My younger brother and I were using the same phone – Samsung Note 2. He was an explorer of a few local online shopping sites and when he bought his “unbreakable” screen protector, he got one for me too. It was a selfless act, especially when he did not expect me to pay him back, which I did together with the monthly bills payment.
I started to understand the limitation of my Canon 430 EX-II and thus I knew I had to invest in a better flash unit. When I tried to buy a Canon 600 EX-RT, Stephen, instigated by Samuel, offered to lend me his Canon 580 EX-II. He was such a nice and honest guy who was ready to lend his friends all his equipments.
The flash power of Canon 580 EX-II and Canon 600 EX-RT were almost similar, except that Canon 600 EX-RT had Canon’s radio receiver built-in and the buttons were better designed. If I were to buy a new piece, I would choose Canon 600 EX-RT for its value would stay longer. Whereas for second hand unit, both were fine to me and of course Canon 580 EX-II would be much cheaper. However, I was quite scared of getting bad second hand unit, which I probably would not be able to find out the fault until using it.
My dad’s youngest brother (my uncle) suddenly messaged me in Facebook and asked me if I had received his SMS. At first I thought he was looking for me for some urgent matters. He had actually sent the SMS to my old number, which was not in use since many years ago. Anyway, he was asking me if I had bought my new camera. He promised me to split the cost of a new camera with me during last December when I borrowed his house for a Christmas theme photoshoot. I felt too pampered and thus did not talk to him over it after that day. I had actually forgotten about it after I used my saving to buy my new Canon 6D camera and Canon 24-70mm F2.8 II lens.
I told him I would need a stronger flash unit like Canon 600 EX-RT at the moment and he wanted to get it for me. Even though we were blooded family members, I did not get to meet him often, except during Chinese New Years and I thought I did not deserve such expensive gift from him. I supposed my dad had been “borrowing” money from him long time ago when he was still alive and if that was real, they were definitely bad debts. Lastly, I was also hoping I would be able to earn through photography to purchase the necessary equipments on my own. The struggle within me was torturing. Eventually, I decided to take this “shortcut” by accepting the offer from my uncle. I supposed I would also cherish the new flash unit better if it was a gift.
I thought it was a good chance to meet up with my uncle and auntie to get the new Canon 600 EX-RT flash unit together but they were too busy. To me, it was weird but he offered to do a bank transfer over instead. He got my auntie to do it on the next day and there was even an excess of money, which would help me to get a much needed external harddisk as well.