Scientific American Supplement, No. 288, July 9, 1881Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 288, July 9, 1881
Various
Science -- Periodicals
I think this a very great pity, for I hold the opinion that the lantern
furnishes the most enjoyable and, in some cases, the most perfect of all
means of showing good photographic pictures. Many prints from excellent
negatives which may be passed over in an album without provoking a
remark will, if printed as transparencies and thrown on the screen, call
forth expressions of the warmest admiration; and justly so, for no
paper print can do that full justice to a really good negative which a
transparency does. This difference is more conspicuous in these days of
dry gelatine plates and handy photographic apparatus, when many of our
most interesting negatives are taken on quarter or 5 x 4 plates the
small size of which frequently involves a crowding of detail, much of
which will be invisible in a paper print, but which, when unraveled or
opened out, as it were, by means of the lantern, enhances the beauty of
the pictures immensely.
When I last had the pleasure of bringing this subject before the members
of our society, it may be remembered that I demonstrated the ease
and simplicity with which those beautiful results maybe obtained, by
printing in an ordinary printing frame by the light of my petroleum
developing lamp, raising one of its panes of ruby glass for the purpose
for five seconds, and then developing by ferrous oxalate until I got the
amount of intensity requisite. On that evening, in the course of a very
just criticism by one of our members, Mr. J. V. Robinson, he pointed out
what was undoubtedly a defect, viz., a slightly opalescent veiling of
the high lights, which should range from absolutely bare glass in the
highest points. He showed that, in consequence of this veiling, the
light was sensibly diminished all over the picture. This veiling of the
high lights was a serious disadvantage in another important particular,
inasmuch as it lessened the contrast between the lights and shadows of
the picture, thereby robbing it of some of its charm and deteriorating
its quality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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