My Old Braun Hobby flashes

pentaxpete · Mar 9, 2014

Thought I would show you my 'Braun Hobby' unit from the late 1950's-'60's that I use to take many of my 'Indoor Photos' . They came out in the 1950's and were used by all the newspaper photographers -- when you see the Beatles coming down the steps of the Aircraft in USA there are all the news snappers with their ROLLEIS and the black Braun Hobby units with the strap over their shoulders ! My FIRST Braun was bought in the Canadian Maple Leaf Store in Iserlohn, Germany in 1957 when I was there in the British Military Hospital as a Path Lab Technician-- it cost £ 14-00 when in England with all the taxes it cost £ 39-00 ! It had 'lead-acid ' wet-cell accumulators and could also be run off the mains .. I wore out the cells then they were all discontinued BUT I could still run it off the mains indoors. Then many years later I got a second flash head , then I was GIVEN some more Braun units and saved some from being DUMPED by a Photographer I was visiting. There are differences in all the power packs I have when they are opened up -- small improvements by the Germans. The flash duration is 1/1000th second and when more than one head is plugged in of course the power is shared

Braun-Unit by pentaxpete, on Flickr

AgX · Mar 9, 2014

Braun, a electronics company, got into the photographic field by designing an electronic flashlight. The predecessor to your model, which was revolutionary due to its all-plastic construction.
Later they extended their involvement by buying the cine-camera manufacturer Nizo.

snapguy · Mar 9, 2014

Beg to differ

I fear I must beg to differ with the notion that "all" news photographers used the Braun electronic flash. I worked for 11 newspapers and the world's largest wire service beginning in the 1950s and I never owned or used a Braun. The strobe of choice was the Honeywell Heiland. I still have one. By the way I photographed the Beatles on their two tours to California, as well. A number of "celebrity" photographers did use the Braun in those days and it was good unit.

wombat2go · Mar 9, 2014

Pete: Interesting. My project at the moment is to non destructively modify a Graflite by fitting a small Pentax flash in the reflector
A question about the flashtubes in the Braun : are they removable and do you know the part number?
It occurs to me a better, more "period correct" mod would be to add such a flash tube to the Graflite.

AgX · Mar 9, 2014

Braun have cancelled their photographic goods long ago. I'm quite sure you would not get any spares from them, let alone such old part.
You better either look for such old flashlight to take off the tube, or consider spares from current studio strobes manufacturers or have a tube custom made.
I'm not sure any tube will work with any kind of circuit anyway.

You might install let's say three small tubes to form U if that looks more contemporary.

Trask · Mar 9, 2014

I had one of these in the mid-1960's that I used extensively as a high school yearbook photographer. Full power, half power switchable, lead-acid wet cells. Depending on how you rotated the reflector (which means which side of the camera you had the flash head on), you got "wide angle" or "telephoto" spread. And you could remove the reflector entirely and shoot bare bulb, which was great indoors. The thing weighed a ton, and I always wished I had a GN Nikkor, but I got a lot of great shots with this flash. And yes, snapguy, the other HS photographer had a Heiland Strobonar -- so much more modern than my Braun!

I do feel that today's photographers are missing out on a lot by using flashes with such small, if not tiny, reflectors -- entirely a point source, no "spread" of light from a large reflector. It's time to just off my Honeywell Flash-mite and uncover my flashbulbs.

snapguy · Mar 9, 2014

Ooops

I fear I may have opened my yap without fully engaging what there is left of my brain. It happens. I was talking about press photographers and the Beatles in the U. S. I suspect the Braun flash units were more popular in Britain than here. I looked up a photo of the Fab Four taking off for their tour coming over here and there were what looked like a few Braun units, others I could not identify and one Speed Graphic with flashbulbs. I seem to recall celeb photogs from Great Britain who would come to Hollywood for things like the Beatles and the Academy Awards would favor Braun units.

frank · Mar 9, 2014

I have a similar Metz unit.

AgX · Mar 9, 2014

Trask said:
Depending on how you rotated the reflector (which means which side of the camera you had the flash head on), you got "wide angle" or "telephoto" spread. And you could remove the reflector entirely and shoot bare bulb, which was great indoors.

The flashtube is located asymmetrically on the handle. By turning the handle 180° on can switch between two distances of the tube to the reflector and thus gain two lighting-angles.

pentaxpete · Mar 10, 2014

Thanks for all your interesting input -- yes the Braun WAS more used here in UK as the American units attracted a huge Import Duty + Purchase Tax worse than the German ones ! Also- German made was easier to get repaired as Germany is much closer to UK than USA !
I HAVE taken off the plastic surround for the actual tube -- it has very delicate thin wiring attached going down into the black handle and inside the handle is a mass of wiring and other things I don't understand, maybe resistors. Where they plug into the power pack sometimes the solder has deteriorated and I have managed to re-solder the connections. I have 6 units -- all retrieved from people who were going to dump them or who had died. I plug them in occasionally to keep the capacitors good.

JKFTL · Aug 13, 2022

snapguy said:
Ooops

I fear I may have opened my yap without fully engaging what there is left of my brain. It happens. I was talking about press photographers and the Beatles in the U. S. I suspect the Braun flash units were more popular in Britain than here. I looked up a photo of the Fab Four taking off for their tour coming over here and there were what looked like a few Braun units, others I could not identify and one Speed Graphic with flashbulbs. I seem to recall celeb photogs from Great Britain who would come to Hollywood for things like the Beatles and the Academy Awards would favor Braun units.

I carried this big Braun Hobby model for a few years in HS shooting for the yearbook. I just bought several on Ebay and am repairing and updating them. Anyone out there with experience inside these flashes?

AgX · Aug 13, 2022

JKFTL said:
I just bought several on Ebay and am repairing and updating them.

Are you referring to the battery or to the mechanic inverter, or both?

JKFTL · Aug 13, 2022

I bought some complete Braun Hobby 'press camera' flash units. 1950-60. Changing to NMH batteries and solid-state vibrators.

albada · Aug 14, 2022

Electrolytic capacitors. I've never owned pro flash from the 1960s, but if they used electrolytic caps, they will surely be in bad condition by now (dried out), and will need to be replaced. In fact, one of my Pentax flash units made in the 1980's blew its electrolytic cap (POP POP!!). The capacitors I've seen range from 200 to 600 microfarads, rated at 330 volts, which seems to be the standard voltage for these things (at least since the 1980s).
The question is: where can one buy capacitors for flash units? The unusual aspect about them is that they must be able to efficiently discharge in one millisecond. Perhaps low-ESR caps would work. Are any caps sold by mouser/digikey/newark suitable?

My Old Braun Hobby flashes

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