Who the heck uses 5,000ws flashes???

Speedotron rocks!

Not really relevant but impressive nonetheless: Harold Edgerton's D-3 aerial flash developed for reconnaissance work during WWII and carried in the bomb bay of a B-24 weighed over 5,000 pounds and was rated at 43,000 Ws.

Talley wrote in post #16085038
Why would anyone need that much power?

Photographers who use strobe lights in sports arenas typically use strobes in that power range.

DC Fan wrote in post #16089223
Photographers who use strobe lights in sports arenas typically use strobes in that power range.

Definitely an interesting read. I wonder if it's really true that using external flashes through the PC sync voids the warranty...

the portrait that shows the tan on the second photo

Foodguy wrote in post #16088128
Family portrait.

IMAGE LINK: http://s17.photobucket​.com …1626_zpsc0b0158​d.jpg.html

Chad D wrote in post #16089360
the portrait that shows the tan on the second photo

Ha! You can most definitely feel the heat when they go off! (It's why I have a year-round tan...)

Foodguy wrote in post #16090330
Ha! You can most definitely feel the heat when they go off! (It's why I have a year-round tan...)

In all seriousness, you should have anti-UV coated bulbs. Can't be good for you if you're getting tanned by the gear...

kenyee wrote in post #16090749
In all seriousness, you should have anti-UV coated bulbs. Can't be good for you if you're getting tanned by the gear...

I was just kidding about the year round tan...but uv coated tubes would be a good idea.

D. Vance wrote in post #16089256
Definitely an interesting read. I wonder if it's really true that using external flashes through the PC sync voids the warranty...

That article was written 14 years ago. I'm betting things are triggered via wireless triggers these days, rather than from PC terminal.

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #16085205
Air To Air and Air To Water flash photography:
http://www.axstalphoto​.com/

Oh man, i don't like those lit by flash at all. There are so many other situations available to aircraft to not necessitate flash. Ick.

.02

tetrode wrote in post #16089193
carried in the bomb bay of a B-24 weighed over 5,000 pounds and was rated at 43,000 Ws.

I wonder if it was powered by an Atomic battery and how much of that weight was for the actual power source.

symbolphoto wrote in post #16094450
Oh man, i don't like those lit by flash at all. There are so many other situations available to aircraft to not necessitate flash. Ick.

.02

So how do you shoot an airplane against the sun without a flash?

http://daviddunnico.fi​les.wordpress.com/2011​/09/o-winston-link.jpg - notice the elongated nature of the "flash triggers" coiled on the floor! The boxes far right contain replacement flash-tubes as the ones in use at that time were single-shot only. Chimping would have been a touch pricy in those halcyon (?) days.

Of course, when you're lighting an area like this, your average speedlight doesn't quite have the oomph - especially when super-fast film was 64ASA (ISO as the junior photographers now call it). Note also the beauty dishes used to make the locomotives pretty.

5000Ws may seem a lot to people working in social photography, it's sometimes far short of what is needed in other disciplines. Different people have different needs in their photography, some are slightly more demanding than others in terms of equipment requirements and light volumes needed.

Following on from the flippant nature of this post, a little reminiscence. The flashbulbs used had a protective lacquer coating. If you gently tapped the glass envelope to make a hole in the glass but not the lacquer, you could get a lovely 3 foot long needle flame when the bulb fired. Easily punched a hole clear through Formica. I know, I was the idiot who did precisely that! Oh the fun we used to have in the Good Old Days!

I remember flash bulbs a 9 volt battery lots of fun

pwm2 wrote in post #16096905
So how do you shoot an airplane against the sun without a flash?

If you really have to, there's probably no other practical way to do it, but it's not "flattering" light based on what I've looked through there so far.