Thursday 15 December 2011

Bowens Pro Heads, fire and fail...

I've used Bowens flash equipment since I set up as a freelance photographer just over 9 years ago, I'd used it before that in a couple of studios I'd worked for, so naturally when I was looking to upgrade some older kit about 18 months ago it was Bowens that I went for. The Pro heads, with their fast flash duration, were bought and I put some of my older flash equipment on e-bay. I'm beginning to wish I'd kept those older heads, as over the course of a couple of weeks I've had one 500 Pro head stop working and a 750 Pro head nearly go on fire, the smoke was very black and extremely unpleasant. So today Simon from Bob Rigby Photographic came over and picked up the offending equipment to send back to Bowens, luckily they have a two year  warranty, he did point out that the Bowens range is now made in China, which actually came as a bit of a shock. Chinese flash equipment hasn't got the best of reputations for quality or reliability. 

So now I wait till January to see what has gone wrong with my kit, I've still got 3 working heads and I can borrow up to 4 more at a push, but I really don't like the situation. 18 months use for this sort of equipment isn't that much, the heads I e-bayed were 5 years old and are still going strong at a photography business in Dorset.

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