The History of Camera Flashes

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The camera flash is one of the oldest and most essential of photographic accessories, making portrait and motion photography possible using early, slow film emulsions. Camera flash technology has evolved considerably over the past 150 years, from magnesium ribbons and flash powder to self-contained flashbulbs to multi-shot flashcubes and flip flashes to the xenon discharge tubes and LED flashes of the present day.
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[@SharonC4444]

As a young girl I wasted a lot of mom and dad's money after i found out that a toothpick could flash a Magicube flash. I'm glad my parents understood. I destroyed a lot of toys figuring out how they worked. I learned how to fix stuff after taking electronics after high school. ❤⚡📺📸😃 Love your show.

[@SeattlePioneer]

How did you wind up using your mechanical curiosity?

[@martinda7446]

🤠

[@mekagoenlaputahostia]

I did too 😂

[@magnusatheos7301]

Right on! Sounds like me growing up.

[@16jan1986]

​@@SeattlePioneeroccupation engineer?

[@andymanaus1077]

The Magicube takes me back to my youth. As a kid, I would carefully frame every flash picture I took since, in addition to the $2 per photo cost of processing the film, it cost me an addition 70¢ per flash. As a kid in the 1970s, that was a lot of money so taking photos was a big deal.

[@RingingResonance]

Accounting for inflation since 1975, that's ~$11.44 per photo in today's money with an additional ~$4.00 per flash. That's incredible.

[@andymanaus1077]

@@RingingResonance All luxuries were comparatively expensive back then, while basic necessities -- food and housing -- were much, much cheaper.

[@RingingResonance]

@@andymanaus1077 It's cruel that luxuries are now cheap while necessities are becoming unaffordable.

[@lukeonuke]

So thats why all my gramps frame pictures were so proffestionaly framed

[@quantumleap359]

Cameras that used Magicubes had a neat feature in that if the cube rotated into a used flash bulb position, an interlock in the camera would keep you from tripping the shutter, thus saving you from wasting a frame of film because there was no flash. Pretty cool.

[@JCWren]

As a kid, we used to disassemble the Magicubes so you'd wind up with 12 little flash bulbs. If you threw these really high up in the air, the pin in the bottom would generally cause them to align the pin downwards as they fell, and if they hit on concrete or asphalt, it would set them off. It was kinda like quiet fireworks :)

[@sanityassassin8161]

Used to do that in the warehouse at Kodak when we were bored. Good times! 😊

[@rollingtones1]

Squeeze a Flashcube and it fires.

[@DHyre]

I did this as well in school ! Way before geek cred got you anywhere LOL Love that about being bored in the warehouse 😂😂👍

[@crusinscamp]

Same thing here. I would tape a paper cone to the top of the flashbulb to ensure it would land ignitor-down.

[@jacobwallace6969]

For atomic bomb tests, if I remember correctly they actually used something called a Faraday rotator, which can change the polarization of light passing through it, and placed it between two filters with perpendicular polarization; so light could only pass through for the instant the rotator was activated.

[@DHyre]

Yes, exactly, which Edgerton called the Rapatronic camera. The Crystal (?) had voltage-dependent polarization, so a super-short HV pulse could make it switch for extremely brief periods, shorter than the Xenon strobes. IIRC, they used shutter times of millionths of a second, and by sequencing a few in a row, could make a brief movie of an atomic explosion. This is covered nicely in Peter Kuran’s book “How to Photograph an Atomic Bomb”; he also made the atomic-test documentary “Trinity and Beyond”. Both recommended!

[@YodaWhat]

I seem to recall the "crystal" being a _liquid crystal_ Kerr cell, where the liquid was ultra-pure water. When electrodes in the non-conductive water were hit with high voltage, the water molecules would all twist in unison into alignment, briefly forming a _liquid crystal_ 'shutter'. @@DHyre

[@christopherleubner6633]

Yup that would be the EG&G rapatronic shutter. It was made of 3 magnetic coils surrounding a bit of special glass. It had a constant field that kept the shutter transmitting then a pair of kn4 krytron tubes that would excite the coils perpendicular so the image would be reflected by a polarizing beam splitter to the film.

[@swsuwave]

Funny how atomic tests didn't need a flash as they were self illuminating.

[@christopherleubner6633]

@swsuwave in fact that is why the polarization pre loading was required, the light was so bright that the light would have overexposed the film by any direct attenuation methods. The camera also used literally miles of film being moved at near supersonic speeds over air bearings. They have the camera at the Las Alamos visiter center if you would like to see it. 👀

[@cowboyfrankspersonalvideos8869]

My father, as well as his father, were professional portrait photographers. Through the late 1950's he used a Speed Graflex camera with the attached flash to shoot weddings. After he used a flash bulb, there was a button on the back of the flash he pushed which popped the used bulb out. His camera had an electric flash trigger with a short cord with a standard 2 pronged electrical plug on the end that plugged into the flash. There were several outlets on the side of the flash so you could connect a standard electric extension cord to place the flash somewhere else, or connect more than one flash. Starting in 1960 we moved to Northern Virginia and he spent the rest of his life as a photographer for the Smithsonian Institution where he had use of some of the best cameras of the day.

[@bok..]

That is so interesting!

[@effyleven]

No. It was a. Speed GRAPHIC camera. "Graphlex" was the name of the company that made it. So, it is more correctly a "Graphlex Speed Graphic." en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graflex

[@haweater1555]

The bulb eject button was there because the bulb was too hot to handle with fingers right after firing. You may remember "The Aviator" movie where 1930s press photographers at a film premiere quickly snapping photos leave a mess of ejected spent bulbs to be crushed underfoot.

[@Subgunman]

Used one of these in high school photography club in the early 70’s. Flash bulbs for these cameras even then were becoming scarce. We had plenty of the Sylvania M2 and AG1 flash bulbs. The AG1 was incorporated into the flash cube with 4 bulbs within a plastic housing. The Kodak Instamatic 101 used the flash cube while its predecessor the Instamatic 100 used the AG1 bulb in a pop up housing. I remember seeing flashbulbs with standard Edison E26 base. I recall seeing a extra large flash bulb similar to the mogul base bulbs that were once used in theatrical general lighting. Turns out it was designed to be used by the military for night time aerial photography.

[@cowboyfrankspersonalvideos8869]

@@effyleven My goof. I've always had difficulty with names.

[@pat8988]

I remember the flash for my first 35mm camera took about five seconds to charge up before you could use it. While charging, it made a very high frequency noise of increasing pitch. When that noise stopped, you could take your picture.

[@danhammond8406]

That was charging the capacitor.

[@pinrod1]

My mom had a flash like that, it also had a manual flash button on it, and I remember flashing my eyes, and seeing nothing but green tint for a while.

[@SeattlePioneer]

I am guessing that an oscillator was being powered that rapidly turned the voltage source on and off, then used a small transformer to get a much higher voltage, which was used in turn to charge the capacitor.

[@kendokaaa]

My current modern flash also takes a few seconds to charge up although only when using it at its ridiculously bright max setting

[@SeattlePioneer]

I suggest that the most recent innovation on "flash" photography has been digital cameras with extreme sensitivity, making added light often unnecessary. Shucks, I swear that my cell phone camera can see in the dark better than I can! I suppose that trend will continue, making less and less light needed, and perhaps substituting infrared for conventional visible light. I would suppose that digital processing power might very likely be able to convert such an infrared image into an image that appears like it wasd taken with visible light. Just guessing, of course ---trying to imagine what tricks digital cameras will do next.

[@jst7714]

One of the benefits of being the high school photography teacher’s pet was I had first dibs on all the amazing old camera equipment the community donated to her, as no one knew anybody else still using film in the 2010s. So even being under 30, I’ve got to experiment with flash bulbs, Sears brand xenon flashes, and all sorts of wacky things. That flash bulb going off by accident is still the brightest thing I’ve ever seen.

[@CarlGeers]

I was in my early 20's and was told some great stories by an older co-worker at a newspaper in Colorado. Story 1 - Flash Powder This story was passed on to him when he worked at the Des Moines Register by an "old timer" in the field. A young man was trying to get his start in newspaper work and wanted to be a photographer. It was common to get on as an apprentice and move your way up to a staff shooting position. He was finally given the opportunity to shoot a simple assignment. The local theater had a small stage fire that did minor damage, his task was to take his camera and get a shot of the scene documenting it for the paper. He arrived, got his camera set up, and moved to a position that he thought would warrant a photograph. He filled up his flash pan with powder, adjusted his position just a bit more to the left, not knowing that he was right against the stage curtains, and fired his camera. The generous amount of flash powder he used to light the large theater ignited sending a fireball into the stage curtains resulting in a 5 or six-alarm fire nearly burning down the entire block. He wasn't sure if the kid continued to work at the paper or not. Story 2 - Flash Bulbs and Polyester As a photojournalist in the time of the flash bulb, a photographer would have to carry pockets full of them. One of the staff shooters was going to an assignment by plane and was wearing a polyester suit with pockets stuffed full of flashbulbs. Aircraft, while hurtling through the air, have a tendency to generate static electricity and passengers routinely get a light spark as they move about the cabin. The polyester fabric was notorious for creating static and he got zapped by a huge static discharge that triggered the bulbs in his pants pockets melting the polyester fabric and giving the poor guy a jump start and some minor burns. I can't even imagine what kind of scene that was on the plane. Don't get me started on hot lights and studio flash equipment. Yikes. People today don't realize how good they have it today!

[@deus_ex_machina_]

Some more stories I collected from the comments of _Technology Connections’_ video on the flashbulb and magicubes: Story 1 - A Quick Getaway by @BobOBob My first hand experience says that if thrown into pavement from a moving vehicle, flashbulbs have a 70% chance of triggering. If you get into trouble at night, throw 3 to ensure that at least one goes off, and get their attention since if they're looking right at it, the flash will ruin their night vision for a few minutes at least, plenty of time to book it out of there like a ninja might throw a smoke 💣 Story 2 - Sympathetic Flash by @Pcrrc-zx7ic In my college years in the early '80s, I was in the co-op engineering program at General Electric. I worked at a plant that made flashcubes. We conducted reliability testing by exposing the flashcubes to high humidity for several weeks. Once the tests were completed, I would take the flash lamps out of each cube and put them in a large grocery bag, which was quite dangerous due to 'sympathetic flash', which means when one lamp flashes, they all flash. I'd connect two wires to one lamp, put it in the middle of the bag containing several hundred lamps, place it on the porch and wait for my roommate to come home. Touch the wires to a 12-volt battery and you'd get what looked like a small nuclear explosion scaring the hell out of him! Great fun back in the day…

[@deus_ex_machina_]

Feb 18, Our Own Devices: History of 📸 Flash Carl Geers ↓ Some more stories I collected from the comments of _Technology Connections’_ video on the flashbulb and magicubes: Story 1 - A Quick Getaway by @BobOBob My first hand experience says that if thrown into pavement from a moving vehicle, flashbulbs have a 70% chance of triggering. If you get into trouble at night, throw 3 to ensure that at least one goes off, and get their attention since if they're looking right at it, the flash will ruin their night vision for a few minutes at least, plenty of time to book it out of there like a ninja might throw a smoke 💣 Story 2 - Sympathetic Flash by @Pcrrc-zx7ic In my college years in the early '80s, I was in the co-op engineering program at General Electric. I worked at a plant that made flashcubes. We conducted reliability testing by exposing the flashcubes to high humidity for several weeks. Once the tests were completed, I would take the flash lamps out of each cube and put them in a large grocery bag, which was quite dangerous due to 'sympathetic flash', which means when one lamp flashes, they all flash. I'd connect two wires to one lamp, put it in the middle of the bag containing several hundred lamps, place it on the porch and wait for my roommate to come home. Touch the wires to a 12-volt battery and you'd get what looked like a small 💥 scaring the hell out of him! Great fun back in the day…

[@TodayIFoundOut]

My first camera as a kid in the 1980s was one of those batteryless cameras with the flash cube. :-) Looked almost exactly like the camera you showed there. :-) -Daven

[@Zbigniew_Nowak]

I remember an old movie in which a photojournalist defended himself against an attacker by blinding him with a flash, but each time he blinded the opponent only for a few seconds and had to quickly change the bulb. It was a new version of an old theme where the girl was throwing rosary beads at the vampire and the question was: will she run out of beads first or will dawn come first? :) From a technical perspective, I'm surprised that something like cartridges with highly flashing powder were not used. Of course, I'm not an expert in pyrotechnics and firearms, but I thought this would be the simplest solution: something like a gun with a dozen or so rounds of flashing ammunition. Such a "gun" can be made of weak metal and not very precisely - theoretically.

[@weirdwes6725]

Omg Simon?

[@mattfleming86]

​@@weirdwes6725He literally signed it Daven.

[@bryankirk3567]

I invented the batteries for them. Made a mint.

[@ARandomOven]

​@@Zbigniew_NowakI believe the movie you're talking about is "Rear Window". Loved that film, James Stewart was so good in it

[@raydrouillard9592]

My grandparents had cameras with flashbulbs. My first camera used 126 cartridge film (28mm X 28mm) and magic cubes. I remember dissecting one to see how it worked. I later graduated to a 35mm camera with an external xenon strobe. The great thing about the strobe is that the lights only lasted for a millisecond, so it froze action quite well. The synchronisation was different between the two systems. When using a flashbulb, the system fired the bulb first, then triggered the shutter once the bulb reached peak brightness. For the strobe, the camera would fully open the (focal plane) shutter, fire the strobe, then close it. This generally yielded a shutter speed of about 1/60 of a second. I'm very happy to have switched to modern non-expendable devices.

[@lreid2495]

Nice intro. I legitimately recall, picking through garage sales, and discovering flash bulbs. Part of my early curiosity. Bravo.

[@sraps2007]

I loved the Flash Gordon opener! Your videos are fantastic.

[@james-p]

Faaaascinating! lol. I had Magicubes with my Kodak 126 cartridge film camera. One of the first "pro" (lol) photo tricks I learned on the Instamatic was that for dim but still decent light, you could attach a spent flash cube which would lower the shutter speed from something like 1/90 to 1/40. My Dad had a Polaroid - the folding one - that used horizontal flash bars. I recall that they were pretty pricey! And I had no idea about the blue dot, thanks for that! Basically it's kind of the opposite of a getter on a thermionic valve (vacuum tube). If the getter's grey instead of silver, your tube no longer has a vacuum. Thanks for the vid!

[@michaelmoorrees3585]

In my misspent youth, I made flash powder not for photography, but homemade bombs. Old enough to use one time use flash bulbs, on a simple Kodak "point and shoot 110" camera (wasn't 110mm, closer to 10mm). Later, the 4 bulb "Flash cubes" came out. Electronic xenon strobe tube flashes came later. Invented by Harold Edgerton, the "E" in EG&G corporation, who's claim to fame was taking photographs of the nuclear bomb tests. He also made a whole bunch of famous photos, including a bullet cutting a playing card in half. Now all of this has been replaced with LEDs.

[@ypaulbrown]

as a photographer, for over 50 years, I really appreciate this video.....thank you so much.....Paul in Florida

[@Digmen1]

I remember my father buying some of those blue bulbs, we had the be very careful what shots we took, as they were expensive.

[@rosscorr]

I had not realised, until I watched your video, how primitive and cumbersome it was taking photos with a flash until relativity modern times. My goodness the trouble one had to go to take a flash photo until the disposable flash cubes and electronic flash came along is daunting. Great informative video. Oh and thanks for making a video without all the stupid and unnecessary "comedy", lurid stupid graphics, dumb stock photos and videos and irrelevant and useless pop culture references that seem to be in every KZbin video these days. It makes such a refreshing change!

[@halfinchholes88]

If you find yourself in Aurora, Nebraska, stop by the Harold Edgerton Explorit Center. Doc Edgerton grew-up outside of Aurora, NE, which is ~14 miles from my hometown. While touring the Nevada Test Site, I mentioned this to our tour guide who was a former employee of EE&G. Doc Edgerton would fly groups of employees to his folks' farm, and give them a taste of Central Nebraska. As our guide stated, "We ate steaks bigger than your plate every night for dinner." I didn't realize that EE&G not only developed the photography equipment for shooting atomic test shots, but also the internal devices to fire detonators within the TNT to crush the core of the atomic bomb (National Museum of Nuclear Science & History). Maybe a good video if you can scrounge-up an EE&G switching vacuum tube (Krytrons). Keep up the great content. Love the videos and their format.

[@Alexander_Sannikov]

This channel has an unbelievably low number of subscribers compared to its level of quality.

[@genetomblin2883]

O Winston Link photographed the twilight of steam railroad engines in the USA using large banks of flash bulbs . Shooting at night his work is amazing. Steam in the air reflects a lot of light. This and the gloss black of the engines produced fantastic night time shots.

[@therealchayd]

I've always wondered how those flash bars sequenced the bulbs and now, after all these years, I finally know! Many thanks for the fascinating insight.

[@M10000]

I love flashbulbs. I'm compelled to buy any that I find at flea markets and thrift stores!

[@flomojo2u]

What an a amazing trip down memory lane! I grew up in the 70s and my dad was an amateur photographer. He had his own darkroom to develop film and even create enlargements, and tons of neat equipment. Some of that was flashbulbs, which I really loved to set off, and I remember going to the grocery store to buy Magicubes that would even go off if you threw them at the ground, So cool!

[@fs357mag]

You take the seemingly mundane and make it fascinating. Much respect and appreciation.

[@jovetj]

And he always looks really nice, too! Bravo!

[@jamesslick4790]

12:05 (Mazda 75) Illuminating a scene from 30,000 feet AT NIGHT from an Edison base bulb! That's STILL damned impressive in 2023! (I need a box of these for NYE just to freak out the neighbors!) LOL.

[@JMMC1005]

Yeah I don't think that's correct. That's an insane amount of light given atmospheric attenuation and the fact that the large bulb would require enormous optics to actually collimate into a tight beam. I am interested in what his source was for this particular claim.

[@davidsanderson3693]

Edgerton used his xenon flash to photograph German cities at night after a daylight bombing raid. In a documentary about him he did a demonstration of firing that flash at a piece of newspaper 10 feet away. It ignited.

[@cmdredstrakerofshado1159]

Honestly I would say the switch to Xenon flash started late 60s/early 70s for pros and for serious Armatures photographers (like me) in the mid 70's Xenon flash were popular with 35mm SLR or 35mm Rangefinder cameras. Because in the long run Xeon Flash units were cheaper and easier to work with than disposable flash blubs . I bought my first SLR 35mm Canon TX (with several years of saved allowance /gift money) in 1977 and I got the Vivitar 253 Xenon Auto hot shoe Flash , it Synced at 1/60 of a second and it is very very bright Flash power by 9 volt transistor radio battery. Being a Vivitar the flash cost 1/3 the price of Canon brand Flash that also ran on a 9v battery 👍. The Flash power adjustment was all manual all the TX did was to send the electrical plus through the hot shoe to fire the flash. The power adjustment was made by a dial on the back of the camera where you set your Films ASA (25-400) on the bottom of the dial and on the top of the dial had lower line for range of your subject and line above for what F stop to use which you set manually and the dial hand three color zones, blue for lower power, white medium and red for high power which was set by a three position switch on the front of flash Blue , M for Medium and Red . Sounds terrible complicated but in reality after reading the 20 page manual and about three test rolls of film you could master of the flash. It was a heck of a lot easier to use than most modern "Automatic flash" that have a manual the size of a old city phone book, that in the quick start guide in the box which gives you web address to down load the full manual 🤣. Btw I still have the Canon TX, the Vivitar 253 flash and a Vivitar Zoom lens all in good working order . Weirdly it was the old Canon 50mm F1.8 that went wonkie and replaced with one I found on Ebay 😉. BTW I love all your videos I have watch they are great fun, every informative and well researched. Also Love your parodies of Gun Jesus oops Ian of Forgotten Weapons and other Humorous bits in your intros . Keep up they great work 👍👍

[@rfinkels22]

My dad had a smallish electronic flash around 1962 actually and he was definitely an amateur. I remember the year as we moved then from Chicago to Delaware and he had the flash definitely before the move.

[@DanielESmith-iz7lx]

Some of the best cold opens.

[@maxpayne2574]

I remember the blue dot bulbs and the ads for them but never knew they had a use.

[@jagmarc]

Electronic hot-shoe-mount flash you could carry it around and flash it without a camera by pressing the test button. The pluggy-in bit that slid into the camera had metal prongs that gave you electric shock touch them. After it flashed there was a squealing noise that stopped and a little red light came on ready for next flash.

[@philgiglio7922]

That 'noise' was actually the capacitor charging up for the next flash. You could judge the status of the batteries charge state by how long it took for the capacitor to charge

[@jagmarc]

@@philgiglio7922 Oh yes I remember now. From 50 years ago! And the circuit was called a Blocking Oscillator

[@RRsalin]

What an amazing episode!! So underrated!!

[@michaelogden5958]

When I was in high school (1970s), I was on the "photography staff". We used Mamiya twin lens reflex cameras. We used B&W 120mm film, usually 400 ASA that we developed and printed ourselves. For sports photography, we screwed on a flash bracket that held a (dunno) 4-6 inch reflector cone with a curly flash element. Xenon, maybe? Anyhow, to power the death ray flash, we had to carry this 8" (or so) cube battery pack that weighed about 10 pounds, attached to a shoulder strap. Kind of a pain during a 4-hour sports event, but good times overall.

[@oc2phish07]

Very, very interesting video. I have never used flash powder but since I started taking photographs at age 11 in 1959, I have used just about every one of the bulbs, cubes, bars and electronic devices you showed us. Thanks for making, and posting, this.

[@TonyLing]

That explained so many past mysteries for me. Thank you so much.

[@theronwolf3296]

A couple of years ago in an antique store I picked up an Argus C3 with flash and a couple unused Sylvania 25 flashbulbs. Nice find.

[@jeffhouser6703]

In the late 1980s, a university pal and I were studying at his place when we noticed that his cat showed far too much interest in the fish tank. He was studying mechanical and I was studying electrical engineering, and so we pooled our resources to prank the cat. My friend devised the trigger, which was a pressure switch placed in front of the fish tank. The switch took the form of cardboard from a notepad wrapped in aluminum foil. Actually, there were two pieces of metalized cardboard, separated with pencils. We then connected the switch and a battery with wire to, yes, a flash cube found in the kitchen drawer. We carefully placed a towel over the switch and then receded to the background to watch the show. Eventually, the cat (thinking we weren't paying attention) headed back to the fish tank. He stepped on the switch, closed the circuit, and caused the flash cube to ignite. Did i mention that we dimmed all the lights? The cat jumped straight up and we laughed for hours. Engineering! Flash cubes - 101 uses.

[@grimd8788]

Being a child of the 80s I am just old enough to remember flashbulbs. Had a couple of Kodak cameras that used the flash bar. They always fascinated me, so thank you for this.

[@faktablad]

Another great video showing a world of innovation contained inside an object I've never given a second thought.

[@KubotaManDan]

Blue dots & flash cubes I grew up with, then there were disposable camera's made of cardboard . Films coming back🤞

[@KarldorisLambley]

23.12. so that's why when looking on e-bay for a dichroic prism called an 'x-cube' i keep getting shown photography stuff from yester-year. how jolly interesting. thanks

[@fredblonder7850]

Sometime back in the 1970s, Popular Science ran an article about a strange (and apparently dead-end) use for Magicubes: A burglar Alarm. Some company was marketing gadgets you could attach to doors and windows, and mount a Magicube in them. If the protected entrance was opened, the Magicube would be triggered and the flash would activate a centrally located electronic alarm. This had the advantage that each of the sensors did not require batteries, as it was entirely mechanical. The alarm base could pick up the flashes even around corners and such, though obviously the system had a severe range limitation, which was likely the main reason it failed. During the flash-powder era, it was also common to use flash-paper, as that was easier to handle and easier to measure. Note that a recently fired flashbulb would be extremely hot, and you would usually remove it from the socket using a handkerchief to avoid scalding your fingers. A flashbulb was not ignited directly by electricity. The wires connected to the base had a short tungsten filament as in an incandescent bulb. This would heat up and ignite two blobs of primer, one at each end of the filament, which would explode and shoot flaming fragments throughout the bulb, igniting the magnesium wool at least somewhat evenly. Before the invention of the flash, when it was difficult to get people to hold still long enough to get a clean exposure, a simple solution was to photograph dead people, thus a favorite subject during the American Civil War was to photograph a battlefield the day after the battle, while the field was still littered with bodies. Regarding underwater photography: This doesn’t count as flash photography, but the first underwater feature length movie was the 1916 production of “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” by the Williamson Brothers, who used large mirror arrays on boats, to reflect and concentrate sunlight down into the water, where they shot relatively close to the surface. The movie is well worth a watch: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rYuumqaaa9aqpqMsi=paPTXdkodIyEL0BW

[@mysapphirestar]

There were also hot shoe flashguns that held a flash cube instead of a bulb. On some of them you had to rotate the cube once to wind it up and then press a button between shots to get a new flash. If you put a partly used cube onto a camera or a flashgun you had to put it in the correct position to make sure that the next flash wasn’t a used one.

[@herbcraven7146]

My first camera was a Polaroid One Step, which had a port on top for the flash bar. It was nice because a standard Polaroid cartridge for the camera would take ten photos, and the flash bar had ten bulbs, thereby avoiding a hot dog-to-bun-style ratio problem when you wanted to take photos at, say, a family gathering. Just load one pack of film and one flash bar, and you were set. Incidentally, the image of the child on the pack of Magicubes brings back happy memories of growing up in the seventies to me.

[@robertknight4672]

Those Polaroid cameras took Polaroid's SX-70 film. They even developed electronic flashes that would fit in that slot.

[@user-pd5ot4zd4b]

Cool! As a lad I both figured out how to fire a cube with a paperclip and burneded the effing F out of my fingey wingeys by wiring a battery across the terminals of a baseless bulb. Not sure why I was surprised as they burned so hot it would *melt and blister* the glass of the envelope hehe

[@m.k.8158]

Actually, I doubt that the GLASS melted-those bulbs generally had a plastic coating, which did indeed, melt and blister when the bulb was fired. The glass DID crack and sometimes shatter, which is why the plastic was there in the first place.

[@user-pd5ot4zd4b]

@@m.k.8158 Ah, good call, it must have been the plastic sheath on those hot little guys. And who could forget the blind spots. I recall flash cubes persisting into the 80's before tubes took over.

[@oldgysgt]

Because the magicubes didn't need a battery, we used their components to make a variety of booby traps to take away the opponent's night vision, and alert us to their path of approach.

[@malectric]

I remember sitting in my school classroom in 1965 when the teacher got out his camera with an electronic (xenon) flashgun attached to the side and took some photos in the class. Being interested in electronics at an early age I was riveted. It emitted a purplish-white light and required eight penlight (AA) batteries to be inserted to use. Back in those days they were zinc-carbon so I can imagine how expensive it was to run. I don't know how many recharges the cells could provide before they became flat. As for myself, I eventually upgraded my simple Kodak Brownie camera to a newer model and purchased a flashgun which used the single magnesium bulbs operated by a small battery and shutter contacts.

[@tommyvictorbuch6960]

Brilliant walk through the history of the flash.

[@tali3san337]

This brought back memories.

[@matthewday7565]

With the Xenon flash, came "X-sync", where the focal plane shutter fully opens and the very fast and short flash fires. A 35mm camera with a horizontal FP shutter will usually be X-sync at 1/60, while vertical shutters can be X-sync a 1/125. I remember my old Pentax ME Super (mixed mode, aperture priority auto exposure or manual with metering display) was 125X and also had that as a backup mechanical mode which would operate even if the battery was dead

[@thomasmaughan4798]

4:55 I used to make flash powder with magnesium and potassium nitrate and actually used it with an old Crown Graphic 4x5 camera.

[@lachlan1971]

I remember being given an old Polaroid camera with the strip type flash bulbs. I took the bulbs out and set them off with batteries for a laugh. Our family camera a 126 Instamatic, took the little cubes and had 2 AAA batteries to set them off.

[@koppadasao]

I recognize the Sylvania Blue Dot flash bulb, and the petal flash reflector. I used both in my first camera way back when I was 5-6 years old. Later, when I was 9 or 10, I advanced to the Kodak Instamatic 126 film camera with cube flash. Damned! I've been shooting pictures for more than 45 years!

[@twin2059]

Great historic overview, as always. One remark: the atomic bomb test at Los Alamos certainly required a fast shutter speed, but definitely no flash bulb, as stated. ;D

[@tom1644x]

I remember that T-shaped flash powder tray from old movies, or movies set in the past. I never knew what they were.

[@lilgandhicloutvertmachineb2287]

this video was everything i needed and more. ty for sharing, wonderful video. I wish there were videos this comprehensive and of this quality for every subject. thank you for adding to our collective index of human history. you truly are a blessing.

[@midinotes]

Fabulous story and a trip down memory lane! Pity though the video is only 360p, I guess made in the day of flash cube 😊 I remember my dad having those flash bulbs and cubes, never realised they were so wasteful! And in those days there was no recycling of waste. Xenon flashes of course were also spicy if like me you like taking things apart! Amazing how we've moved on from flash powder to LEDs. I'm still impressed though at that Mazda No.75 flash bulb! Wow they must have been pricey.

[@davida1hiwaaynet]

Fascinating! Thank you. My uncle worked for Kodak back in the day and we always had those flash bulbs around!

[@hydorah]

These photographic flashes have a really long history. Definitely more than just a flash in the pan. One historical photography based idiom you missed out 🙂

[@akshonclip]

I remember figuring out how to ignite “Flash Cubes” without the camera. Was always a fun prank on my siblings.

[@ambrosia7924]

Great vid.. but 360p? I don’t miss that era on a tablet

[@AhpgZfoc4s]

Great video and channel! Still much prefer xenon to LED for the higher output, much shorter flash duration, and generally smoother spectral profile. But as I do video more these days, LED is definitely king.

[@mcb187]

I still shoot film, and using the flash is always a fun experience. I used to rely on the TTL capabilities of the flash, trying the different settings out until I got one which was “good”, but sometimes that turned out badly. I’ve since gotten a light meter with a flash mode, and it is so much easier now. Frame the picture, get out my meter, fire the flash, and set the aperture. Haven’t had an issue since.

[@glaubhafieber]

My grandpa was an enthusiastic photographer and as a child I played with his equipment including those flash cubes. Bought my first digital camera in the early 2000s and the guy in the shop said that i need to buy a compact flash. I said but on the photo it looks like it has a flash built in. I had to explain what I played with as a 5 year old

[@mischadickerhof5375]

Police in Switzerland used magnesium powder until the early 1980's in outdoor crime scenes and accidents. It was easy to set-up and light to carry and burnt enough long time for the photographers could move around under the same lighning conditions.

[@KbB-kz9qp]

Very interesting- thanks! 😀 📸

[@pmsteamrailroading]

Sometime look into the custom flash units used by O. Winston Link. He regularly light up huge areas. And then the Graflex lightstick. Used as the hilt of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber.

[@haweater1555]

There was a documentary about him. A scene where he was setting up to take a night photo with a mass of old bulbs. After he hit the shutter, he admitted he forgot to pull the film cover slide from the box camera, and lamented that all those vintage no-longer-manufactered bulbs had gone to waste.

[@goodun2974]

I would suggest not "looking into" one of these flash devices because you could end up with damage to your eyes! 🤔😳😉

[@JimTheZombieHunter]

Just discovered your content .. about to watch my third. Well done sir.

[@SuV33358]

It's not fair. These people way back invented everything. 🤨

[@Muonium1]

A superb overview. I would like to know more about the new LEDs. I can't imagine they could really be faster than xenon flash if they still use a phosphor.

[@pmsteamrailroading]

Some time watch a video of a modern car taillight. They seem to flash. That is the flashing of the led and the camera interfering. Or for that matter: wave around the lights of an LED Christmas light set. Your eyes should register the dotted trail caused by the led strobing at 60Hz.

[@Muonium1]

@@pmsteamrailroading yeah and none of those use phosphors; thanks for playing though.

[@m9ovich785]

@@pmsteamrailroading HAHAHAHAHAH I thought I was the only person on Earth that could see that. Look up the Eye condition Nystagmus and You'll know what I mean. The LED Brake lights on some Vehicles are Strobed to fake the Human Eye to think They are Dimmer. I can look down a row of Vehicles at night in traffic and can pick out the LED's vs Incandescent. I Could walk into a store or Warehouse Etc with 3 Phase power and could some times see the different Phases on Florescent Lights from High above.

[@shaider1982]

Interesting. Tech Connections just had a video on this and had a collab with the Slo mo guys to show what happens when a Magic cube bulb is activated.

[@jpwillm5252]

Very interesting explanations which remind me of the 70s, when I worked in the repair of photographic equipment. ** Très intéressantes explications qui me rappellent les années 70, quand je travaillais dans la réparation de matériel photographique.

[@d.l.harrington4080]

As an amateur photographer, I found this most interesting. But I was waiting for you to use the old adage "Flash in the pan" referring to something that happened fast.

[@neilfurby555]

Another gem .... fascinating and entertaining. Deserves an audience of ?...millions !

[@johnangeleri7336]

Super well done! Thank you for your excellence.

[@kona702]

As a kid in the late 80s and early 90s I used the flash bar that clicked on top of my little cartridge-based camera. Loved those things and would beg my parents to buy me flashes. Lol.

[@benfreeman9717]

This is interesting stuff. It's fascinating how human knowledge has increased in the last 150 years. I wish this video had more pixels though.

[@rpsmith]

Excellent video! Thanks!

[@larrythoman5555]

Back in the day between flash power and flash bulbs there was flash sheets an approximately 8 by 10 sheet of paper infused with something that burned to produce the flash, I have the holder but unfortunately not the flash sheets. In the early 60s I used an electronic flash that used two 225 volt drycells to charge two 400 mfd capacitors for discharge through a Xenon flash tube. I believe it was sold by the same folk the sold the Speed graphic camera. The battery and capacitor part was an about 10 lb package with a shoulder strap. The flash head was light and could be mounted on the camera but was often hand held to gain more separation between the lens and the light.

[@crusinscamp]

That little whine as the electronic flash recharged.

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

Great video, Gilles...👍

[@websitesthatneedanem]

Amazing quality for 360p !

[@georgesmith4509]

great presentation Thanks

[@DavidLindes]

An interesting book that talks about some of the earlier portions of this history is "To Photograph Darkness". Recommended, for those into such things.

[@Enjoymentboy]

When I was about 7 years old I found a large box of very strange looking, small light bulbs beside a dumpster out back of a strip of stores. It was about 2ft square and was filled with many boxes that contained these little bulbs. I had no idea what they were for but I lugged the box home either way. I distinctly remember taking one out o a box, turning it over in my hands and thinking how much it looked like a small christmas light but the base was very different. Not a screw connector. I couldn't understand why it had what looked like steel wool inside it instead of a single filament like I was used to. I took a 9V battery from one of my toys and put the bulb terminals to the battery terminals and I was rewarded with a blinding white flash and the delicate "pop" sound. I had a greed dot in my vision for about 5 minutes after that. I was fascinated and spent the next 15-20 minutes setting these things off. I must have gone through about 50 of them before i had had enough. I took one of the burned out ones and asked my father and he told me what they were. One of my favourite games after that was to sit in a room with my hand in front of my face and stare at it. I would turn out the light with my free hand and a friend would set off a flashbulb. I would have the image of my hand clearly still in my vision but no matter how I opened or closed it or moved my fingers the image stayed static. it was so weird to feel completely disconnected from my hand that way.

[@thomasmaughan4798]

"I would turn out the light with my free hand and a friend would set off a flashbulb. I would have the image of my hand clearly still in my vision but no matter how I opened or closed it or moved my fingers the image stayed static." I also discovered this phenomenon. My buddy and I experimented with it; totally dark room, buddy jumps up into the air and set off the flash. What we see for the next minute or two is a perfectly formed, 3-d stereoscopic, but sort of moonlight monochrome image of him floating in the air.

[@SchardtCinematic]

Well I've never used a Graflex before. But I am old enough that I've used flash Cubes before. My Kodak Disc camera my grandparents bought me and my brother in the early 80's was the first camera I had with a built I'm flash.

[@DrJon-zf2xo]

Very fine work, lots I did not know and I began photography with flash bulbs in the 50's. One thing you might have mentioned is that while the rangefinder on the stereo camera was unusual, it was very useful. In case you did not know this, flash products, bulbs and strobes came with Guide numbers. They were calculated for each film speed, ISO today. The f stop to set to was the guide number divided by the distance to the subject. That rangefinder was to set the camera lens aperture. Evidently the stereo camera did not have a rangefinder and needed range only for flash use.

[@monodistortion]

Great overview! One segment you missed was flash cartridges and flash paper. I think those were safer than flash powder and were available before flash bulbs. Flash paper is still used by magicians today!

[@CharlesVanNoland]

Wow, I never knew they were still using disposable combustion based bulbs into the 70s. What a trip. I assumed that combustion for illuminating photographs being taken died off by the 40s or 50s, being that we had incandescent bulbs and fluorescent bulbs for a while by then - but I guess they couldn't get it small enough and bright enough until a century after photography was becoming a thing.

[@Subgunman]

I still have a mostly full box of the Sylvania M2 blue dot bulbs and yes the dots are still blue. For electronic strobes used from the late sixties on are a direct result of the research done for a highly synchronization system to detonate the explosives simultaneously to initialize the explosion to compress the nuclear core to criticality of the atom bomb. Basically a dc to ac inverter going through a transformer and then a rectification section which converted power to high power dc to charge a high voltage capacitor. Using a xenon filled tube with an external trigger wire wrapped around it. The tube is connected directly to the capacitor leads and then in order to trigger the flash tube another circuit is used to create a pulse of electricity that is fed through a small transformer where it’s output is connected to the trigger wire that ionizes the gas allowing it to fire off. Refined flashes utilized a circuit that would limit the discharge of the capacitor thus controlling the output of the xenon tube.

[@achaycock]

How utterly fascinating - a real treat to watch this and I learned a great deal of useful information.

[@SeattlePioneer]

I found it a real treat as well. For me, though, I learned a great deal of obsolete and useless information. Worth it though, since it explained the technologies I used in earlier decades but never understood.

[@alwaysbearded1]

Now I know why I ignited all four bulbs on my flash cube after removing the mylar wrap. Somehow I disabled whatever prevented all of the bulbs from igniting.

[@oleleclos]

Correction: The rangefinder you show is not meant for focusing. It is calibrated in f-stops and computes the aperture setting directly from the measured distance - interestingly also compensating for bright and dark subjects - but it does not show the measured distance, so cannot be used for focusing. The scale on the flat side of the knob is for setting the guide number of the bulb used. I also believe you are mistaken in saying that Xenon flash is being replaced by LED. As far as I am aware, LED lights are used for continuous lighting, not flash.

[@murderdoggg]

One of those flash cubes went off in my fingers while I was dismantling it. Burnt my fingertips crispy.

[@JP-sw5ho]

Thank you for this wonderful history lesson

[@kendokaaa]

Really interesting. The 360p is a bit odd but otherwise I really enjoyed the video

[@martinda7446]

Wonderful channel. Well, you learn something everyday! I thought I knew mostly everything about photography, but having only picked up a proper camera in about 1979 I missed, as far as my memory allows, the various bulb timings. The fascinating part about the focal plane shutter and extended burst of what is really a chemical reaction seems obvious after thinking about it. We are used to electronic flash and an open shutter. I was brought up with a Kodak Instamatic and a flash cube though.

[@Sgtklark]

I read that some of the early flash powders were actually made of pollen, the same pollen that powered the first internal combustion engine.

[@stumccabe]

Fascinating - thanks.

[@unocolombia]

Excellent video, thank you very much :)

[@jwillisbarrie]

Please change captions to English -been watching your recent videos and this is working fine.