2026-06-11 Braun Hobby 23 BC/2 Electronic Flash

Braun made many electronic flash, from large professional units with separate power supplies to small hobby flash.

The Braun Hobby 23BC/2 is close to the cheapest unit you could buy, and that mostly because it is a four AA battery flash and Braun made some two AA battery flash. Another point in its favour—or cheapness— is it isn’t a “Thyrister” flash.
Many amateurs didn’t require a flash that only used partial power at close distances, despite the advantages of—

faster recycling
more flash from a set of batteries
and less blinding full power blasts at close distances

—particularly if the thyrister flash cost upwards of $100.

Instead the 23BC/2 was sold as a flash that could give you 300 flashes from a set of batteries. To those having to buy flashbulbs, anything that could replace buying 25 dozen flashbulbs, carrying 25 dozen flashbulbs and disposing of 25 dozen flashbulbs was well worth buying.

Particularly if the 23BC/2 sold for less than $50, which it might have…

The 23BC/2 has a certain beauty, being the same thickness and then turning at right angles for just a small distance. The hatch for the four AA batteries is captive. You slide it down and then tilt it up, where it stays until flopped down and pressed closed. There is an external sync cord socket on the hotshoe foot, facing the same side as the battery door.

The controls are two switches. The bottom one is the power switch. When the switch is pushed up a red display shows to indicate the flash is powered on. The flash also hums quietly. Between the switches is the flash “ready” light that shows when the flash has reached close to full power.

The top switch has three positions—

The unmarked bottom position gives full power manual flash.
The middle red position is the close auto setting. As shown the calculator dial is set to 100 ASA and the red Auto range works from 1.6—9.5 feet with your aperture set to f/8.
The top green position gives a working range of 1.6—19 feet with the camera set to f/4

Note the 23BC/2 is marked that because another flash—the 23BC—only has one Auto range. It might have been offered at the same time priced even lower, or perhaps the 23BC/2 was the earlier flash’s replacement.

Electronic flash seemed to evolve with time with more and more features becoming standard. In no exact order flash evolved through these steps—

basic flashbulb replacement
auto ranges to free photographers from guide number calculations for every shot
thyrister operation to allow more shots per set of batteries/charge
snap-on wide panels
tilting heads
zooming heads
tilting/zooming/rotating heads

Comments

2026-03-14 - History and Evolution of the Kodak Logo

While working as a junior clerk at the Rochester Savings Bank, George Eastman first began commercial production of dry photographic plates in a rented loft of a building in Rochester, New York in April 1880. In the next few years, Eastman became very successful and expanded the company several times. His company started as the Eastman Dry Plate Company in 1881, later became the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company in 1884, and soon after the Eastman Company in 1889. The last name change occurred in 1892, when the Eastman Kodak Company of New York was organized. The company has been called Eastman Kodak Company ever since. The word "Kodak" was first registered as a trademark in 1888. The letter “K” had been a favorite of Eastman’s, he is quoted as saying, "I devised the name myself. The letter 'K' had been a favorite with me; it seems a strong, incisive sort of letter. It became a question of trying out a great number of combinations of letters that made word...

2026-03-20-Manfrotto monopods

Sometimes collecting is a matter of persistence. The Manfrotto “GRUPPO” 434SSB monopod (shown top) showed up one day at my local thrift store. They had a price tag of $25 on it. I had bought the lower Manfrotto Compact MMC3-01 monopod at the same thrift store for $3. So I asked, “Why so much?” They answered their “expert” had found it sold for $200 on the internet. I find experts—who almost never clerk in the thrift store, so are unreachable—hard to deal with. There is also the matter someone might actually pay them $25 for a 2.27 kg (5 pound) aluminum pole, so I decided to let the Gods-of-Collecting decide if I was going to ever own it. For weeks I would pick it up, check the price tag to see if they had come to their senses, and return it to the shelf. I did try various clerks to see if they would lower the price, but they said they were not authorized to change prices. I plodded on, week after week without much hope. ...

2026-03-25 The Kiron 70-150 mm F/4

This Kiron 70-150 mm f/4 Macro1:4MC zoom was made by Kino Precision, Japan in 1980. The same company made both 1.5x and 2x extenders for this lens. It is a lovely design featuring a 52 mm filter size —common to many normal lenses—and a constant f/4 at all zoom positions. The f/stops are full stops from f/4 to f/5.6 and from f/16 to f/22 while the other apertures are half stops apart. FOCAL LENGTH RANGE: 70mm - 150mm [2.1X zoom ratio] DIAGONAL ANGLE OF VIEW: 34.3° @ 70mm - 16.4° @ 150mm LENS CONSTRUCTION: 13 elements in 9 groups WEIGHT (Olympus OM Mount): 460 g (with hood, front and rear caps) The macro range sets in below the three foot (0.9 m) marked distance at all zoom positions but you only get to the minimum 1:4 ratio at 150 mm. Macro starts around a 1:8 macro range at 70 mm. This is the only lens I have ever collected that has the original price sticker on the rear cap. At least I assume it is the original price sticker… It ha...

Edmonton Photographic Historical Society

Search This Blog