What is this?

[removed account4]

Strobe is the US slang shortening of Stroboscope which isn't the same as a normal flash unit, it's what you have at discos etc, pulsed flashes at a variable rate.

completely right ian !
flash is totally different, but unfortunately it's become american slang ...
i have a strobascope light i bought from radio shack in the 1980s, i was able to make my turntable
look like it was going backwards and i used to have a foam crockadile on a wire i'd have dance for people
while wearing a king vitamin crown. the dancing crock was named clarence.
stroboscopic light ( strobe for short ) as in the b-52's song "strobe light"
thanks for the memories !

 

[jim10219]

completely right ian !
flash is totally different, but unfortunately it's become american slang ...
i have a strobascope light i bought from radio shack in the 1980s, i was able to make my turntable
look like it was going backwards and i used to have a foam crockadile on a wire i'd have dance for people
while wearing a king vitamin crown. the dancing crock was named clarence.
stroboscopic light ( strobe for short ) as in the b-52's song "strobe light"
thanks for the memories !

I would have loved to have met Clarence. You don't see many foam crocodiles at parties these days, let alone royal ones.

 

[removed account4]

he was a hell of a dancer

 

[Sirius Glass]

Actually, I believe the term 'strobe' DOES come from the stroboscope. Read about Harold Edgerton, and his highspeed photography work (starting with stroboscopes) at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Eugene_Edgerton

Yes but I am talking about common usage not technicalities.

 

[Prof_Pixel]

Actually, I believe the term 'strobe' DOES come from the stroboscope. Read about Harold Edgerton, and his highspeed photography work (starting with stroboscopes) at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Eugene_Edgerton

My first electronic flash was an early Heiland Strobonar in 1955. http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Strobonar

 

[M Carter]

In the Texas photo market, we referred to any pack/head or monolight system as "strobes"; both as a client/art director and as a shooter, it was "daylight or strobes?". (My response was often "Tungsten!!!, when EPJ still existed).

 

[E. von Hoegh]

My first electronic flash was an early Heiland Strobonar in 1955. http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Strobonar

I have the "Futuramic Strobonar", it still works properly, on the original capacitor (which I was able to re-form) and is used from time to time.