I'm sure many of us are old enough to remember the 60s and 70s when "Made in Japan" was the mark of a cheaply built product. Now they set the standard. But as was alluded to above cheap products are made from cheap labor sources, but as the labor sources expect more pay, they lose the cheapness and hopefully quality goes up to compensate for the higher price. That or they go find another 3rd or 4th world country to use their labor.
But, back to 285HVs. I purchased one about 7 months ago. I don't see any markings saying where it was made, but I suppose China. It has worked well for me. But, what I don't like is that there is no built in 1/8 power and the lowest power is 1/16th. I soldered in a resistor to make 1/8th but that makes it completely manual, and the lowest power is still 1/16th.
Then I purchased a Yongnuo YN560. I really like it. Completely manual, as is my now modified 285, but it has a complete range of power settings down to 1/128th. I liked it so much I bought two more. Plus I think it was somewhat cheaper than the 285 at the time.
With a couple sets of wireless triggers from Cowboy Studio they make a great set up. And with the four flashes and Cowboy Studio wireless rigs, it's still less than the sale priced 580. Though I sure would love to have 4 of them if I could afford it.
Ted
PS: And I too greatly appreciate Chuck and his advice. He has a great plan on his site for making a flash diffuser that is fantastic and he has always been very helpful to me.
Cultural norms get reflected in the workplace. I learned that managing a printing plant in the Philippines over a 20 year span. In the Philippines like many other asian countries the culture is socially stratified and workplaces are historically not very progressive — bosses tend to be authoritarian despots because they can get away with it. The result of that style of leadership is that staff level personnel avoid reporting problems until they get too large to hide. Even if there are high QA standards in place the workers will find ways around them unless the culture of the workplace is changed to one of teamwork combined with a control framework.
W. Edwards Deming taught Japan how to do that in the post-WWII years and his principles have trickled down ever since to transform the culture of manufacturing. The stick works better when the line workers perceive there is a carrot on the end of it. Those ideas just haven't trickled down as far in China yet, in part due to the authoritarian nature of its government structure.
Chuck is right about several items that he mentions in his long, yet informative post.
Two worthy of note.
The 283s and 285s originally produced, and the ones I owned in the 80s and 90s, were incredibly well built and, imho, conservatively rated, stood the test of time.
Zucker was doing 'poofing' way before Reggie coined the term and others, such as Zack and Kubota were selling lighting dvds. No, good for those who were able to cash in on ideas already in play; truth is, not original.
Robert is unfortunatley proably bob-on with his comments about China. Sad but true. Can we in the states compete? Ask Buff; the proverbial lightning rod of this forum. I got a chance to play with an Einstein. One of the best monos I have had a chance to use, not one of the best for the money, one of the best; period.
For the money, nothing can touch it. I am not going to trade my Profoto pack and head systems, but when I need a new mono, perhaps an Einstein?
Glad to see that the 285hv has made a return. I would gladly pay another hundred for a 285 built like the one I bought in the early 90s. Before that 283s and lesser units, were in my price range. Would love to see what pcb, or perhaps another forward thinking engineer, could do with a Nikon/Canon shoe mount flash.
