Synopses & Reviews
PHOTOGRAPHY for FUN and MONEY AN EARLY DRY-PLATE MAKER COATING A DRY PLATE BY HAND For FUN and MONEY By A. FREDERICK COLLINS Fellow, Royal Astronomical Society Past Member, Royal Photographic Society D. APPLETON-CElilXrRY COMPANY INCORPORATED NEW YORK LONDON 1939 TO MY BONNIE POET FRIEND, MARGARET MARY MACINTOSH, TORONTO and NEW YORK A WORD TO YOU Time reaps the years, yet now Photography Defeats the Reaper The magic key Preserves the miracles of science, the arts, Loved faces, and the treasures life imparts. MARGARET M. MACINTOSH THE march of photography during the last decade is almost be yond human credence, and this has come about chiefly through i the progress of science, 2 new pictorial concepts, 3 use of the miniature camera, 4 improved processes of color photog raphy, and 5 advanced technique of moving-pictures. In the realm of applied science the two outstanding factors that have given photography its tremendous impetus are the anas tigmat lens and 2 high-speed, fine-grain panchromatic plates and films. Science has also taken the guesswork out of photo graphic manipulations by the inventions of a the photoelectric exposure meter and b the time and temperature method of de veloping plates and films. With the first named the veriest tyro can gauge the intensity of light and, it follows, the time of exposure, with unfailing accuracy, and with the second he can secure the precise degree of ganima, as the density and contrast of a negative are called, that he wants it to have. The new pictorial concepts of the radicals, i. e., those who have broken away from the old conventional schools of art, were chiefly made possible, of course, by their own inherent ability to visualize andthen to execute artistic, intriguing, and striking effects. This mental equation was greatly enhanced by a im proved electric lighting and b new papers and better processes for making prints. The aesthetic faculty which many possess to a high degree, but which very few can express through the natural coordination of viii A WORD TO YOU brain and eye and hand in putting their impressions on paper or canvas by means of brush and paint, can now be easily achieved by the magic of photography. Comes then the miniature camera, small, as its name implies, compact and efficient, and fitted with a high-power lens, high speed focal-plane shutter, light-exposure meter, range-finder, and moving-picture roll film. With it action shots, which include sports events, candid, and press pictures can be made in the thousandth of a split second and even under adverse lighting con ditions. The miniature camera is in high favor with photographic en thusiasts in all fields of endeavor, and it is preeminently suited to the needs of the amateur scientist who specializes in taking micrographs, astrographs, pictures of entomological specimens, and various other science studies. The better ones are provided with a battery of high-speed anastigmat lenses, each one of which is especially adapted for the individual work it has to do. Color photography, as the making of pictures in natural color is called, proved to be an infinitely harder problem to solve than any of the other branches of the art for the very valid reason that there is no known way by which the various colors that form the image on the plate or film can be fixed by chemical action. But not to be defeated, inventive genius made a wide detour and devised ways and means for mechanically registering the colors in stead of chemically fixing them. The end-product of these re searches is photographs in color that can be made on paper, i. e., paper prints or on moving-picture film. These color prints and projected pictures are beautiful beyond description, and so realistic they seem almost to stand out in three dimensions. If you have seen one or the other, you will agree that they portend the doom of the time-honored works of art that are so painstakingly put on paper and canvas with paint and brush...