Flash and blur in the same shot! I said it was possible, but we did take over an hour to perfect it. Second curtain flash was already agreed long before we arrived on site, although why my Canon remains fixed in the first curtain mode regardless of menu settings does baffle me.
With a gale blowing like a demon we were on top of Hamhill frantically holding onto my Elinchrome D-Lite 200's. The softboxes nearly blew away, the rainclouds threatened but the wet stuff held back just for us.
We got beeped at by grinning motorists and Nicki received a quiet yet complimentary wolfwhistle. Meanwhile the shots mounted up as we struggled with shutter speed and panning techniques until Kelv's preview screen produced this super picture with the elusive blur.
1/20th of a second at f11 on 200 ISO - Fantastic! I've even framed it in my excitement, plus I have added a little escapism for the front wheel.

Now I wanted just that little bit extra umph. Lifting the D-Lite head off the lighting stand, which was tied to a 'No Waiting' sign to prevent the wind whisking it away, I then mounted it on the end of a decorators extending pole . I managed to hold the light with its dished reflector about six feet above Nicki's head and another six feet in front.

At some twelve feet long the unwieldy pole proved quite a handful, even though the flashhead weighs next to nothing it was over ten feet away from my hand and being whipped about by a gusting wind.
After twenty attempts we managed to finally get a natural looking background blur and becoming frustrated with trying the judge speeds and distances with one second shutter speed in second curtain flash mode
We ended this challenging shoot in damp darkness at around 9pm and were glad of our yellow safety vests which kept the traffic at bay.
I am definitely more than happy with these great results and am now busy planning the next challenge which is a flash lit subject, plus movement of some sort of ambient light or available lights in the background. Maybe the Great Dorset Steam Fair will help shed some suitable lighting. Keith (Strobist) Robins

My flashgun suddenly starts bellowing smoke!! I connected a 6 volt motorcycle battery via a 4 foot length of wire and it didn't whine when I turned it on. Now that's funny, it's supposed to make a whining sound - hang on a minute, what's this, smoke? Oh Nooooo!!!
I had shaped two blocks of wood to act as dummy batteries in one of my old flashguns plus one of Trevor's guns - trust me to pick up the wrong one!
I had just soldered the ends on and then connected it up without double checking the polarity - silly!!! Always check, double check and then triple check that the polarity is exactly as it should be before turning on the power.
I took ten screws out of the casing and yanked the electronic innards out thinking this was the end of my Starblitz flash, but could see no signs of burnt circuitry. The smoke? Thankfully it was merely the insulated card at the bottom of the battery compartment getting rather warm due to a dead short. Also there are now two battery springs with hardly any springiness left in them. Luckily it's the two that I don't need.
Oh, and yes I pressed on and connected up, correctly this time and Bob's yer Uncle there's that good old familiar whining sound from the flashgun, a little orange light comes on. Yippee!!
Now to see what this baby can really do. Full power recharges in about three seconds. In the mid auto position this drops to about one second and in the low auto (weakest) I can just keep on hitting the firing button and the flash keeps up, the orange light stays on continuously.
Will I ever go back to normal AA batteries again? I doubt it. It's not a cost thing it's all about speed of recycling. I want a flash that recharges quickly, before the client starts to think that you've finished taking photos and wanders off. There is nothing worse than waiting, waiting, waiting for a flashgun to recharge.
High energy AA's are okay for around the twenty flash mark but then they begin increasing the length of down time, then after forty flashes we're up around the half a minute depending on temperature, battery age, flash power setting, etc.
Total number of flashes per six volt battery charge is up around 500 at full power and over 1,000 at low auto setting on the Starblitz. The Vivitar produces over 400 full power flashes but closer to 2,000 on reduced power setting! Now that's what I call Rocking, Man!
The photos accompanying this article are of my Vivitar 285 HV which I successfully converted last year.
Things to watch out for? Short circuits if you carry one of these six volt batteries in your camera bag, picking up the wrong block of wood, dropping the battery on your foot - Ouch! Hop, hop.
Some of you have asked how I clip this battery onto my belt. Two pieces of old car inner tube, they're like heavy duty elastic bands. One goes twice around the battery top to bottom while the other splips inside near the top, down through my belt and out around the lower half of the battery. So quick, it never jumps off and whacks your foot, plus it will hook over one of the adjusting knobs on a lighting stand. I used to work in a tyre company over forty years ago and I still had an ancient inner tube in the shed, 155X13 from a Ford Cortina I believe. Never throw anything away lads!