a good quality tripod. It's like racing, if you want to go fast you have to have the right kind of equipment. I try to use available light whenever possible but I would have needed a tripod to shoot without flash.
Solutions such as vibration reduction lenses and studio lighting come with a high price so a person would have to use them a lot to justify the expense. I would enjoy the challenge of doing indoor work of subjects other than racing. My dream job would be doing photo shoots and graphic designs full time from my home. I'll be 57 this fall so I've got a few years to go before I can retire and devote more time to my hobby. I'm using a photo processing service now that gives me a good price on 11x14's and have been doing some 4x6 driver cards as well as 8x10 and 11x14 standard photos and collages. The collages are pretty neat, especially when I've got a portrait shot as well as left and right side action shots. I got so darned busy during my vacation that I let the artwork slide for a couple of weeks. Each design I do is unique so it takes me longer to do them than if I was overlaying a previously designed border and text over the photos. You can tell when they do that because each design is the same but is used for different drivers. It's necessary to do that if a person sells large quantities but I only do a few custom designs each month.
Here are samples of a few 2008 graphics that I have done to date:
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