A Manual of Photographic Chemistry, Including the Practice of the Collodion ProcessHardwich, T. Frederick
Science
A Manual of Photographic Chemistry, Including the Practice of the Collodion Process
Hardwich, T. Frederick
Photographic chemistry; Photography
To explain the manner in which a Photograph may be enlarged or reduced in
the process of printing, it will be necessary to refer to the remarks made
at page 52, on the _conjugate foci_ of lenses.
If a Collodion Negative be placed at a certain distance in front of a
Camera, and (by using a tube of black cloth) the light be admitted into
the dark chamber only through the Negative, a reduced image will be formed
upon the ground glass; but if the Negative be advanced nearer, the image
will increase in size, until it becomes first equal to, and then larger
than, the original Negative; the focus becoming more and more distant from
the lens, or receding, as the Negative is brought nearer.
Again, if a Negative portrait be placed in the Camera slide, and
the instrument being carried into a dark room, a hole be cut in the
window-shutter so as to admit light through the Negative, the luminous
rays, after refraction by the lens, will form an image of the exact size
of life upon a white screen placed in the position originally occupied
by the sitter. These two planes, in fact, that of the object and of the
image, are strictly _conjugate foci_, and, as regards the result, it is
immaterial from which of the two, anterior or posterior, the rays of light
proceed.
Therefore in order to obtain a reduced or enlarged copy of a Negative, it
is necessary only to form an image of the size required, and to project
the image upon a sensitive surface either of Collodion or paper.
A good arrangement for this purpose may be made by taking an ordinary
Portrait Camera, and prolonging it in front by a deal box blackened inside
and with a double body, to' admit of being lengthened out as required; or,
more simply, by adding a framework of wood covered in with black cloth. A
groove in front carries the Negative, or receives the slide containing the
sensitive layer, as the case may be.
In _reducing_ Photographs, the Negative is placed in front of the lens, in
the position ordinarily occupied by the object; but in making an enlarged
copy, it must be fixed _behind_ the lens, or, which is equivalent, the
lens must be turned round, so that the rays of light transmitted by the
Negative enter the back glass of the combination, and pass out at the
front. This point should be attended to in order to avoid indistinctness
of image from spherical aberration.
A Portrait combination of lenses of 2-1/2 or 3-1/4 inches diameter
is the best form to use, and the actinic and luminous foci should
accurately correspond, as any difference between them would be increased
by enlarging. A stop of an inch or an inch and a half aperture placed
_between_ the lenses obviates to some extent the loss of sharp outline
usually following enlargement of the image.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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