I broke my Speedlite. Hoorah for the internet.
A couple of days back I managed to break the hotshoe off my Canon Speedlite 430EX. Quite upsetting as it’s not a cheap piece of kit. When this happens you realise that it’s only a few mm of plastic that hold two costly bits of kit together. More on that at the end though.
However all was not lost. A quick search turned up a very handy page with step by step illustrated instructions and helpful comments.
I ordered up the part from H Lehmann’s in Stoke which arrived real quick and have just fixed it in about 20 minutes. And I remembered to remove the batteries and discharge the flash before I took it apart. That might have been lively.
So it cost me £11.50 as opposed to £180 for a new flash unit. Result!!
When it intially looked like the flash was junked I did take a look at the new 430EX II which has a metal shoe rather than a plastic one. Initially this seems like a good idea, but on reflection it may well be a good thing that the hotshoe on the flash is the point of weakness. I reckon if the plastic didn’t give then it’d most likely rip the mount of the top of the camera or even worse. Anyway I’ll be a bit more careful about leaving the flash on top of the camera in future.
