Hot lights vs. strobes???

2F/2F said:

I have never heard this before!

"Strobe" is simply incorrect for electronic flash. It is slang. As long as English is being spoken, it has nothing to do with the nationality of the speaker.

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Two countries separated by a common language.
IE: suspenders, braces, stuffed, boot, on and on.

John Koehrer said:

Two countries separated by a common language.
IE: suspenders, braces, stuffed, boot, on and on.

Click to expand...

"Strobes" is simply slang used by photographers to mean electronic flash. English/British people and United States people use it.

What strobes actually are is something different...but the word is used incorrectly as slang for electronic flash.

strobes is slang,
unless you are talking strobelight

Or the things Edgerton adapted to suit his purposes.

Slang dang, everyone I ever talked to always knows what it is. Electronic flash is to strobes as photographer is to photogs or shooter. Looking at what the current generation is using to communicate, oh well, YMMV.

Its meaning is certainly known by all, as are many (most?) slang terms (do I really need to list some? ).....but slang it is.

A strobe is a light that flashes over and over at intervals of a set length. While they are used for photographing and for other things, the electronic flash units that are designed as photographic equipment are not designed for use as strobes, and are not used as strobes when used the way that most photographers use them (i.e., when they fire only when you tell them to fire, and at no other time). If you were to rig up something that set your flashes to fire at evenly spaced intervals, or even if you were to do it manually with a stopwatch and the dump button, then you would have a strobe, in the technical sense.

...but my point was really that this does not have to do with nationality. In the U.S.A. or Britain, "strobe" to mean any electronic flash unit is slang terminology. A "strobe" is a timed repeating light in both British English and U.S. English, and it is slang for electronic flash units in both British English and U.S. English. I know for a fact that British people use the term. Additionally, even if the slang term "strobes" to mean any electronic flash is more prevalent in the United States than in Britain, it does not mean that it is not slang here in the U.S.A.

I find in Britain that photographers never refer to electronic flash as "Strobe", or anyone call Taps Faucets, the only time I use the term is when communicating with Americans to make myself understood , and as I once found to my cost to "Knock someone up" in the UK means something completely different to what it means in the U.S

He's just looking to get the last word in. Right or wrong.

Some of the Nikon Electronic flash units use a strobe function to get high speed flash sync with cameras that allow it.

If you're a still photographer strobes are the way to go. My Speedotron Blackline 2403 B power pack and 4 heads are still working like new since 1987- safely. The Balcar strobe system I once owned had some serious flaws that caused a flash head to explode (in a client's luxurious high-rise office ) and the power-pack was junked when smoke started coming out of it. One must use due caution when handling flash units. Buy or use only those brands that have a reputation for safety.

If you do any analog filming, the hot lights will serve both purposes.