Remember to test your equipment first

Time for the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown in the city. Brought my usual parade kit, D3 + SB-800 + 70-200VR. Got to the event, started firing off some shots. Blinking highlights. Odd, but I ignored them and continued to shoot. Even more blinking highlights.

Decreased the aperture, and whoa, major overexposure. Stopped the aperture down (whoops, flash is strobing in modelling mode) and looked down the lens barrel: aperture is wide open. Removed the lens, and the aperture lever is stuck. It was easy to move it back to the fully closed position, and I moved it around just to make sure it was ok. No more blinking highlights after that fix.

Capture NX to the rescue. Of course it can't give me back the missing DOF, and some shots are just too overexposed to be of any use.

Lesson learned: always test your equipment before shooting, and don't ignore the blinking highlights.


On a side note, the Olympus E-P1 and 14-42mm lens are arriving tomorrow. New toy!

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