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: AN EXAMPLE. j

- NOTES AND NOTIONS.

A REVERIE.

FASHION NOTES.|

[No title]

THE ! WEEK AT WESTMINSTER.

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.. OUR WEEKLY CAMEBA NOTES,

Newyddion
Dyfynnu
Rhannu

OUR WEEKLY CAMEBA NOTES, SOME PRACTICAL HINTS FOR AMATEURS. [By Veronica.] [The writer of this column will be happy to reply to qneries on technical and business matters relating to photography. as well as to criticise prints submitted one or two at a time. Stamp or stamps for reply must he enclosed. Address ee Veronica at the office of "The Cambrian," 08, Wind-street, Swansea,] Week by week the jerry builder encroaches on those bits of country that have lain unmolested between the patches of suburbs around all large towns. Some photographers of my acquaint- ance are taking the opportunity to record the transformation of meadow into bricks and mortar, and the photographs should be of the utmost interest to themselves, and especially to their children in years to come. The twenty years hence resident in such a suburb aD New Southgate will have a truly wonderful story to tell of the incredible days when there were distinct patches of green between the streets a.nd squares, and positively quiet spots among what will then be a net-work of trams and tubes. In that narrative the camera-picture should supply proof positive that things were even so around great cities in the early years of the twentieth century. The present season is the time par excellence for securing cloud negatives, and I would fain believe that every possessor of a few decent landscape negatives will be magnifying their virtues by providing suitable skies to go with them, for, contest it how you will, nature is not often kind to the photographer, and rarely suspends above his landscape the sky which is artistically best. To tell how cloud photography is done I cannot do better than quote from some notes in The Photographer," the solitary Scotch journal for which the thanks of all north of the Tweed, and of many south of it, 'should be returned to the firm- of Mason and Co., who issue it from Buchanan-street, Glasgow. Thore who will follow the plain hints given by the writer should find the making of a stock of cloud negatives all pure joy. "We will imagine that we are out bent upon securing cloud negatives. The first thing we must do is to select a piece of ground that is pretty free from buildings, trees, chimney stalks, etc.; a piece of flat open country is the best, such as a moor or marsh. It must also be remem- bered that the most useful clouds are those which are comparatively close to the horizon, because they usually appear in the picture, and for this reason when we are using a half-plate camera we shall probably find that by including an inch or an inch and a half of horizon line and foreground, we will have a cloud negative with a fairly large expanse of sky which will be handy to print from. By working in this way we will have the most characteristic parts of the clouds in the upper half of the negative-just where they are most wanted." Working with the ordinary type of' roller blind shutter as sent out by 'The Thomton- Pickard Manufacturing Company' of Altrincham, we find that when we are taking light fleecy clouds in good summer light on Hford Isoehro- matic plates without a screen, and the leas stopped down to f/32 by drawing the blind across the lens as quickly as possible, a correctly exposed negative results. Workers who are not fortunate enough to possess a shutter could stop their lens down to f/45 or f/64. and make as short an exposure as they can with the cap, and the result should leave nothing to be desired. Then again, on the other hand, when essaying a late sunset effect, with heavy massive olouds partially obscuring the sun itself, we have more than once found it necessary to give two er three, seconds exposure. After making an exposure it will be ax well for the worker to jot a few notes down in his pocket book; these might be the time of year and day, direction of lighting and camera. This information will be found very useful when the operation of printing comes to be done." Clond negatives must be developed so that they may be full of graduation, soft and delioate in type and towards the thin side. We need, therefore, pay little about development. Any good formulae to which the worker is accustomed may be used. There must be some very strong reason to induce a firm to add one more to the already long list of developers, and a still stronger one to cause the amateur to relinquish ihm well-proved pyro or metol for the new comer. But I verily believe that Eiinol, the latest of developing agents possesses certain properties which will speedily endear it to the photographic world. Like other product", it hails from Germany, ard in the privacy of the chemical laboratory is known as meta-amido-ertho-oxybenzyl-alcohoi hydrochloride. Like the newer developers of the metol and amidol type, edinol gives detail all at once and builds up density more slowly as an after process. But unlike these developers, it is very soluble, so that the developing liquid is made up in a few seconds. Plates, lantern slides and films are equally suited to edinol, whiih does not stain, and the developer in my experience does not shew the sudden falling off of its power when the temperature is low. In a changeable climate as ours, this is a particularly welcome feature. To prepare the developer, 15 grains of edinol and 120 grains of soda sulphite are dissolved in 3J ounces of water, forming a stock solution which keeps well. Eight parts of this solution are mixed with three parts of one in three potassium carbonate solution. As regards manipulation i be only hint I would give is that development be pushed a little further than usual as one is apt to under-estimate the correct point when using edinol, and to blame it for eiving too thin a nega-tiv. Density is, however, simply a matter of a little longer development. Though we are slow at taking ideas from other nations, there is no doubt that in advertising we are becoming slavish imitators of American methods, and no dnubt the great purveyors of photographic materials will be following in the steps of a house in the States, which I see is advertising for the right to u"e the face of a pretty girl for advertising: purposes. Now ia the feminine opportunity The officials of great firms are but hnman and are open to conviction that Glycia P.O.P. will sell all the better if some daughter of the Gods, tall and divinelv fair, is shewn superintending its printing and completion 0T-r! > encjrc'e(l wrist and a fascinating profile lure us into purchasins' the "Riokarock" plate, held by the fairy hand, and gazed upon by the owner of the profile. Human nature is weak even when permeated with photography, and our interest is stimulated, not by scientific facts, but by the mere presentment of a girl who is erasp- ing a gelatine plate firmly in one corner with her thumb and finger. Wo all know about the double print which results when the paper moves in the printing frame, but there is another cause of fuzziness in P.O.P. prints, which is not so easy to recognise, and that is dne to the expansion or contraction of the paper. If the paper has been dried in an atmosphere cooler or hotter or drier than that in which the printing takes place, contraction or expansion must be expected. It is a good plan to let the paper remain in the printing room half-an- hour before printing commences, and to place the sheet of paper in the negative in the frame with the pad behind it, not pressing down the springs on the back. Always use three or four sheets of blotting paper between the sensatised paper and back, and see that the pressure is even, or a fuzzy out of focus looking print will be the result. My mention last week of a camera which pro- vided for the rapid and easy changing of cut films. has brought me several enquiries for name and maker. The former is The Zylo," made by the London Stereoscopic Co-, whose depot in Regent- street always has a knot of people ronnd it. drawn thither by tbe portraits of celebrities of the moment. The Zylo is not easily described on paper, though it is absurdly simple in use. The movement which changes the film is the with- drawal of a shutter from the top of the camera, and the immediate replacement of that shutter. This in and out motion—exactly like that of a dark slide-leads the exposed film into a light tight cbaniber, and briags a fresh one into position. There are one or two little points about tbe camera which are deserving of special mention—the finders can be taken out to clean, and their positions can be adjusted to fit the elevation of the rising front of the camera.

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FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 1902.

MATTERS MILITARY.