The “flash units” found on the backs of smartphones may be getting more powerful, but the general idea has largely remained the same: use a powerful LED light that can illuminate a scene when you need a little extra light. The power output doesn’t really stack up to the flashes found on compact cameras, but Google has one solution for making the flash a bit brighter.
In a recently published patent, the company outlines the idea of placing multiple LED flashes on smartphones, perhaps in a ring around the camera unit. Read more…
This is probably a “duh” fact for many of you, but one that some of you have perhaps never heard or realized before: Did you know that the flashes in the Canon Speedlite lineup are named after their maximum guide numbers? To figure out the power of your Speedlite, just take the model name and hack off the zero at the end to get the GN (e.g. 430EX has GN 43, 580EX has GN 58). Read more…
Photographer Radu Dumitrescu was shooting in an abandoned house in Bucharest, Romania when a couple teens noticed the flashes going off and decided to investigate. When Radu noticed them pulling out their cell phones to document the “paranormal activity”, he decided to give them a scare by pretending to be a ghost.
For their music video for the song “Bright Siren“, Japanese band androp created a mind-blowing giant display using Canon 60D DSLRs and strobes as the individual pixels. They used 250 separate cameras and flash units, and controlled each one individually using a computer program. Every single light used was real, and no computer-generated trickery was used. You can also check out the behind-the-scenes video they made.
What you see in this photograph is the most flashes ever used to light a single photograph. Photographer Jason Groupp synced and fired a whopping 300 flashes at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center this past weekend to set the record, which was confirmed and made official by Guinness World Records. Unlike other world records, this one doesn’t seem very difficult to break — all you need is some technical know-how, a lot of time, and extremely deep pockets.
