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Uway Extendir-B

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Swaro

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Checking to see if anyone on here has used these. Thinking about pairing them up with my SG560's. From what I read on Chasingame.com they got really good reviews, but wanted to see/hear some more "real-world" experiences with them. In particular, I'm wondering how the battery life is. My SG560's run great with no problems and great battery life, so I'm hesitant to try and swap out to a different camera at this point. I'm definitely trending toward all black flash.
 
I was using one, let's say TRYING to use one, last year with a couple of Uway NT50B cams. Unfortunately, the NT50Bs were either not working, working intermittently, or only working occasionally. This made it very difficult to evaluate the black-flash extender. Honestly, I had trouble in even being able to tell when it was working, or not. But it appeared, the battery life was relatively short compared to most of the newer cams.

I like the idea of being able to use this black-flash extender as a means of converting a white-flash (or a red flash) cam into a true black-flash unit. Main draw-back I currently have with the black-flash unit itself is its large "foot-print", especially since it's in addition to that of the cam.

Am currently experimenting with that Uway black-flash extender coupled with a Leaf River cam. Will share my results when available, but do not expect battery life on the flash-extender to be as great as the cam's battery life. Will depend in large part as to how many times the unit is triggered at night, as well as the flash-extender's settings. I left it on it's highest output setting.
 
I have one. Love it. I also have an Extendir-IR for an old SG550. I love that one too. Really lights up the night.
 
Wes, you hit the exact same points I have been pondering. One being the footprint of my setup. I like the SG560 for it's size. But when I piggy back the black flash off of it, it doubles in size and it won't be so compact anymore. I have some ideas in the back of my head that would help conceal it, but then the whole setup would become more cumbersome to tote around from spot to spot. I like to move them around pretty regular. The other point is the battery life of the thing. Scoutguard has me spoiled rotten on battery life. I put lithium batteries in them last year and ran them non-stop for 13 months before I changed batteries. They were starting to get a little slow those last few weeks, but they were still taking good pics over mineral licks. Kinda hate to get back into buying D batteries every month just for the flash. For a little bit I would sell the ones I have after the season is over and just upgrade to self contained black flash. But I can't afford to go to Reconyx, and I don't hear as much overall satisfaction on the NT50B as I would like to hear before buying one. For now it's just something else to think about.
 
Unquestionably, not only does the footprint increase when using a flash extender, you also now have two items to cable lock to the tree, plus aligning them correctly. I've heard of a company making a double security box with one unit stacked on top of the other, one cable lock.

The Xtenders will take 10,000+ flash photos on a set of D batteries. I've never had to replace batteries in the Xtenders during an entire 6-month census season.
 
Haven't seen the security box you're talking about, but that is kind of the idea that I have. No doubt that would take care of the alignment issues that concern me. Ten thousand pics with one set of D batteries does impress me though! I assume those were rechargables? Was that with all three banks going?
 
Swaro said:
Haven't seen the security box you're talking about, but that is kind of the idea that I have. No doubt that would take care of the alignment issues that concern me. Ten thousand pics with one set of D batteries does impress me though! I assume those were rechargables? Was that with all three banks going?
Click to expand...

Standard alkeline in the Xtender-IR but might be rechargeables for the black-flash. I've been running alkeline in both with no problems. I've never had to replace batteries over a 6-month period. However, I strongly suspect you would get more black-flash illumination by using rechargeables.
 

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