WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.110 --> 00:00:04.750 It’s not much of a secret that photography used to be, uh, 00:00:04.961 --> 00:00:06.234 difficult. 00:00:06.234 --> 00:00:11.777 You didn’t just whip out the communication device you always have on you to take a snapshot, 00:00:11.860 --> 00:00:15.440 you needed to carry an actual camera around with you 00:00:15.440 --> 00:00:17.144 like some kind of tourist. 00:00:17.144 --> 00:00:18.991 And it was also expensive! 00:00:18.991 --> 00:00:23.452 Every picture you took used up a frame of film which cost money to buy, 00:00:23.452 --> 00:00:26.774 and then there was the processing fees and the time - 00:00:26.774 --> 00:00:29.533 unless of course you had a Polaroid camera. 00:00:29.533 --> 00:00:31.829 But what’s perhaps less well-known 00:00:31.829 --> 00:00:33.687 (at least among the whippersnappers) 00:00:33.687 --> 00:00:41.778 is that there was a time when using flash photography added yet another cost to every photo you took. 00:00:41.778 --> 00:00:45.671 See, photographic film usually isn’t all that sensitive. 00:00:45.671 --> 00:00:49.199 It needs a lot of light to correctly capture an image, 00:00:49.199 --> 00:00:52.343 especially color films with fine grain. 00:00:52.343 --> 00:00:53.371 During the day, 00:00:53.371 --> 00:01:00.734 that miasma of incandescent plasma in the sky lights up the world plenty for a camera to make some memories, 00:01:00.734 --> 00:01:04.416 but at night, or even just indoors under artificial lighting, 00:01:04.416 --> 00:01:06.779 film cameras need some help. 00:01:06.779 --> 00:01:11.582 And a lot more than the little LED on your smartphone has to offer. 00:01:11.582 --> 00:01:17.378 Flash photography in the days of film involved equipping a camera with its own light source 00:01:17.378 --> 00:01:20.458 roughly as bright as the sun. 00:01:20.458 --> 00:01:23.170 That may sound pretty difficult, 00:01:23.170 --> 00:01:25.383 and it should because it was. 00:01:25.383 --> 00:01:27.986 The sun, not sure if you know this, 00:01:27.986 --> 00:01:36.102 is pretty stinking bright and replicating that amount of light in something you can carry around with you was quite challenging. 00:01:36.737 --> 00:01:37.955 But we did it. 00:01:37.955 --> 00:01:42.969 You’re probably familiar with electronic flash units that use flash tubes. 00:01:42.969 --> 00:01:46.866 These are still in common use today and they achieve sunlight-rivaling output 00:01:46.866 --> 00:01:52.553 by shoving a big electrical discharge through a quartz tube filled with xenon gas. 00:01:52.553 --> 00:01:56.993 Charge a big capacitor up with perhaps a dozen joules of stored energy 00:01:56.993 --> 00:02:01.126 and when you dump all that through the tube in a tiny fraction of a second, 00:02:01.126 --> 00:02:04.805 it will ionize the xenon producing an extremely bright flash. 00:02:04.805 --> 00:02:06.090 [shutter/film winding] 00:02:06.090 --> 00:02:12.800 The energy involved is fairly modest, but because the discharge happens over such a small fraction of a second, 00:02:12.800 --> 00:02:18.927 the instantaneous power of one of these flash tubes is well into the megawatt territory. 00:02:18.927 --> 00:02:20.603 They’re bonkers. 00:02:20.603 --> 00:02:25.983 For many years, the technology which made this possible was quite exotic. 00:02:25.983 --> 00:02:33.719 Though invented in 1931 by Harold “Doc” Edgerton, flash tubes spent decades relegated to scientific research 00:02:33.719 --> 00:02:36.684 and other specialized applications. 00:02:36.684 --> 00:02:42.905 General photographic flash units using the technology did come to market around the mid 1950’s 00:02:42.905 --> 00:02:49.266 but they were just way too expensive for anyone but professional photographers to afford. 00:02:49.266 --> 00:02:55.896 Still, amateur photographers taking snapshots at birthdays and on vacations weren’t left in the dark: 00:02:55.896 --> 00:03:01.611 consumer flash photography was alive and well, no fancy technology required. 00:03:01.611 --> 00:03:02.916 How? 00:03:02.916 --> 00:03:04.514 With these! 00:03:04.514 --> 00:03:06.822 These are flashbulbs. 00:03:06.822 --> 00:03:15.480 They look kind of like an ordinary incandescent light bulb, except something went very wrong when making the filament. 00:03:15.480 --> 00:03:18.863 You’d use these things with a flash unit like this. 00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:21.271 Stick a fresh bulb in its socket, 00:03:21.271 --> 00:03:23.931 pop the unit onto the hot shoe of a camera, 00:03:23.931 --> 00:03:26.470 engage its adorable little reflector, 00:03:26.470 --> 00:03:30.719 and then, when you took your next photo, the flash unit’s battery 00:03:30.719 --> 00:03:34.133 (once triggered by the camera through the contacts on the hot shoe) 00:03:34.133 --> 00:03:39.379 would send power to fire the flashbulb once the camera’s shutter was open. 00:03:39.379 --> 00:03:46.715 That would produce an extremely bright flash which would illuminate the camera's field-of-view to expose the film correctly. 00:03:46.715 --> 00:03:50.691 But that flash happens very quickly. 00:03:50.691 --> 00:03:55.020 To get a really good look at one of these, I’m gonna need some kind of a… 00:03:55.020 --> 00:03:56.683 slow mo guy. 00:03:57.742 --> 00:03:59.085 Luckily, 00:03:59.085 --> 00:04:00.410 I have one right here! 00:04:00.410 --> 00:04:01.082 Hello! 00:04:01.082 --> 00:04:02.286 Hi Gav, how ya doin? 00:04:02.286 --> 00:04:06.001 Good, thanks, Alec! [laughs] -Thank you very much for having me here in Austin! 00:04:06.001 --> 00:04:08.454 Yeah, thanks for coming to my big, empty room. 00:04:08.454 --> 00:04:15.454 I am using Gav’s expertise in slow-mo filming (and also equipment) because I want to film some old-school flashbulbs. 00:04:15.454 --> 00:04:18.955 Do you know how these work -Not really. 00:04:18.955 --> 00:04:26.357 So, this is basically a light bulb but what it’s filled with is metal shavings of zirconium 00:04:26.357 --> 00:04:27.357 and oxygen. 00:04:27.639 --> 00:04:32.180 So this is a pure oxygen envelope, and when you send some electric current through there 00:04:32.180 --> 00:04:36.310 it’s going to cause the zirconium to burn extremely fast. 00:04:36.310 --> 00:04:37.830 So, a single-use bulb. 00:04:37.830 --> 00:04:42.334 It’s a single use bulb, it’s going to make an extremely bright flash, 00:04:42.334 --> 00:04:44.401 and then you gotta get rid of it. 00:04:44.401 --> 00:04:47.801 But what I’m even more excited to see is this. 00:04:47.801 --> 00:04:49.637 This is a flashcube, 00:04:49.637 --> 00:04:51.746 technically this is magic cube 00:04:51.746 --> 00:04:55.601 or Magicube ‘cause it uses once C, that’s not important. 00:04:55.883 --> 00:04:59.866 And these are mechanically actuated by the camera. 00:04:59.866 --> 00:05:04.121 So rather than need to have a battery to send power through here to set it off, 00:05:04.121 --> 00:05:06.459 these actually have some sort of a firing pin 00:05:06.459 --> 00:05:11.161 to create a discharge at the base of the bulb to set it off 00:05:11.161 --> 00:05:13.823 and I’m really excited to see what that looks like. 00:05:13.823 --> 00:05:16.390 Me, too. I’ve never even heard of that. 00:05:16.390 --> 00:05:18.169 They’re pretty cool. 00:05:18.169 --> 00:05:20.244 So, we’re gonna see what we can do. 00:05:20.244 --> 00:05:25.340 Uh, it’s gonna be pretty challenging to film this uh, what do you think we’re gonna have to do here? 00:05:25.340 --> 00:05:28.283 I think, well I like to start around 1,000 frames a second 00:05:28.283 --> 00:05:31.750 and then learn that that’s probably not fast enough and then maybe switch cameras. 00:05:31.750 --> 00:05:36.308 We’ve got a ton of options with frame rate today so I think we’ll just learn as we go. 00:05:36.308 --> 00:05:39.666 I think that’s probably the best option and the only good thing is 00:05:39.666 --> 00:05:47.645 these are not as instantaneously bright as an electronic flash because they do burn over some fraction of a second 00:05:47.645 --> 00:05:51.704 so overall it’s the same amount of light but spread over more time. 00:05:51.704 --> 00:05:54.905 So hopefully, it’s not too crazy. 00:05:54.905 --> 00:05:56.492 But let’s find out! 00:05:56.492 --> 00:05:57.487 Let’s find out. 00:05:57.487 --> 00:06:01.188 We have Gav’s goofy probe lens thing… 00:06:01.188 --> 00:06:05.572 -There is nothing goofy about this, that’s a normal looking lens alright? 00:06:05.572 --> 00:06:09.325 -no it’s not, but we are uh… we literally, 00:06:09.325 --> 00:06:12.984 I have no idea what to expect here because I would like to see the filament 00:06:12.984 --> 00:06:17.377 but I know it’s probably gonna wipe out - or blow out the exposure, but we’ll see. 00:06:17.377 --> 00:06:21.218 [Gav] I can preemptively stop the lens down a little. 00:06:21.218 --> 00:06:24.557 [Alec] Yeah that might be… we’ll find out. 00:06:24.557 --> 00:06:27.381 But again, you don’t know the other thing about the coating? 00:06:27.381 --> 00:06:28.445 -Ah. 00:06:28.445 --> 00:06:31.082 -Uh, the coating is there for two reasons. 00:06:31.082 --> 00:06:33.769 One, to shift the white balance. 00:06:33.769 --> 00:06:38.932 It’s adding some blue so that way it is the correct white for daylight-balanced film. 00:06:38.932 --> 00:06:42.740 But the coating is also there for, uh, let’s call it structural reasons. 00:06:42.740 --> 00:06:43.957 [Gav] Oh. 00:06:43.957 --> 00:06:50.513 I love that it’s basically a sealed chemical reaction with a built-in gel. 00:06:50.513 --> 00:06:53.645 Like, it’s like they've thought of every single aspect of this. 00:06:53.645 --> 00:06:55.687 [Alec] I don’t think they thought of it [laughs] 00:06:55.687 --> 00:07:00.107 I think they realized there are some, uh, collateral issues. -OK. 00:07:00.107 --> 00:07:02.753 Do I need, like, eye protection? -No, you don’t need eye protection. 00:07:04.553 --> 00:07:06.493 Maybe for the bigger ones… 00:07:06.493 --> 00:07:08.594 Hopefully this works. 00:07:08.594 --> 00:07:12.000 In 3… 2… 1. 00:07:12.925 --> 00:07:13.534 [Gav] Ooh. 00:07:15.750 --> 00:07:16.250 Wow. 00:07:17.682 --> 00:07:21.590 [Alec] There’s actually, I can see it in the light there was some smoke coming from it. 00:07:21.590 --> 00:07:24.840 [Gav] So… was that leaking out of the bulb? Or is that coming from the… 00:07:24.840 --> 00:07:26.381 -Yeah, you see... you see how it’s bulged on the side? 00:07:26.381 --> 00:07:27.390 The glass is cracked. 00:07:27.390 --> 00:07:28.521 -Oh wow! 00:07:28.980 --> 00:07:29.768 So it’s that hot? 00:07:29.768 --> 00:07:30.768 -It’s that hot! 00:07:30.980 --> 00:07:32.678 They pretty much explode. 00:07:33.772 --> 00:07:35.599 Oh wow! 00:07:35.599 --> 00:07:38.660 That is bright! 00:07:38.660 --> 00:07:41.669 Yeah that’s kind of uh, oh that’s cool. 00:07:42.357 --> 00:07:45.604 OK so to see detail in there then we need to be… 00:07:46.172 --> 00:07:47.919 [Alec] Way stopped down. 00:07:48.816 --> 00:07:50.150 [Gav] How many of these have we got? 00:07:50.150 --> 00:07:51.150 -Plenty! 00:07:51.150 --> 00:07:52.150 -Wanna just do it again? 00:07:52.150 --> 00:07:53.606 -Let’s just do it again. 00:07:53.606 --> 00:07:56.476 3… 2… 1… go. 00:07:58.360 --> 00:07:59.360 You can see the smoke? 00:07:59.599 --> 00:08:00.360 -Yeah. 00:08:00.689 --> 00:08:03.880 So is it bulging front to back or from… 00:08:03.880 --> 00:08:10.650 -It’s, wherever the glass cracks the coating keeps it from exploding. 00:08:12.234 --> 00:08:14.034 [Gav] Okay, let’s have a look at that. 00:08:15.679 --> 00:08:17.546 Pfft! 00:08:19.191 --> 00:08:21.186 [Alec] This is gonna be the real challenge with the flashcubes 00:08:21.186 --> 00:08:22.952 ‘cause I don’t know how bright the detonation is. 00:08:23.370 --> 00:08:24.791 Alright, here we go again. 00:08:24.791 --> 00:08:26.690 3… 2… 1… 00:08:29.082 --> 00:08:30.583 You could hear it crack. 00:08:30.583 --> 00:08:32.623 [Gav][ Yeah that was nice, it was like a... 00:08:33.520 --> 00:08:35.178 bit of an ASMR crackle there. 00:08:35.926 --> 00:08:37.311 [Alec] Oh that’s close. 00:08:37.311 --> 00:08:38.470 -Oh we’re getting close, there. 00:08:43.792 --> 00:08:46.034 - In 3, 2, 1 00:08:48.505 --> 00:08:50.402 [Gav] Ooh, very smoky, that one. 00:08:51.658 --> 00:08:54.650 [Alec] Oh you can see a crack in the glass. 00:08:54.650 --> 00:08:56.310 [Gav] Oh, yeah. 00:08:56.310 --> 00:08:57.478 Ooohh! 00:08:58.255 --> 00:09:00.372 Yeah a nice backlit crack. 00:09:00.372 --> 00:09:03.511 You can see it like, sooting up and then the crack happens. 00:09:03.511 --> 00:09:04.505 Chh! 00:09:05.910 --> 00:09:07.050 -This is great! 00:09:07.050 --> 00:09:09.228 -At 1,000 frames a second the crack, 00:09:09.228 --> 00:09:11.320 it just looks the same as if you're filing at normal speed. 00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:14.482 Like, glass cracks so fast that it’s gonna happen in one frame. [Alec] Yeah, yeah. 00:09:14.482 --> 00:09:19.400 Your, uh, the video where you did the sheet that you painted the rainbow colors - 00:09:19.400 --> 00:09:21.151 that was really cool. 00:09:21.151 --> 00:09:24.924 Having gathered plenty of footage with the AG-1 flashbulbs, 00:09:24.924 --> 00:09:28.209 it was time to take a look at the flashcubes. 00:09:28.209 --> 00:09:34.380 These things were initially introduced to make flash photography easier and more approachable. 00:09:34.380 --> 00:09:39.683 Individual flashbulbs are fiddly to deal with, become extremely hot once used, 00:09:39.683 --> 00:09:45.709 and even if your camera is fancy enough to support flash photography (which wasn’t always a given) 00:09:45.709 --> 00:09:51.438 it still required a second device to use: the flash unit itself. 00:09:51.438 --> 00:10:00.523 Now, it wasn’t all terrible - flash units like this often incorporated some sort of eject mechanism to help you deal with the hot, spent bulb, 00:10:00.523 --> 00:10:05.232 but you’d still need to carry this and a box of bulbs around with you 00:10:05.232 --> 00:10:09.334 in addition to your camera - plus do a little dance between every photo - 00:10:09.334 --> 00:10:12.404 just to take pictures indoors or at night. 00:10:12.404 --> 00:10:17.825 Oh, and also make sure you have the right battery in your flash unit and that it’s not dead. 00:10:18.301 --> 00:10:20.248 It was an ordeal. 00:10:20.248 --> 00:10:28.854 In contrast, the flashcube neatly integrated four flashbulbs and accompanying reflectors into a simple-to-use, disposable… 00:10:28.854 --> 00:10:30.156 cube. 00:10:30.156 --> 00:10:35.205 Simply plop one onto the receptacle of a compatible camera and you could take flash photos, 00:10:35.205 --> 00:10:37.672 no extra equipment required. 00:10:37.672 --> 00:10:43.080 Cameras which used them would even rotate the cube automatically when you wound the film to the next frame. 00:10:43.080 --> 00:10:46.990 And since the bulbs were found behind a polycarbonate shield, 00:10:46.990 --> 00:10:51.660 not only did that help contain a ruptured bulb should that happen during the flash, 00:10:51.660 --> 00:10:57.824 but you never had to worry about burning your fingers or setting a trashcan on fire after you took a picture. 00:10:57.824 --> 00:11:06.610 The first flashcubes were introduced by Syvlania and Kodak in 1965, but those weren’t really that interesting. 00:11:06.610 --> 00:11:09.570 They looked almost identical to this later version, 00:11:09.570 --> 00:11:14.807 but they were essentially just four ordinary flashbulbs packaged in a clever way. 00:11:14.807 --> 00:11:17.825 The bulbs were still electrically fired, 00:11:17.825 --> 00:11:23.007 so cameras which used the first iteration of flashcubes still needed a power source 00:11:23.007 --> 00:11:27.356 and a shutter-synchronization circuit to actually set them off. 00:11:27.356 --> 00:11:29.760 And that wasn’t always reliable. 00:11:29.760 --> 00:11:34.655 If the battery inside the camera was weak the flash may not fire, 00:11:34.655 --> 00:11:36.681 and according to Richard B. Martenson, 00:11:36.681 --> 00:11:40.682 Vice President of Consumer Sales for Sylvania Lighting Products, 00:11:40.682 --> 00:11:46.714 that resulted in over 100 million flash pictures being ruined each year. 00:11:46.714 --> 00:11:48.200 Tragic! 00:11:48.200 --> 00:11:52.917 So, to fix this problem Sylvania, once again in partnership with Kodak, 00:11:52.917 --> 00:11:57.472 developed the Magicube and released it in 1970. 00:11:57.472 --> 00:12:03.534 I’m not entirely convinced increasing reliability was the motivation here but we’ll get back to that. 00:12:03.534 --> 00:12:09.308 The actual flashbulbs inside of here may not look very different compared to the AG-1 bulbs, 00:12:09.308 --> 00:12:15.483 but as I was telling Gav these are set off mechanically and not electrically. 00:12:15.483 --> 00:12:19.577 After very carefully removing one from an unused flashcube, 00:12:19.577 --> 00:12:26.212 we can see that a small metal tube is protruding from the base of the glass envelope rather than a couple of wires. 00:12:26.451 --> 00:12:31.364 That tube is filled with a chemical compound known as a fulminate. 00:12:31.364 --> 00:12:36.656 What makes fulminates useful for photography is that they’re explosive. 00:12:36.656 --> 00:12:37.529 Yeah! 00:12:38.396 --> 00:12:46.450 Yeah, this little metal tube is filled with the same sort of chemical that goes into percussion caps to ignite gunpowder in firearms. 00:12:47.437 --> 00:12:52.079 I tried to figure out what specific fulminate might be in here and didn’t have too much luck, 00:12:52.079 --> 00:12:53.530 but that’s not really important. 00:12:53.530 --> 00:12:58.626 What’s important is that when you strike this tube very quickly with... something, 00:12:58.626 --> 00:13:01.365 its contents will explode. 00:13:01.365 --> 00:13:06.561 Remember, we used these so we could take pictures at night. 00:13:06.561 --> 00:13:09.661 Now, much like a percussion cap, 00:13:09.661 --> 00:13:13.698 that explosion is used to initiate a second combustion event, 00:13:13.698 --> 00:13:17.637 though instead of gunpowder accelerating a projectile forward out the barrel of a gun, 00:13:17.637 --> 00:13:22.632 it’s zirconium shavings in an oxygen atmosphere to produce a lot of light all quick-like. 00:13:22.632 --> 00:13:29.572 Inside the flashcube, tucked neatly behind the reflectors, are four pieces of wire which form simple springs. 00:13:29.572 --> 00:13:35.911 At the base of the unit you’ll see that one end of each spring is being retained by a little metal nubbin. 00:13:35.911 --> 00:13:39.839 Those ends of the spring are visible and accessible from below, 00:13:39.839 --> 00:13:43.884 and if I push up on one to allow it past the retaining nubbin, 00:13:43.884 --> 00:13:51.134 the tension is released and it almost instantaneously flies at the primer tube and gives it a good whack. 00:13:51.134 --> 00:13:54.859 That impact causes the friction-sensitive fulminate to ignite 00:13:54.859 --> 00:13:58.822 which in turn sets fire to the zirconium shavings and in an instant 00:13:58.822 --> 00:14:02.010 you’ve got yourself a very bright flash of light. 00:14:02.010 --> 00:14:07.980 This Kodak Instamatic X-15 is a simple camera which works with Magicubes. 00:14:07.980 --> 00:14:11.254 Simple is pretty much the name of its game: 00:14:11.254 --> 00:14:19.600 this is a purely mechanical, plastic camera with no automatic light metering or indeed exposure adjustment of any kind. 00:14:19.600 --> 00:14:28.130 Every image this takes is captured through its fixed-focus lens with an aperture of f/11 and a shutter speed of 1/90th of a second. 00:14:28.130 --> 00:14:32.034 Thanks to the generous exposure latitude of color print film 00:14:32.034 --> 00:14:37.329 that was certifiably Good Enough™ for outdoor photography in most conditions 00:14:37.329 --> 00:14:42.250 but once the sun sets or you head inside, it’ll need some help. 00:14:42.250 --> 00:14:45.484 So, just plop on a Magicube, 00:14:45.484 --> 00:14:48.618 and say cheese! [click] 00:14:49.425 --> 00:14:51.641 How does the camera set if off? 00:14:51.641 --> 00:14:55.090 Well, if you look closely as you attach the flashcube, 00:14:55.090 --> 00:15:00.399 you’ll notice a small pokey bit coming up from just next to the socket. 00:15:00.399 --> 00:15:06.907 As you may have guessed, this is what fires the flashcube by pushing up on the spring to release it from its catch 00:15:06.907 --> 00:15:09.176 and allow it to strike the primer tube. 00:15:09.176 --> 00:15:14.709 But the actuator also serves as a check for whether the flashcube will work. 00:15:14.709 --> 00:15:20.334 Prior to taking a picture, the actuator is lifted into place with very light pressure. 00:15:20.334 --> 00:15:25.921 With a fresh flashcube, the trip wire will prevent that actuator from moving very far up. 00:15:25.921 --> 00:15:32.251 But, if you are re-using a flashcube and insert it with a spent lamp facing forward, 00:15:32.251 --> 00:15:35.549 the actuator will make its way past the position of the spring 00:15:35.549 --> 00:15:40.321 and a little red flag indicator is lowered into the viewfinder to warn you. 00:15:40.321 --> 00:15:41.730 Pretty clever. 00:15:41.730 --> 00:15:45.743 But, assuming the spring is still there for the actuator to… 00:15:45.743 --> 00:15:50.529 actuate, the red flag does not appear and you’re ready to take a picture. 00:15:50.529 --> 00:15:52.356 When you press down on the shutter button, 00:15:52.356 --> 00:15:55.851 the camera forces that actuator into the base of the flashcube, 00:15:55.851 --> 00:16:02.560 pushing the spring above its catch, and letting it fly into the primer tube to set off the explosive fulminate. 00:16:02.560 --> 00:16:07.740 The initiation is very fast - just four milliseconds after the shutter has opened, 00:16:07.740 --> 00:16:10.029 the flashcube begins producing light. 00:16:10.029 --> 00:16:13.770 And its output peaks just 7 milliseconds later. 00:16:13.770 --> 00:16:19.427 With a flashcube installed, the camera does slow its shutter speed to 1/45 of a second, 00:16:19.427 --> 00:16:26.431 and that's just about the perfect speed for gathering as much of the flashcube’s light onto the film as possible. 00:16:26.431 --> 00:16:28.320 And, for the icing on the cake, 00:16:28.320 --> 00:16:31.775 when you advance the film frame using the winder on the back of the camera, 00:16:34.078 --> 00:16:40.060 the flashcube automagically rotates 90 degrees so your next shot is ready as soon as possible. 00:16:40.060 --> 00:16:47.297 There’s some delightful mechanical goodness in the actuator getting pulled down as the cube begins begins to turn. 00:16:47.297 --> 00:16:49.465 Mmm, clearance! 00:16:49.465 --> 00:16:51.981 If you’re wondering how much these things cost, 00:16:51.981 --> 00:16:57.614 well a package just like this originally retailed for $2.25. 00:16:57.614 --> 00:17:02.428 Adjust for today's money, and that’s nearly eighteen dollars! 00:17:02.428 --> 00:17:06.553 And since this is 3 cubes slash 12 flashes, 00:17:06.553 --> 00:17:14.184 that means each flash photo you took cost basically $1.50 on top of the cost of the film itself. 00:17:14.184 --> 00:17:21.478 In 1975, a 20 exposure roll of film for this camera (plus prints) cost about $5 00:17:21.478 --> 00:17:28.518 and adjusted for inflation that’s not quite $30 which, well, works out again to about $1.50 per photograph 00:17:28.518 --> 00:17:35.328 so using the flash back in the day just about doubled the cost of taking a single picture. 00:17:35.328 --> 00:17:40.126 Unless of course you were shooting slide film - that used to be cheaper, ya know! 00:17:40.126 --> 00:17:44.577 Now you practically gotta get a mortgage to shoot a single roll of Ektachrome. 00:17:44.577 --> 00:17:51.851 While Sylvania and Kodak claimed that they developed the Magicube for more reliable flash photography, 00:17:51.851 --> 00:17:55.477 to be honest that doesn’t smell all that truthful to me. 00:17:55.477 --> 00:17:58.647 Kodak, although they’d happily sell you a camera, 00:17:58.647 --> 00:18:00.588 really wanted to sell you film 00:18:00.588 --> 00:18:02.401 and processing for that film 00:18:02.401 --> 00:18:05.828 and prints of those pictures on that processed film. 00:18:05.828 --> 00:18:11.858 Their cameras were the gateway drug to get you hooked on taking snapshots with their film products, 00:18:11.858 --> 00:18:17.476 and wouldn’t it be great if they could make their cheap, entry-level, flash-capable cameras even cheaper 00:18:17.476 --> 00:18:20.618 by removing the battery and wiring and junk? 00:18:20.618 --> 00:18:26.534 I’m pretty sure that was the real goal of adding explosives to the photography process. 00:18:26.534 --> 00:18:32.127 After all, the packaging on these GE flashbulbs is pretty darn confident that they’re all gonna work, 00:18:32.127 --> 00:18:35.884 and they’ll even send you four new ones if you send them a dud. 00:18:35.884 --> 00:18:40.180 Still, while it definitely seems pretty off-the-wall in hindsight, 00:18:40.180 --> 00:18:43.726 the concept did work and worked very well. 00:18:43.726 --> 00:18:49.112 And if we still needed to rely on single-use flashbulbs for cheap flash photos anyway, 00:18:49.112 --> 00:18:53.761 I suppose adding a little explosion to the mix wasn’t the most ridiculous idea. 00:18:54.478 --> 00:18:57.446 But I think that’s enough exposition, don’t you? 00:18:57.446 --> 00:19:00.442 The absolutely bonkers way by which these are ignited 00:19:00.442 --> 00:19:05.166 is the entire reason I traveled to Austin and enlisted the help of a Slow-Mo Guy. 00:19:05.166 --> 00:19:08.079 I really want to see what this looks like in slow motion, 00:19:08.079 --> 00:19:10.014 so let’s cut to the chase. 00:19:10.014 --> 00:19:17.391 So we're about to shoot the first flashcube and I do not remember which one I poke to make that one go off. 00:19:17.391 --> 00:19:22.360 So we have a 50/50 chance that this is gonna work. Um… 00:19:23.197 --> 00:19:25.860 [Gav] At least you've narrowed it down 50/50 though and not one in four. 00:19:25.860 --> 00:19:30.894 -Yeah I mean I really cannot tell from the mechanism which way the spring goes. 00:19:31.761 --> 00:19:33.261 I… 00:19:33.470 --> 00:19:36.409 I think it's this one but I could be wrong. 00:19:38.054 --> 00:19:39.561 We'll find out in a moment you ready? 00:19:39.561 --> 00:19:40.561 -Ready. 00:19:40.561 --> 00:19:43.337 three two one [crack] 00:19:43.845 --> 00:19:46.384 -You nailed it. That was the right one! -Hey I got it right the right 00:19:46.384 --> 00:19:47.774 [laughter] 00:19:48.791 --> 00:19:49.738 Okay. 00:19:52.310 --> 00:19:54.235 Woah. [laughter] 00:19:54.833 --> 00:19:57.517 I think we're going to need the faster camera! -Yeah! 00:19:59.790 --> 00:20:03.277 What - you can't even tell at all what initiated that. 00:20:03.277 --> 00:20:05.440 It just looks like it exploded. 00:20:05.440 --> 00:20:06.925 [Gav] Go frame by frame… 00:20:09.826 --> 00:20:12.230 [Alec] Well, that's very bright. 00:20:12.230 --> 00:20:14.938 But yeah we need the… we definitely need the bigger guns. 00:20:16.941 --> 00:20:18.475 [Gav] Bigger gun time? 00:20:18.475 --> 00:20:21.090 -I think so! -All right let's do it. 00:20:21.090 --> 00:20:25.340 Okay we've whipped out the big guns cuz that didn't reveal anything so what is our frame rate? 00:20:25.340 --> 00:20:26.640 [Gav] 200,000. 00:20:26.640 --> 00:20:29.579 - 200,000 frames per second! Okay... 00:20:29.579 --> 00:20:31.669 - It's quite the leap. - Yeah! 00:20:31.669 --> 00:20:35.084 Um... let's see what happens! 00:20:35.084 --> 00:20:36.383 Here we go, 00:20:36.383 --> 00:20:38.562 I got it three two one 00:20:39.100 --> 00:20:40.847 bl-sfh, or again, 00:20:40.847 --> 00:20:42.512 three two one 00:20:42.512 --> 00:20:43.275 [crack] 00:20:43.275 --> 00:20:46.053 The footage we got here was spectacular. 00:20:46.053 --> 00:20:50.581 A plume of sparks shot out from the base of the bulb and ignited the zirconium, 00:20:50.581 --> 00:20:53.681 with the filings burning like brilliant fuses. 00:20:53.681 --> 00:20:57.785 One spark even managed to make it beyond the midpoint of the tube, 00:20:57.785 --> 00:21:05.632 and we can see that the exact spot where it collided with the zirconium is where the zirconium itself began to burn. 00:21:06.021 --> 00:21:07.838 This is basically a firework. 00:21:07.838 --> 00:21:08.685 [Gav] Yeah! 00:21:08.685 --> 00:21:13.586 -It is a very calibrated, easy to set off firework. 00:21:14.214 --> 00:21:16.382 For the purposes of photography. 00:21:19.133 --> 00:21:21.310 It’s propagating so slowly! 00:21:21.310 --> 00:21:24.186 [Gav] Yeah, I mean, it’s just that first bit that’s fast. 00:21:24.186 --> 00:21:26.092 I can’t believe how bright it is. 00:21:26.092 --> 00:21:30.754 Even at a one microsecond per frame exposure. 00:21:30.754 --> 00:21:37.541 This is - at your playback frame rate this is slowing one second down to 111 minutes. 00:21:37.541 --> 00:21:42.669 [astonished laughter] A feature-length film out of one second! 00:21:44.792 --> 00:21:47.031 Oh these cameras are amazing. 00:21:47.031 --> 00:21:51.030 While we got plenty of detail of the initiation explosion, 00:21:51.030 --> 00:21:54.618 the zirconium burn was still blowing out the sensor. 00:21:54.618 --> 00:22:00.075 And remember each frame was captured over a tiny, tiny fraction of a second! 00:22:00.075 --> 00:22:02.605 These things are ridiculously bright. 00:22:02.605 --> 00:22:09.486 Gav decreased the shutter angle in the hopes of uncovering some more interesting details as the flash reached full-brightness. 00:22:09.486 --> 00:22:12.817 3, 2, 1 [click] 00:22:12.817 --> 00:22:15.766 …so one of those Sparks runs into the zirconium. 00:22:17.560 --> 00:22:19.909 Now the tails are burning. 00:22:20.746 --> 00:22:26.002 [Gav] So are we actually seeing the travel across each each, like, hair of it? 00:22:26.002 --> 00:22:29.405 - I think so. I don't know what what else that could be. 00:22:29.405 --> 00:22:32.971 It's like … it's like a bird's nest that you set on fire. 00:22:33.539 --> 00:22:38.520 [Gav] Yeah. So a crazy moment in time where one half of the flash has gone off. 00:22:39.626 --> 00:22:43.375 -See it's pulling the wire closer… it probably shrinks a little bit. 00:22:43.375 --> 00:22:45.264 -Lots of contractions and… 00:22:47.028 --> 00:22:48.886 yeah a lot of thermal action in there. 00:22:55.401 --> 00:22:59.147 [Gav] See that there, that's just like globs of molten metal there. 00:23:00.672 --> 00:23:02.743 See that… see that one explode? 00:23:07.108 --> 00:23:08.466 [Alec] Oh wow! 00:23:08.466 --> 00:23:09.968 -It was like a bubble. 00:23:11.074 --> 00:23:12.253 -What‽ 00:23:12.253 --> 00:23:14.341 [laughter] 00:23:14.341 --> 00:23:15.861 [Gav] I wonder if there's air trapped in little 00:23:15.861 --> 00:23:20.597 -little bubbles of zirconium? - bubbles of molten zir - they're - they're all exploding! 00:23:20.597 --> 00:23:22.366 - That is amazing. 00:23:22.366 --> 00:23:24.086 - You can see why I wanted to switch to this camera right? 00:23:24.086 --> 00:23:28.614 Because there's, there's always like a deeper level that you just start seeing even crazier stuff. 00:23:29.601 --> 00:23:31.768 Yeah all of these bubbles popped. 00:23:32.994 --> 00:23:34.665 [Alec] So I wonder why they're forming… 00:23:34.665 --> 00:23:40.712 Maybe oh, well I - okay so maybe as the wire is burning the center of it melts 00:23:40.712 --> 00:23:45.289 and it lets in some of the oxygen or whatever else might be in there. 00:23:45.289 --> 00:23:48.786 [Gav] And we saw the the wire contracting towards the middle 00:23:48.786 --> 00:23:51.955 so I assume as it's burning and melting it's like pulling more liquid in 00:23:51.955 --> 00:23:54.516 and just making these… 00:23:54.516 --> 00:23:57.126 It’s pulling more wire in and making orbs of glob. 00:23:57.126 --> 00:24:00.259 OK, so obviously that was pretty cool. 00:24:00.259 --> 00:24:03.724 Lots of interesting stuff was uncovered in the high speed footage. 00:24:03.724 --> 00:24:06.825 But we also uncovered something else. 00:24:06.825 --> 00:24:14.330 I had presumed that the electrically-triggered ones just had a couple of electrodes sticking into the chaos of the zirconium foil. 00:24:14.330 --> 00:24:17.940 Run some power through there and whatever bits of zirconium are touching those electrodes 00:24:17.940 --> 00:24:20.000 will complete a circuit to the other side, 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:25.491 it’ll got hot, and since it’s a pure oxygen atmosphere that’s gonna make it get all burny real fast. 00:24:25.491 --> 00:24:30.084 But in the 1,000 frames per second footage capture from the 4K camera, 00:24:30.084 --> 00:24:32.809 we were able to see… something. 00:24:33.646 --> 00:24:35.880 [Gav] Was there like… 00:24:37.285 --> 00:24:39.513 do we actually see an arc? 00:24:39.513 --> 00:24:42.424 - Oh that's probably - that's a filament! 00:24:42.424 --> 00:24:44.293 So it actually is burning… 00:24:44.293 --> 00:24:46.013 [Gav] So there's a filament in there just like a… 00:24:46.013 --> 00:24:48.128 -Probably yeah just, just a little filament. 00:24:49.354 --> 00:24:52.118 And then it basically causes an explosion. 00:24:52.118 --> 00:24:55.179 [Gav] That's one frame later, so that's only like 00:24:55.179 --> 00:24:57.089 a thousandth of a second later. 00:24:57.089 --> 00:24:59.706 -Wow so there is… I didn't think this would be that fast. 00:25:01.022 --> 00:25:02.782 That is amazing. 00:25:02.782 --> 00:25:04.621 At this point I was thinking, 00:25:04.621 --> 00:25:08.633 alright I guess it makes sense for there to be an incandescent filament in there. 00:25:08.633 --> 00:25:13.032 That would give the lamp predictable electrical characteristics if nothing else, 00:25:13.032 --> 00:25:23.845 and a bit of tungsten wire that will definitely get hot when you pass current through it is probably more reliable than just poking electrodes into a briar patch of filings. 00:25:23.845 --> 00:25:28.872 But switching to the faster camera revealed there was more to it than that. 00:25:29.201 --> 00:25:31.641 3… 2… 1… 00:25:32.329 --> 00:25:33.455 Oh. 00:25:35.130 --> 00:25:37.280 Does the filament, like, vaporize? 00:25:38.805 --> 00:25:40.713 What's happening at the beginning? 00:25:43.105 --> 00:25:46.835 Well now I'm totally unclear on what's happening at the beginning. 00:25:46.835 --> 00:25:51.450 Maybe the… maybe the filament is like a kind of detonation cord. 00:25:54.500 --> 00:25:59.007 [Gav] Oh that's cool you can see the little streaks of smoke. 00:25:59.007 --> 00:26:00.170 Psh-owrn! 00:26:01.635 --> 00:26:03.887 [Alec] Oh there's one of the globbles. 00:26:04.156 --> 00:26:06.339 So they seem to happen at the end. 00:26:07.057 --> 00:26:10.085 So I wonder if that's because the oxygen's getting used up 00:26:11.102 --> 00:26:19.489 and it's just a bubble of, like, oxides that's not actually burning. 00:26:19.489 --> 00:26:23.879 I'm looking at this to see if I can even see what's going on with that filament. 00:26:25.075 --> 00:26:28.541 The… the electrodes are definitely like poking up. 00:26:28.541 --> 00:26:33.210 My gut is that the filament is... 00:26:33.210 --> 00:26:38.173 I don't know, maybe it's a piece of tungsten that's coated with an explosive compound? 00:26:38.173 --> 00:26:42.591 ‘Cause it looks like it's vaporizing. It doesn't just look like it's turning on. 00:26:42.591 --> 00:26:46.506 [Gav] Is there a way to get the glass off? 00:26:46.506 --> 00:26:48.543 -Not without just breaking it. 00:26:48.543 --> 00:26:52.537 -But would it be interesting just to break the bulb and film into the hole? 00:26:53.942 --> 00:26:57.001 Just to get the the primer going off? 00:26:57.001 --> 00:27:00.468 [Alec] We can try it, you got some safety glasses and a hammer? 00:27:00.468 --> 00:27:03.568 Okay in the interest of science… 00:27:03.568 --> 00:27:06.653 I really don't know what on Earth is going on with the filament. 00:27:06.653 --> 00:27:11.230 I thought it was just a tungsten filament but based on that high speed it kind of looked like it exploded. 00:27:11.649 --> 00:27:14.113 So, um, I have hammer. 00:27:14.860 --> 00:27:16.787 And safety glasses! 00:27:17.236 --> 00:27:19.697 [Gav] I think you need to duck further into it. 00:27:19.697 --> 00:27:20.551 Am I visible? 00:27:20.551 --> 00:27:21.294 No, it’s - more. 00:27:22.012 --> 00:27:23.732 There you go! [laughter] 00:27:24.330 --> 00:27:26.813 I'm wearing safety glasses, okay? 00:27:27.321 --> 00:27:29.362 And Gav's way back there, so. 00:27:29.362 --> 00:27:32.811 Actually because of the coating it's probably not… this might be difficult! 00:27:32.811 --> 00:27:33.364 -Yeah. 00:27:33.633 --> 00:27:34.666 -We’ll see… 00:27:35.652 --> 00:27:36.295 [BANG] 00:27:37.491 --> 00:27:39.494 Okay that was under pressure! 00:27:40.301 --> 00:27:42.219 That was definitely under pressure. 00:27:42.369 --> 00:27:46.348 [Gav] I heard glass hit the the ground about 20 feet away. 00:27:50.773 --> 00:27:52.643 Great where's the the f… [laughs] 00:27:52.643 --> 00:27:54.825 I don't know if we can do this! 00:27:54.825 --> 00:27:58.239 Okay we're trying this again with a bag. 00:27:58.239 --> 00:27:59.531 [Gav] I'm going to hide again. 00:27:59.531 --> 00:28:02.339 [hammer time] 00:28:02.339 --> 00:28:06.521 Okay, it did pop right out. 00:28:06.521 --> 00:28:09.524 So that is probably somewhere in the room. 00:28:09.524 --> 00:28:10.968 -Okay -But we got it! 00:28:10.968 --> 00:28:13.635 -I'll let you know when I find that in 2028. 00:28:13.635 --> 00:28:16.782 [Alec] I mean I really don't know if anything's going to happen here, but we can try. 00:28:16.782 --> 00:28:17.978 -Okay 00:28:17.978 --> 00:28:18.628 -You ready to go? 00:28:18.628 --> 00:28:19.554 -Ready. 00:28:20.122 --> 00:28:22.820 In three. Two. One. 00:28:22.820 --> 00:28:23.736 [pfft] 00:28:23.736 --> 00:28:25.493 -Something happened! -Ohh, something happened! 00:28:25.493 --> 00:28:26.624 -That was big! 00:28:26.624 --> 00:28:28.546 -That was way… it's… 00:28:28.546 --> 00:28:31.680 -Oh, a smoke ring! -There’s like a smoke ring! 00:28:31.680 --> 00:28:40.000 So, it would seem even the electrically-operated flashbulbs still relied on explosives to initiate the zirconium burn. 00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:42.830 But what is that explosive? 00:28:42.830 --> 00:28:43.919 Well… 00:28:43.919 --> 00:28:45.260 I don’t know. 00:28:45.260 --> 00:28:52.218 I found references to a so-called “ignition paste” in a patent filed for an improvement to flash lamps made… 00:28:52.218 --> 00:28:54.217 way too late for it to do any good. 00:28:54.217 --> 00:28:59.261 And following that thread led me to a discussion where rhenium was coming up. 00:28:59.261 --> 00:29:02.150 I followed through on that patent the folks were discussing 00:29:02.150 --> 00:29:07.168 and it mentioned rhenium in the composition of the filament but not the ignition beads. 00:29:07.168 --> 00:29:09.081 Ignition beads? 00:29:09.081 --> 00:29:15.001 Well, in this macro shot it does appear as though the filament was covered in little beads of something. 00:29:15.001 --> 00:29:18.390 As the filament broke, one even went flying! 00:29:18.390 --> 00:29:22.221 After a little more digging, it seems that in order to improve reliability 00:29:22.221 --> 00:29:24.548 (particularly with weak batteries) 00:29:24.548 --> 00:29:32.931 flashbulb filaments were designed to be deliberately weak in order to get hot (and therefore begin incandescence) essentially instantly. 00:29:32.931 --> 00:29:37.991 But that meant it was probably going to break before the zirconium began to burn. 00:29:37.991 --> 00:29:42.983 Whichever bead of primer was closest to the weakest and hottest part of the filament 00:29:42.983 --> 00:29:50.131 was almost certainly going to ignite, sending a plume of incandescent sparks out amongst the zirconium. 00:29:50.131 --> 00:29:54.325 That means that there are actually four steps to this process: 00:29:54.325 --> 00:29:58.240 first, a camera sends power through the filament as its shutter opens. 00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:03.289 Then, the electrical resistance of that filament causes it to get hot to the point of incandescence 00:30:03.289 --> 00:30:05.620 in a miniscule fraction of a second. 00:30:05.620 --> 00:30:11.096 Next, the resulting heat ignites at least one of the primer beads on that filament 00:30:11.096 --> 00:30:15.549 which sends a plume of sparks out into the nest of zirconium wire. 00:30:15.549 --> 00:30:21.176 Finally, some of those bits of burning primer collide with the fine zirconium wire, 00:30:21.176 --> 00:30:27.131 causing it to rapidly burn in the oxygen atmosphere and emit brilliant light as it does so. 00:30:27.131 --> 00:30:34.940 In the end, both styles of flashbulb rely on an explosion to reliably set the zirconium they contain alight. 00:30:34.940 --> 00:30:41.383 Sylvania’s Magicubes take a literal shotgun approach by firing sparks up through the primer tube, 00:30:41.383 --> 00:30:45.104 but now that we know the electrically-fired ones do, too, 00:30:45.104 --> 00:30:47.343 that almost seems reasonable. 00:30:47.343 --> 00:30:53.085 This footage of the larger M2B bulb firing is perhaps my favorite shot we got. 00:30:53.085 --> 00:30:59.239 You can clearly see the distinction between the primer explosive firing and the zirconium beginning to burn - 00:30:59.239 --> 00:31:03.866 in fact, you can see what looks like a piece of filament with its primer bead igniting 00:31:03.866 --> 00:31:07.712 long after being blown clear of its original position. 00:31:07.712 --> 00:31:12.893 Then we see the wire start to ignite, and as they burn like tiny little fuses, 00:31:12.893 --> 00:31:19.956 the bright spot in the bulb propagates until all of it is ablaze, leaving nothing behind but a cloud of smoke. 00:31:19.956 --> 00:31:21.587 And remember, in real-time, 00:31:21.587 --> 00:31:23.910 that all happens this quickly. 00:31:25.286 --> 00:31:26.430 [crack] 00:31:26.430 --> 00:31:27.197 Ahh! 00:31:27.197 --> 00:31:29.476 [laughter] 00:31:29.745 --> 00:31:32.019 So, uh, what did we learn today? 00:31:32.019 --> 00:31:34.541 Mainly that it’s brighter than I even imagined. 00:31:34.541 --> 00:31:41.735 Like, at one point we had a 95 nanosecond duration which is shorter than my brain can even comprehend, 00:31:41.735 --> 00:31:43.784 and it was still blowing out the sensor. 00:31:43.784 --> 00:31:47.706 Yeah, it was uh… a struggle to get some of these shots. 00:31:47.706 --> 00:31:51.196 And, uh, he was the one struggling, I was just touching wires together. -That’s true. 00:31:51.196 --> 00:31:53.836 Uh, we also saw, which was a big surprise to me, 00:31:53.836 --> 00:31:59.042 that the initiation fuse I guess you could say actually has some explosive charge on there. 00:31:59.042 --> 00:32:01.140 That was a surprise, I thought it was just… 00:32:01.140 --> 00:32:06.492 honestly I thought it was just putting current through some of the actual little schnerbles of wire, there. 00:32:06.492 --> 00:32:07.788 And people flew with these? 00:32:07.788 --> 00:32:11.564 Flew with them, and checked them in their bags and man. 00:32:12.431 --> 00:32:13.527 They were commonplace. 00:32:13.527 --> 00:32:17.663 As I was saying at one point, imagine you had to pay for every frame of film. 00:32:17.663 --> 00:32:19.847 Now you want a flash? That’s an extra… 00:32:19.847 --> 00:32:22.777 I don’t know what these were, maybe 25 cents? Who knows. 00:32:22.777 --> 00:32:24.914 Yeah, go ahead and venmo me. 00:32:24.914 --> 00:32:27.264 Ha, yeah, that’ll work. 00:32:27.264 --> 00:32:30.598 Well, thanks again to Gav for this awesome footage. 00:32:30.598 --> 00:32:34.070 I could not have made it without his assistance or definitely cameras, so. 00:32:34.279 --> 00:32:36.587 No worries, thank you very much for coming. 00:32:36.587 --> 00:32:37.736 Cheers! 00:32:38.962 --> 00:32:41.306 That was a very forced cheers, but I think we got it. 00:32:43.100 --> 00:32:45.628 [Gav imitates TC jazz] 00:32:47.243 --> 00:32:49.703 ♫ blindingly smooth jazz ♫ 00:32:51.334 --> 00:32:53.841 See this is the problem I have in here, just like… 00:32:53.841 --> 00:32:55.812 Oh is that what we were looking for? 00:32:55.812 --> 00:32:59.068 No… is it? No, the thing we heard was… 00:32:59.068 --> 00:33:00.757 hit the ground. 00:33:00.757 --> 00:33:01.942 That’s a piece of it though, I think. 00:33:01.942 --> 00:33:06.634 I think… if this isn’t the one we set off, it… I don’t know. 00:33:06.634 --> 00:33:08.850 This might be the one that we didn’t find. 00:33:09.867 --> 00:33:11.724 Well, hi! 00:33:11.724 --> 00:33:14.375 The problem is I can’t see the top of the frame. 00:33:14.614 --> 00:33:17.003 You wanna see if your head is in frame? -Yeah. 00:33:17.003 --> 00:33:19.363 I’ve got headroom, oh I could put my ha- oh yeah there’s plenty. 00:33:19.363 --> 00:33:21.780 I have hands! I could do that. 00:33:21.780 --> 00:33:25.453 …flash units like this often incorporated some sort of eject mechanism 00:33:25.453 --> 00:33:26.824 [rattle on the desk] 00:33:26.824 --> 00:33:27.398 [meh]… 00:33:27.398 --> 00:33:30.039 which would help you deal with the hot, spent bulb. 00:33:30.039 --> 00:33:34.433 But you’d still need to carry this and a box of… 00:33:34.433 --> 00:33:35.786 crap. 00:33:37.461 --> 00:33:40.163 Well, I think that was a brilliant video, don't you? 00:33:40.163 --> 00:33:42.609 Sure cast a bright light on the subject. 00:33:42.609 --> 00:33:45.400 But, I dunno, you think it was a little too flashy? 00:33:45.400 --> 00:33:48.075 Might have been dazzling, even. 00:33:48.075 --> 00:33:50.882 Oh well, always gotta balance exposure. 00:33:51.834 --> 00:33:53.375 Okay that last one didn't work.