It hurts me to spend money. My wife call me cheap, I say I’m practical. She puts up with it to a certain point but enough was enough when it came to our recent flash troubles.

I have been shooting on Minolta gear for the better part of 15 years, and if it weren’t for the gross investment in lenses, I would have switched to Cannon or Nikon years ago (the the cheap in me I guess). Since it’s really the glass (the lens) that does the bulk of the picture taking, I have gotten by with whatever camera body Minolta would throw at me as the years went on. I started to get a tad worried when Minolta started to fold (during the Konica merger and inevitable sale to Sony), especially since it was about time I switched to digital.

Thankfully Sony is carrying that torch high and my migration to digital was a relatively painless one, save for the flash compatibility. Some years ago I had invested a considerable sum of money on a pair of, then state of the art, Minolta 5200i‘s. I still have them, and sadly for me, they don’t talk well with the new digital platform. It wasn’t a huge deal for me since I could still use them manually with the camera, but my wife… well let’s just say she preferred if I get a new flash.

And that’s what I did. The Sony HVL-F56AM to be exact. Now these are expensive little suckers so I wasn’t about to invest in a pair of them like I had before. No, I needed a better solution and in my research, found the WhaleTail which I promptly ordered. Once that’s in, I’ll write a post with a few comparative shots for your review. So until then…

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