“Artists are supposed to pass their lives in earnest endeavour to express through the medium of paint or pencil, thoughts, feelings, or impressions which they cannot help expressing, and which cannot possibly be expressed by any other means. They make use of material means in order to arrive at this end. They tell their story—the story of a day, an impression of a character, a recollection of a moment, or whatever, more or less clearly or well, as they are more or less capable of doing. They expose their work to the public, not for the sake of praise, but with a feeling and a hope that some human being may see in it the feeling that has passed through their own mind in their poor and necessarily crippled statement. The endeavour is honest and earnest, if almost always with a result weakened by over-conscientiousness or endeavour to be understood.... Your work is exhibited not with the intention of injuring any of the human race. It is a dumb, noiseless, silent story, told, as best it may be, by the author to those whom it may concern. And it does tell its story, not to everybody, but to somebody.”
The camera as used to-day is a modified form of the Camera Obscura adapted to the special end of taking photographs. It is essentially nothing but a light-tight box, to one end of which a lens can be adjusted, and to the other end of which the slide containing the sensitive plate can be applied and exposed, so that it receives no light, save that passing through the lens. |Choice of camera.|There are many patterns and many minor differences in the construction of these boxes, some few of real value, but the majority the work of ingenious and speculating manufacturers, who hope by some novelty to increase the sale of their new patents. In all apparatus the student should choose the simplest and strongest, for in artistic work lightness per se is no object, nay, it may be harmful, as leading to over-production. In fact nothing should stand in the way of getting the best results, and though many of the cameras on the market are light and fitted with numerous devices which are said to simplify operations and help the worker, yet such is not really the case, and these thousand-and-one aids to work are apt to become deranged, and finally to embarrass the worker at some critical moment.
In choosing a camera, then, for landscape work, choose a square one, with a reversing frame, a double swing-back, and good leather bellows. Let the flange of the lens be fitted to a square front which can be easily removed and replaced, and let there be a rising front. It is advisable to have the camera brass-bound for the sake of its preservation, and if for use in tropical climates the bellows should be made of Russian leather, as the oil of birch with which the leather is cured is most distasteful to insects. |Special considerations in choosing a camera.| In ordering a camera there are a few points which experience has led us to consider essential to comfort. |Base-board.| One is that the part of the base-board of the camera which rests on the tripod head should be strengthened or made of much stouter material than is usually used. |Thumb-screw.| Another is that the thumb-screw should be of much larger diameter than is usually the case, and this should be borne in mind, even in the making of the smaller cameras, for on a windy day when the camera has a heavy lens on one end and a loaded double dark slide on the other, the vibration is often ruinous to the picture during exposure, while sudden gusts of wind may even crack the wood round the screw hole. It seems to us a thumb-screw at least half an inch in diameter should be used, unless the camera be made to fit into the tripod head, a method often adopted of recent years, and of course the best way of all. On more than one occasion we have nearly lost the camera altogether in the water when trying to screw it to the tripod when working from a boat on a tideway, but by having a part of the base-board made to fit into a wooden tripod head, this at times most difficult operation is rendered easy and certain.
The camera should always extend and close by means of a tail-screw, those opening by means of a rack and pinion are much more liable to get out of order. Of course this remark is not applicable to the smallest-sized cameras. |Spirit levels.| Two small spirit-levels sunk into the tail-piece of the camera are invaluable; one will do if made of the right shape. |Size of camera.| In ordering a camera the two vital points to be considered are the size including the length of the bellows. The size of plate you intend working with determines the size of the camera. We have worked with all sized cameras, from quarter-plate up to one taking twenty-four by twenty-two inch plates, and it is only after long experience and much consideration that we venture to offer an opinion on the size to be chosen. For ordinary work, then, we recommend the half-plate size as the minimum, and the ten by eight inch size as the maximum. Perhaps a whole-plate camera (8½ × 6½ inches) is on the whole as useful as any. The strength required to do a day’s work with a twelve by ten inch camera is beyond any but a strong man. It is assumed, of course, that the pictures of the sizes cited are for albums, portfolios, or book illustrations. It must be remembered, however, that the size of a picture has nothing to do with its artistic value, an artistic quarter-plate picture is worth a hundred commonplace pictures forty by thirty inches in size. For producing large pictures for the wall, however, we consider the camera should be between fifteen by twelve inches and twenty-four by twenty-two inches; we cannot imagine anything larger than twenty-four by twenty-two inches for out-door work, and our memory goes back to a marsh road in Norfolk where we and two peasants had all we could do to carry a twenty-four by twenty-two inch camera when set up, from one marsh to another.
The student will of course remember that his camera must be square in order to have a reversing frame fitted, but that makes no difference to the dark slides. |Length.| Having then fixed on the size of his camera, a question requiring the greatest thought, he must next tell the maker the length of bellows he requires, which is usually measured from front to back when the camera is racked out to its full length. As we recommend the use of long-focus lenses only, as will be seen in the chapter on lenses, and as no definite law can be laid down for this length, it is advisable to order a camera four or five inches longer than the focal length of the lens which is advertised to cover the next larger-sized plate to that which your dark slide holds.
And now for a caution against a fallacy still current in photographic circles, which is that one size of plate is more suitable for pictorial purposes than another. Let no such nonsense influence you, the size of the plate has nothing whatever to do with success or beauty. Every composition will demand its own particular size and shape, and though you work with a ten by eight inch camera or any other size, you will find you will often take a nine by four inch or a ten by three inch plate or a dozen other sizes and cut off all the rest. All fanciful rules for fixing on the size of a plate for pictorial reasons cannot be too strongly condemned. Such things must be left to the individuality of each artist, and every picture-gallery in Europe gives the lie to all rules for a choice of size. The artist, must of course, suit his canvas or plate to his subject, not his subject to his canvas or plate.
For studio, or indoor work, the camera may of course be heavier for obvious reasons, and a different form of support is necessary, the one usually adopted being very convenient for lowering or raising the lens so that the best point of sight is obtained according to the position of the model. It seems to us, however, that these studio cameras and stands are made a great deal too heavy and cumbersome. |Hood.| For this kind of work a very necessary part of the apparatus is a hood of some dark material fixed on to the front of the camera and extending above and beyond the lens, in order to obviate the effect of the numerous reflections always present in a glass studio. Out of doors this is only necessary when the sun is shining into the lens; otherwise it is never needed, for we have tried it, and have proved that its use has in no way improved either the truth or the artistic quality of the negative. In cases where the sun shines into the lens a hat, a piece of cardboard, a folded newspaper, or anything of the kind, will answer the purpose equally well.
The tripod head should be preferably of tough wood covered with felt. A metal tripod head is apt to endanger the woodwork of the camera, even when covered with leather. |Tripods.| The legs should be simple and firm, the best we know of being made of two pieces of ash or oak hinged at the bottom, the points shod with iron, and the legs being stiffened, when in position by a bar of iron which is secured by a hinge. Every one should have two pairs of legs at least; one pair, so that when the camera is set up the lens may be on a level with the eye of a man of average height, and one pair shorter, so that the lens is only three feet from the ground. |Supplementary poles.| In addition to these we always have handy three tough poles eight feet long and about the diameter of a broomstick; these are shod with iron heels, and have notches cut at the unshod ends. These are most useful to lash to the long legs when using them in water-ways. |Double-backs.| It is as well to have six double-backs, for by filling them all at one operation the student empties a box of plates, and so avoids a chance of mixing exposed and unexposed plates. |Bags.| The most convenient method of carrying the plates in all cases up to and including the ten by eight size, is to have a bag made which will take the camera, three double-backs and the focussing cloth, and a separate bag for the other three double-backs which can be left or taken out at pleasure.
A very useful piece of apparatus is a clamp which can be screwed on anywhere, but especially to a boat’s gunwale, the taffrail of a steamer, a fence, and numerous other places whence good pictures can often be secured. Such a clamp can be purchased at most of the dealers' shops.
Having decided on these matters, we will suppose the novice is now provided with camera and tripod. Now for a few details about starting. In setting up the camera on its tripod, one leg should be placed either between the photographer’s legs or exactly opposite to him, he will then find he can command the camera easily and alter its position with a touch. If, on the contrary, the legs are put up by chance, he will soon find his lens playing all sorts of gymnastic tricks, one moment looking up as if threatening the stars, the next studying with the deepest interest the ground at its foot.
The manipulation of the rising front is a power needing considerable study, for, by moving it, you can regulate the amount of foreground you wish to include in your picture. The limit of rise of the front is determined by the manufacturer, and the limit beyond which the student must not go is determined by the covering power of the lens he is using, for he will remember that every lens only covers a certain circle, the area of the circle depending on the construction of the lens. The usual method of describing the covering power of a lens is to give the measurements of the greatest parallelogram that can be inscribed in this circle. It will be easily seen that if the lens we use only just covers the plate, that when the front is raised, the lower corners will have no image exposed on them, and the higher the lens is carried, the more of the lower part of the picture will be cut off. As the image is upside down, the blank corners will appear in the sky of the negative. It is then obvious that if the covering capacity of the lens is greater than needed for the plate used, the rising front may be used to a much greater extent than if you only use a lens advertised to cover the plate you are exposing. It must always be remembered that if the optical axis of the lens be raised above the centre of the plate the illumination may be unequal.
The effect of the horizontal and vertical swing-back is identical, as is obvious if the camera be placed on its side, for the horizontal swing becomes vertical, and vice versâ. If the camera be set up plumb, the effect of using the vertical swing-back to its extreme limits (which are determined by the mechanical construction of the camera) is to lengthen objects in the direction of their obliquity and to sharpen them. What does this mean from an art point of view? It means that as a rule it throws the whole picture out of drawing, the relative positions of the planes are altered, the relative definition in the planes is altered and therefore the relative values, and therefore as a rule the picture, is artistically injured. This rule-of-thumb use of the swing-back arose, no doubt, from the practice of those craftsmen, untrained in art, whose aim was the production of “sharp” pictures. The only legitimate extensive use of the swing-back is when the camera is tilted before an architectural subject, when it is quite correct to have the ground-glass plumb, although for our part we deem the tilting of the camera to be undesirable. The swing-backs can, however, be used, with the greatest caution, in artistic work, and their value can scarcely be overrated, but it requires great knowledge to use them appropriately. The subtle changes in the drawing and composition of a picture which can be obtained by an intelligent use of the two swing-backs, make them, to those who know how to use them, most valuable tools. But if the beginner will take our advice, he will keep his ground-glass plumb, and his horizontal swing-back square, and never venture to alter either until he has thoroughly mastered his technique, and has some insight into the principles of art. The use of these swing-backs seems so easy, as of course it is, when “sharpness” is all the desideratum and embodiment of the operator’s knowledge of art, but in reality none but artists know their real value. By their means, the impression of the whole scene can often be more truly rendered, and things can be subdued and kept back in the most wonderful manner; and since we wish to get a true impression of the scene we are interested in, not a realistic wealth of detail, it can be easily understood how invaluable are the swing-backs when used cautiously. |On impression and fact.| Muybridge’s galloping horses are in all of their movements true, but many of these are never seen by the eye, so quick are they. On the other hand, the student, if he goes to the British Museum, can see in the Parthenon Frieze that the sculptors in some cases carved the legs of the farthest off of three horses in higher relief than those of the nearer horses, but if he goes off a few paces and views the carving in its entirety, he will see the true impression is gained; the nearest legs look the farthest off, and so the work is true in impression, though not true in absolute fact. And though the use of the swing-back makes the drawing a little false, yet if the lens we shall describe hereafter be used, the falsity is so very slight as to be hardly noticeable, while it is far more correct than any human hand guided alone by a human eye can render it. With art as with science, nothing is absolutely correct, the personal equation and errors of experiment must be allowed for, but the results are true enough for working purposes.
By perforating a thin metal plate with a minute hole, large enough only to admit a pin’s point, and fitting it to the front of the camera in place of the lens, an image will be thrown on the focussing screen, as the piece of ground glass at the opposite end of the camera is called. If the image be received on to a sensitized plate, it will be impressed on the plate, and can be developed in the ordinary way. Were it not for the great length of time required for exposure, it would be a great question whether any lens at all need be used in photography, but since the exposures required to produce pictures without lenses vary roughly from one to thirty minutes, this method cannot be seriously considered here, for, as we shall show, within certain limits, the quicker the exposure the better; nevertheless, the drawing of pictures taken in such way would obviously be correct. In cases where the length of exposure is immaterial, this method would be a worthy field for experiment.
The student must be careful to see that the inside of the camera is a dead black, and that it keeps so. At times the camera may leak or get out of register, that is, the plate does not exactly take the place of the ground glass, in which case he should at once send it to the maker. |Test for register.| Should the student wish at any time to test the register of his camera, he has only to pin up a printed card and focus it as sharply as possible, using a magnifying glass, if one is at hand. Then load the dark-slide with a plate of ground-glass, and after sliding it into position, open the slide (if a double-back) when the image will be seen on the ground-glass plate, and its sharpness can be noted. If perfectly sharp, the camera is in register.
A good form of small camera to be carried in the hand is a great desideratum for artistic studies. Exquisite studies of figures, birds, and all sorts of animal life could be made with such a contrivance, studies admirably suitable for tail-pieces or illustrations to go in with the text. That there are dozens of patterns of hand cameras commonly called “detective cameras,” we are well aware, and we have tried some of the best, but we have found none satisfactory for artistic purposes, and can therefore recommend none. We may here remark that the name “detective camera” is, in our opinion, undesirable, photographers ought not to have it even suggested to them that they are doing mean, spying work with their cameras, whereas the term “hand camera” meets every requirement. Of course the smaller cameras advertised to be worn on the person are nothing but toys. The camera we should like to see introduced would be a very light collapsible camera, which could be easily carried in the pocket when not in use. It should be able to take pictures not larger than four and a half by three and a half inches, and should be fitted with the Eastman spools, so that any number of exposures could be made. The lens should be Dallmeyer’s long focus rectilinear landscape lens, fitted with a good shutter. There should be a light view meter attached to the top. There is no necessity for a ground-glass screen, for on the tail-board could be registered various distances, at which the film is in focus; and since for artistic purposes most of the studies would be of objects near at hand, this arrangement would be effectual.
Many hand cameras are fitted with a camera obscura. The handiest view finder for quick exposure work is to fit a double convex lens of the same focal length as the working lens to the front of the camera, and turn up the focussing screen at right angles to the plane of the top of the camera, when it may be secured by a small brass catch fitted for the purpose. When the focussing cloth is thrown over the lens and screen a temporary double camera is made, and the moving objects can be watched on the ground glass. With experience it is possible to judge by simply looking over the top of the camera.
We do not intend to incorporate in this chapter elementary optics, as the subject is well known to most educated men, but in case any reader should know nothing of light and optics, we recommend him to get |Ganot’s Physics.|Ganot’s Physics, and thoroughly master at least the paragraphs of Book VII., on “Light,” that we enumerate below.[10] This may seem a little formidable, but our reader will find that with a very simple knowledge of mathematics he can easily understand all the sections marked, and it is our opinion that light and chemistry should be studied directly from systematic text-books that treat of those subjects. In the Appendix we shall refer to some additional books which we consider advisable for the student to read, but for the present we strongly recommend him to thoroughly master the parts of Ganot that we have cited, and to avoid all other desultory reading until he has done so.
10. Namely, paragraphs 499, 500, 501, 502, 503, 504, 506, 508—the Laws of the Intensity of Light, 509—Photometers, Rumford’s and Bunsen’s, 510, 511—first proof only, 512, 513, 514, 518, 519, 524, 525, 528, 533, 536, 537, 538, 539, 540, 542, 543, 544, 551, 552, 554, 555, 556, 558, 564, 565, 566, 567, 568, 569, 570, 571, 572, 573, 574, 575, 576, 579, 580, 581, 582, 583, 584, 602, 604, 612, 615, 616, 617, 618, 619, 620, 621, 625, 626, 627, 628, 629, 631, 632, 634, 635, 636, 637, 639, 640, 641, 645, 646, 650, 652, 655, 656, 659, 661, and 664.
Far too much time has been given, and far too much importance has been hitherto attached, to the subject of optics in connection with photography. Much time and expense would have been saved had the pioneers of photography had good art educations as well as the elementary knowledge of optics and chemistry which many of them possessed, for without art training the practice of photography came to be looked upon purely as a science, and the ideal work of the photographer was to produce an unnatural, inartistic and often unscientific, picture. It is, indeed, a satire on photography, and a blot which can never be entirely removed, that at the very time the so-called scientific photographers were worrying opticians to death, and vying with each other in producing the greatest untruths, they were all the while shouting in the market-place that their object was to produce truthful works. At length, when the most doubly patented distorting lenses were made to meet their demands, they, with imperturbable self-confidence, presented a sharp, untrue photograph, insisting upon its truth. “A truer picture,” said they, “than drawing;” “truer than the eye sees,” some said. In short their picture was absolutely perfect. When a lens giving a brilliant picture, with all the detail and shadows sharp, and the planes all equally sharp, was at last produced, the scientists were in excelsis. But, alas! they proved themselves as unscientific as they were inartistic! Had they but taken up their simplest form of lens and used it as a magnifying-glass, they would have seen immediately that all was not right, and instead of clamouring for the artistic falsities of “depth of focus,” “wide-angle views,” “sparkle,” and the other hydra-heads of vulgarity, they might have set to and made the lens which was required. It was but a simple thing that was required.
The question then arises—What is the best lens for artistic purposes? That lens is Dallmeyer’s new long-focus rectilinear landscape lens. This summer (1888) we used one of these lenses and were delighted with it.
Why is this the best lens for our purpose? is the question that naturally arises. It is the best because being what is called a long-focus lens, it cannot be so ignorantly employed as can lenses of shorter focus, there is no appreciable marginal distortion, and with open aperture the outlines of the image are softly and roundly rendered, and in addition the relative values seem to us to be more truly rendered by it.
This lens then being, as we think, the best for artistic work, the next question that arises is what focal length of lens must we use to get the best results. The student will be told ad nauseam that if he places his eye at the distance of the focal length of the lens from the photograph he is inspecting, all will be well. Such, however, is not always the case. He may prove it for himself by taking a lens of short focus and photographing any suitable object placed too near to him, and he may then place his eye at the distance of the focal length, and if he be an artist, he will immediately detect that the drawing is false, and the distance is dwarfed and pushed together as compared with foreground objects, whilst in a true drawing the proportions must be true between the foreground objects and distant objects. This misuse of the lens is what leads to the production of so many photographs false in drawing, and it is evident that since many of these falsely drawn photographs have been and are a basis for many scientific purposes, the deductions based upon them will have to be reconsidered.
The next question is, what proportion, as a rule, should the focal length of the lens bear to the base of the picture to give approximately true perspective delineation? This proportion should be as two to one, that is, the focal length of the lens should be as a rough working rule twice as long as the base of the picture. We arrived at the result by making a series of drawings on the ground glass of the camera, and comparing them with a perspective drawing made upon a glass plate. Opticians have arrived at the same conclusion, for we find this is the rough rule stated by Mr. Dallmeyer in his “Choice Lenses.”
The falsity of the statement that photographs are always true—a statement that has been in vogue from the earliest photographic days—is then apparent. |False drawing producing false tonality.|It will now be obvious why some lenses make ponds of puddles, and otherwise falsify the landscape. This fact would have long ago been noticed had artists always seen the landscape from which the photograph had been taken. Another thing which a wide-angle lens, if wrongly used, does, is, in the case of a picture with clouds, to draw down and crowd together the clouds, and define them more sharply than the eye sees them, so that when the negative is printed they appear too strong in value, and the whole picture is thrown out of tone, and is therefore false and inartistic, even if the lens be correctly used; this fault is generally present in pictures taken with these lenses.
It will be seen from our remarks, therefore, that the only lens we recommend for artistic work is Dallmeyer’s new rectilinear landscape lens. At least two of these should be obtained of different focal lengths, one of which is advertised to cover a plate a size larger than that used by the photographer, and the second to cover the same sized plate that he uses. In addition a rapid rectilinear lens as advertised to cover a plate of the same size as his camera, will be found very useful for quicker work. |Lenses for special purposes.| For special purposes, for example in photographing beetles, or fish, or flowers for scientific manuals, the finest lenses procurable must be used, and sharpness, brilliancy, &c., are vital qualities in such cases, for the work desired is diagrammatic and not artistic, but in these cases also the greatest care must be taken to use the lenses properly, so that the drawing is correctly rendered. Ignorant critics and enthusiastic partisans alike have claimed for photography, as its chief merit, “truthfulness.” As has been shown, a photograph may be very false indeed.
Another chimera is that of “composite photography,” to which we shall again refer. When Mr. Galton tells us he uses an ordinary portrait lens for his work, and gives no other details, that is quite sufficient, in our opinion, to seriously impair the value of his “composites,” even were there no other considerations.
The only really artistic series of photographic portraits we have ever seen, namely, those by Mrs. Cameron, were taken with the next best lens to that advocated, namely, a rapid rectilinear lens, but even they would have been improved by the use of the new lens. We have besides seen here and there really artistic portraits by others (but these were the result of chance, as no second picture was ever produced by the same worker), and they were taken by a rapid rectilinear lens. Mrs. Cameron, though not an artist, had knowledge enough to see that the portrait lenses of the day were undesirable for her work. And here it may be remarked that a great ignorance of optics is as harmful as wasting too much time upon its study. One industrial portrait photographer, who has very occasionally succeeded in producing an artistic picture, prides himself, we are told, on not knowing what lens he uses. Such a man can never be an artist, for he cannot know whether his work be true or false. To appreciate falseness in drawing requires considerable training. An average judge of photography might discover gross distortion of limbs, due to violent perspective; but how many would notice the false drawing in a face which is taken with a portrait lens?
Supplied with his lenses, the student will find “stops,” or diaphragms. The name, “stop,” suggests its use. By making the light pass through a contracted hole, the weak marginal rays are cut off, and the image is therefore made sharper all over, spherical aberration is reduced, and the depth of focus is increased. But though diaphragms are used to correct an error, yet the ignorant use of them is as great a source of error. One of the causes of sharply defined and false heavy shadows in the much-vaunted “sharp photographs” is due to focussing sharply, and “stopping down,” that is, to using a small diaphragm. This is the invariable practice of most photographers.
Some ingenious workers have suggested modifications in the construction of diaphragms, with a view to improving the picture; one of these being a paper diaphragm, made translucent with castor oil; but we have not found any advantage in these novelties. It is, however, a legitimate field for experiment, and translucent diaphragms might be tried in indoor work and bright out-door effects.
The student will often see in photographic papers that a lens works at F/8, or F/32, or some other number. This simply expresses the ratio between the working aperture and the equivalent focus of the lens, and is obtained by dividing the equivalent focus by the working aperture. F/8 then means the aperture is one-eighth of the focal length of the lens referred to. The rapidity of lenses are compared in this way by squaring the denominators of the fractions thus obtained; when the results will give the ratios of rapidity. |“Depth of focus.”|By “depth of focus” is roughly meant the sharp rendering of the different planes of a landscape, or any object with more than one plane in one plane. Needless to say, this quality, greatly sought for in lenses by photographers, is a thing to be carefully avoided in artistic work, as we shall show later on.
By a flare spot is meant a circular spot on the focussing screen, which receives more light than the surrounding field; it is said to be caused by the diaphragms being wrongly placed. The same effect is produced when the sun shines into the lens, the light being then reflected from the brass tubing of the lens, and it is for that reason that the lens must be carefully shaded during exposure, when the sun is directly in front of the camera.
The angle of view included by a lens is an important consideration, and we shall refer to this later on; here we shall only show how this angle may be determined when the student wishes to do so. The angle depends on two factors, the length of the base line of the picture, and the focal length of the lens. This is practically determined by ruling a horizontal line the actual length of the base line of the picture, and drawing from the centre of this line a perpendicular equal in length to the focal length of the lens. Completing the triangle, we have in the angle contained by the two sides of the triangle the required angle, which can be measured by an angle measurer. Experience shows that if the base of the picture is greater than or equal to the focal length of the lens, the angle included will vary between 53° and 90°; but if the base is less than the focal length, these angles will vary between 44° and 19°, or less. It will be seen, therefore, that the long-focus lenses give more suitable angles of view for pictorial purposes.
Delicate optical instruments, like lenses, must, it is needless to say, be carefully protected.
A good lens should be free from scratches, striations, dull patches, due to imperfect polishing, and veins; but air bubbles do not affect its value, for it must be remembered that the shape of the hole through which the light passes does not affect the image, save only by cutting off some of the light. Thus, if a wafer be stuck to the centre of the lens, the image will be found unimpaired. Dust and dirt, however, though they do not seriously impair the definition of the image, yet cut off much light, as will occur to any one when he thinks of the difference between the light of a room, when the windows are dirty, and when they are perfectly clean. Lenses should not be left in bright sunlight, for this causes a change that slows them, the dark also injures them in certain cases, for, as all microscopists know well, darkness causes a change in Canada balsam, with which lenses are cemented together.
Mr. Dallmeyer insists that lenses should be kept dry and free from sudden changes of temperature, otherwise they may tarnish or sweat, as it is called. Any one who has been troubled with this sweating will never forget it. Our experience is that the best way to keep lenses is in small leather, velvet-lined cases. We generally keep with them a piece of soft chamois leather, or an old silk handkerchief. No compound of any kind should be used to clean lenses, if anything appears to be going wrong with them, they should at once be sent to the maker.
A valuable little tool is a view-meter. The handiest and compactest we have seen is that supplied in telescopictelescopic form.
There is no need to despair if there is no dark room, no place to build one, no means to pay for one. Some of our most successful plates were developed in a scullery, and others in the bedroom of a house-boat. |Developing rule.| In fact, the sooner the student learns to develop anywhere, the better, for no one, studying to do artistic work, should leave his plates till his return home (if he is away on a journey); they should without fail be developed the same day on which they are exposed.
Only for portraiture is a dark room very necessary, and you cannot do better than build one as suggested by Captain Abney, in his “Treatise on Photography,” modifying it to suit your taste and means. One thing, however, you should be careful about, and that is the ventilation, and money should not be spared on that department. |Ventilation.| The dark room can be scientifically ventilated by any good sanitary engineer. We have already, elsewhere, gone into the subject of ventilation of dark rooms, warning photographers of the pernicious effects of defective ventilation.[11] |Apparatus.| The best sinks are made of earthenware, as supplied by Doulton. The lamp should be large, and give a good light. |Ruby glass.| Ruby glass is, to some, injurious to the eyesight, and has been known to produce nausea and vomiting, in which cases cathedral green and yellow glass should be used. |Dishes.| The photographer will require at least eight dishes, and at the very start he should make it a rule never to use a dish save for one purpose. We consider the best dishes for all purposes are made of ebonite. They should be bought in a nest, the smallest size taking the largest plate used by the operator, and the other seven increasing in size, so that one fits into the other. This makes them more convenient for carriage. The dishes should be marked by painting on their bottoms. One will be wanted for developing, one for the alum bath, one for the changing bath, one for the hyposulphite bath, one for the acid bath in developing platinotype prints, one for the water bath in the same process, one for an intensifying bath, leaving one over for odd jobs.
11. “Ventilation of the Dark Room” and “Ammonia Poisoning” in the “Year Book of Photography and Photographic News Almanac” for 1885-87, and on “Pharyngitis and Photography” in the “Year Book of British Journal of Photography” for 1887.
When it is remembered that hyposulphite of soda is so “searching” that it has been known to penetrate through the ordinary so-called “porcelain” dishes and crystallize on the outside, one may judge how important it is to keep a separate dish for each operation.
A light wooden board with a handle is most convenient for putting over the developing dish, in the earlier stages of developing, especially when using ortho-chromatic plates, but the student must be careful to keep it on a shelf by itself.|Sable brush.| Another requisite is a broad brush of fine sable hair, say three inches broad, this had better be kept perfectly dry and clean in a box of its own.
The chemical solutions should be kept in bottles with
glass stoppers, each bottle should have an enamelled
label,|Plate washer.| so that it can be readily seen in the dark room,
and cannot be destroyed by acids. A zinc washing
trough which holds two dozen plates must be procured.
|Drainage rack.
Travelling lamp.| A simple wooden drainage rack is also necessary. We
have tried several travelling lamps, and have so far found
no satisfactory one. There are several in the market,
and the photographer must choose his own. |Measures.| Two
measuring-glasses at least must be procured, and it is a
good plan to use Hicks' opaque glass measures, as they
can be so easily read in the dark room. It is as well to
have one minim glass to hold sixty minims, and a large
measure to take the full quantity of developer required
for one plate. |Scales.| A pair of ordinary scales with weights
(apothecaries'), costing a few shillings, will complete the
list of apparatus required.|Printing frames.| A few simple printing frames
will be wanted, one of which should be a size larger than
the plate used. |Slabs of glass.|A square slab of glass, the size of the
plate, and another a few inches larger each way, will be
found the best for trimming prints upon. A razor
or very sharp knife will be found the best tool for this
purpose.
Our student should get all these things of good quality, and set his face against the syrens who whisper in his ear that he ought to get this, and ought to have that; he does not want anything more than we have told him, a greater number of things will only embarrass him. We are perfectly well aware that the most elaborate fittings have been put up by “amateurs” and “professionals,” and we are equally aware that these have as yet not led to the production of a single picture.
For portraiture a studio is a necessity for obtaining the best results. We shall very briefly discuss the question of studios, for we hold that, provided a studio be large enough and light enough, there is not much else to consider. We have been in several studios, and worked for a considerable time in them, one of which we, having hired, had all to ourselves, so that our remarks are based on the experience of studios photographic, as well as on those of painters and sculptors.