Encyclopedia > Photographic flash

  Article Content

Flash (photo)

Redirected from Photographic flash

A photographic flash is a device that produces a flash of light required for indoor or other low light conditions.

The earliest flashes consisted a lump of magnesium powder that was ignited by hand. Later, the magnesium were contained in flash bulbs, and were electrically ignited by a contact in the camera shutter. A bulb could only be used once.

For the Kodak Instamatic camera, a flash cube of 4 bulbs were introduced, that allowed taking 4 images in a row. The later X-cube was noteworthy in that it also contained a piezo-electric element that generated the electricity required to fire the bulbs, so that a battery was not required.

Todays flash units are fully electronic, and contains a Xenon gas filled tube where electricity of high voltage is discharged to generate a short flash of light. The typical duration of the light impulse is 1/1000 second. The majority of modern cameras now have a flash unit built in.

A separate flash unit may usually be mounted to a camera via a standardised accessory mount bracket.

See also: Flash synchronization, red eye effect.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
DB

...     Contents DB DB can mean the following: dB is the abbreviation for Decibel; see Bel DB is a French automobile maker; see DB (car) DB is th ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 49.6 ms