{"id":8777,"date":"2017-06-16T08:53:53","date_gmt":"2017-06-16T12:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/?p=8777"},"modified":"2017-06-16T23:13:40","modified_gmt":"2017-06-17T03:13:40","slug":"a-flash-of-inspiration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/a-flash-of-inspiration\/","title":{"rendered":"A Flash of Inspiration"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Photo-Flash 1954<\/p><\/div>\n

Toronto<\/strong>. My good friend David Bridge recently did a study of a little flash synchronizer intended to be used in the days when flash bulbs were common but in-camera flash sync was not. \u00a0His comments prompted me to dig out a few books on the topic, one of which is Geoffrey Gilbert’s book titled Photo-Flash<\/em> on the cover and Photo-Flash in Practice<\/em> \u00a0on the title\u00a0page.<\/p>\n

Originally published in November 1947 by Focal Press, my copy is the fourth edition, also published by Focal Press but in March of 1954. The book<\/a> is long gone, but Focal Press is still around as part of Rutledge (itself an old company), now owned by Taylor and Francis famous for the magazine “History of Photography”.<\/p>\n

I remember the frustration of being unable to take a photograph in light dimmer than afternoon sun outdoors. My first year in high school I was given a new Brownie Hawk-eye<\/a> box camera which used Kodak 620 film and had a flash gun attachment and built-in synchronization. The camera used the newly popular #25 flash bulbs<\/a>. A transparent plastic skin protected the subject should the glass bulb break. A dot on the top changed colour to alert the photographer the bulb had leaked air and was now dangerous. The bulbs could even be bought with a blue coating which served as a filter for use with the new and expensive colour print films.<\/p>\n

The book sure brought back memories – not good either. Pictures of high contrast and deep shadows. Partially lit pictures due to using too fast a shutter (not on the Hawk-eye, of course). Or pictures too dark or too bright caused by a mismatch between distance and chosen aperture (usually a misunderstood guide number). Fill-in flash outdoors to soften the contrast on sunny exposures. Those were the days (as Archie Bunker used to sing).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto. My good friend David Bridge recently did a study of a little flash synchronizer intended to be used in the days when flash bulbs were common but in-camera flash sync was not. \u00a0His comments prompted me to dig out … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,24],"tags":[1209,755,878,1211,1210],"class_list":["post-8777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book","category-camera","tag-bulbs","tag-flash","tag-flash-gun","tag-gilbert","tag-photo-flash"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8777"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8793,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8777\/revisions\/8793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}