In the early days of photography, the only source of light was, of course, the sun. Subsequently photography depended mostly upon long days and good weather. It was obvious that artificial light would be indispensable: not dependent on the sun anymore, pictures could be taken where natural light wasn’t sufficient, or on dull days when studio work was impossible.
The first artificial light
photography dates back to 1839, when L. Ibbetson used oxy-hydrogen light (also
known as limelight, discovered by Goldsworthy Gurney) when photographing
microscopic objects. Limelight was produced by heating a ball of calcium
carbonate in an oxygen flame until it became incandescent.
Despite being used widely around
1839-1840, the results of using the chemical were rather poor: chalk-white pale
faces and a harshly lit picture, an effect created due to the imperfection of
the light source and differentiation of the reflectance of different parts of
the scene (due to different distances and materials).
Attempts of using limelight and other
chemical sources for lighting the picture can be considered to have been a
failure, either because they did not contain the rich blue, that the plates of
the day required, as well as due to the chemical’s low intensity.
Other possibilities had to be
explored. Nadar – an early French photographer and journalist – for example,
photographed the sewers in Paris, using battery-operated lighting. Later the
arc-lamps were introduced to aid photographers, but it was not until 1877 that
the first studio using electric light was opened.
Powered by a gas-driven dynamo the
studio by Van der Weyde in Regent Street, had the light sufficient to allow
exposures of 2 to 3 seconds.
Flash Powder
Despite being quite a step forward in
artificial lighting development, the early chemicals could not provide the
satisfying result for the photos. Producing a shorter, and therefore more
predictable flash became the goal. There was one solution: magnesium.
In 1862 Edward Sonstadt began
experiments to prepare the metal on a commercial basis and by 1864 magnesium
wire was finally placed on sale.
Magnesium wire
The wire was extremely expensive, but
following an extremely successful demonstration in February the same year,
where a photograph was produced in a darkened room in only 50 seconds, the
highly actinic light proved ideal for photography and became incredibly
popular.
The technology of the wire wasn’t too
complicated. Magnesium was burned as a wire or ribbon twisted into tapers or
clockwork lamps with a reflector. There were different lamp designs, each for
different use. Despite different ways of using the magnesium, there were no
ideal variant for this method.
Clockwork driven magnesium wire lamp
Burning was often incomplete and
unpredictable. Exposures varied considerably and the air remained laden with
grey, opaque fumes, making the method unsuitable for studio use.
Even more, the technique was not
without its obvious dangers and it also released a lot of smoke, smell and a
fall-out of white ash.
Nevertheless, magnesium lamps gained
in popularity through the 1870s and 1880s despite the expenses and danger.
Trying to solve the unpredictability of the popular magnesium technique,
Charles Piazzi Smyth, experimenting in the pyramids at Giza, Egypt, in 1865,
had attempted to ignite magnesium mixed with gunpowder. The resulting picture
was quite poor but the principle of combining magnesium with oxygen-rich
chemical resulting in a combustion was developed.
In 1887, Adolf Miethe and Johannes
Gaedicke mixed fine magnesium powder with potassium chlorate to produce
Blitzlicht. This was the first ever widely used flash powder. Blitzlicht gave
the photographers the ability to produce instant photographs at night at a very
high shutter speed. This caused quite an excitement in the photography world.
Being the explosive that it is, flash
powder accidents were obviously inevitable. Simply grinding the components was
dangerous enough, and a number of photographers died while either preparing the
flash powder or setting it off.
In the beginning of the 20th century,
the flash powder formula was refined and improvements were made to make the
process simpler and safer. The flashes now lasted for 10 ms only, so subjects
no longer closed their eyes during the exposure which helped portrait
photography.
There were still enough disadvantages
to the method, for example, the smoke was still causing trouble, making studio
work quite difficult, so another invention was awaited.
Early commercially produced,
prepackaged flash powder
Flash powder "flash gun"
with flash powder dispenser
Pushing the spring loaded button on
top of the dispenser would release a premeasured amount of flash powder.
Turning the igniter wheel would
create a spark to set off the flash
Agfa flash powder with Haka
Flashlight
A lit candle would be moved toward
the igniter strip via a clockwork mechanism and set off the flash after a
predetermined amount of time.
Preloaded flash powder capsules with
built-in percussion caps for firing
Flash gun for preloaded capsules
A spring-loaded firing pin would set
off the flash via the percussion caps.
Flash Bulbs
In his experiments in underwater
photography in the 1890s, Louis Boutan – a French zoologist and a pioneer
underwater photographer – used a cumbersome magnesium lamp. Powdered magnesium,
sealed in a glass jar fixed to a lead-weighted barrel to supply oxygen during
burning, was ignited by means of an alcohol lamp.
Paul Vierkötter used the same
principle in 1925, when he ignited magnesium electronically in a glass globe.
In 1929 the Vacublitz, the first true flashbulb made from aluminum foil sealed
in oxygen, was produced in Germany by the Hauser Company using Johannes B.
Ostermeier’s patents.
Early magnesium foil filled flash
bulb
Early flash gun and flash bulbs
It was quickly followed by the
Sashalite from the General Electric Company in the USA.
The flash bulb was an oxygen-filled
bulb in which aluminum foil was burned, with ignition being accomplished by a
battery. The light of the bulb, although powerful, was soft and diffused,
therefore less dangerous to the eyes than flash powder.
Using a flash bulb produced neither
noise nor smoke when the charge was fired. This provided an opportunity to
using flash in places where flash powder use was questionable or simply
dangerous. The first photos using the “Sashalite” flashbulb were published by
The ‘Morning Post.
The pictures were of the engine-room
and other compartments of a submarine. These were not only interesting as
unusual subjects, but they indicated a high technical standard. It was not to
be until 1927, however, that the simple flash-bulb was to appear for sale.
Flashbulbs were a big step forward.
They weighed little, were easily fired electrically and were extremely powerful
and, therefore, convenient. Another important aspect of the technique was that
it was extremely safe, especially compared to the widely used before flash
powder.
Due to a high quality of the
invention, mass-market cameras were soon fitted with flashguns or synchronizers
to fire a bulb when the shutter opened. This was a huge technological leap
forward for the photography and a very advanced technology in its own, so by
the 1950s bulbs had virtually replaced flash powder on the market.
Kodak Brownie with flash attachment
for flash bulbs
There were also several versions of
the flashbulbs released to the consumer that fitted everyone from professional
to amateur photographers. The purpose was mainly to make the use of the flash
more convenient for a novice or an amateur user.
For example, Flashcube, a popular
bulb by Kodak was a device that had 4 bulbs installed in one, making it easier
to take several pictures in smaller amount of time.
Flash cube on Kodak Instamatic camera
Flash Synchronisation
Early flash photography was not
synchronized. It’s hard to imagine an non-synchronized flash today, but the way
those worked was that one had to put a camera on a tripod, open the shutter,
trigger the flash, and close the shutter again – a technique known as open
flash. The exposure time had to be managed manually, and the process was very
inconvenient compared to today.
Despite all of the problems, the open
flash technique using flash powder was being used quite widely until the 1950s.
But with the success and ease with which flash bulbs were used, flash powder
slowly became history. With the marketing success of flashes, and the value of
the idea of taking pictures at any time of the night or day, by the late 1930s
manufacturers began to incorporate flash synchronization into their cameras.
Leitz VACU flash synch device for
Leica cameras without built-in flash synch
The flash was triggered by a cam
added to the rotating shutter speed dial
VACU cam on shutter speed dial
VACU installed in Leica III
Some of the first mass produced
cameras with this facility were the Kine Exakta, Falcon Press Flash, Agfa
Shur-Flash and the Kodak Six-20 Flash Brownie box camera released in 1939 and
1940. After World War II, it became usual for a camera to have a flash synced
shutters.
Cameras designed to be used with
flash bulbs usually had different sync modes in order to be used with various
bulb types. Depending on the requirements, the flash contacts were triggered
accordingly prior to the shutter being open.
The principles of flash bulb synced
cameras are still used today in modern cameras with electronic flashes and with
big studio lights.
Electronic Flash
It was in 1931 when Harold Edgerton –
a professor of electrical engineering – produced the first electronic flash
tube. One of the most important advantages compared to the flash bulbs was that
the electronic flash intensity could be controlled and adjusted.
Another great advantage, of course,
was the rechargeable aspect of the electronic flash. Flash bulbs, despite being
extremely useful, were very expensive and could only be obtained by
professional photographers. Electronic flash used batteries of some sort, so it
was possible to recharge the system.
Today’s flash units are electronic
flash tubes. An electronic flash contains a tube filled with xenon gas, where
electricity of high voltage is discharged to generate an electrical arc that
creates a short flash of light.
Modern electronic flash for on-camera
use
Metz 60 series flash, one of the most
powerful portable flash units available
Multiblitz, a modern studio
flash with built in modeling light
Photographic flash has moved through
chemical to electronic phase, mostly driven by a desire to shorten duration and
increase intensity of the light. In addition, a sensor either in the flashgun
or within the camera is now used to detect that enough light has reached the
film (‘auto’ flash).
For that, an infrared sensor is
usually used to determine the distance between the camera and the subject,
therefore setting the aperture and flash intensity automatically.
With every automated process there is
always a possibility of something going wrong. The disadvantages with automatic
electronic flash lie with unequal lighting in subjects at dissimilar distances
from the camera with the flash, however, this problem is easily solved by using
several light sources when working with the subject.
An Interesting Side-Note
The red-eye effect happens because
the light of the flash occurs too fast for the pupil to close and much of the
very bright light from the flash passes into the eye through the pupil. The
light then reflects off the back of the eyeball and out through the pupil.
The camera records this light. Since
the light goes through the blood in the choroid which nourishes the back of the
eye, the color of the eye is red, hence this annoying effect everyone is aware
of. Various techniques are available to combat the problem today, but it’s
interesting to know why it occurs!
