Strobonar

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Strobonar was the brand used by Honeywell for a long-lasting series of electronic flash units.

The Heiland division of Honeywell, based in Denver, Colorado, originally used the Strobonar brand on electronic flash units powered by a separate battery pack. (These could also use AC household power.) In 1958, Heiland introduced one of the earliest self-contained electronic flashes, the Futuramic Strobonar. This was still an imposingly-large "potato masher" design, and the original list price of USD $59.95 would equate to roughly $470 current (2011) dollars[1]. Starting with the 1961 Futuramic II, all the large Strobonar models had a distinctive oval lens over their flash-tube reflector.

The Strobonar name was reused over the following decades for successive models, from more compact shoe-mount flashes to stand-mounted studio units with slave triggers. Honewell was a pioneer in flashes which used a photocell measuring light reflected back from the subject to control the duration of the flash pulse, thus offering autoexposure for flash shots—these models carried the Auto/Strobonar name. Later versions of the "potato masher" models, such as the Strobonar 882, could use a separate Strobo-Eye mounted in the camera's accessory shoe to achieve this control even with off-camera flash (and the Pentax Spotmatic SP IIa included this sensor in the camera body, just below the rewind crank).

As electronic flash units increasingly became a built-in feature of many cameras, and with inexpensive Asian imports undercutting the remaining marketplace, Honeywell ultimately retired the Strobonar line.

Notes

  1. Inflation calculator from the US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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