a sharper kind of light

Posted on June 7, 2021 by Robert

Tiny Red Bud seeds – some infected with weevils.

Toronto. Photography demands light, but so do other optical devices such as light microscopes. The resolution limit of light microscopes has usually been the light itself, forcing a transition to other devices such as an electron microscope if increased resolution is needed. However, the higher resolution can only take place if the subject matter is in a vacuum – not so good for living things.

Down at the U of C in San Diego, Science Daily states, “Engineers have developed a technology that turns a conventional light microscope into what’s called a super-resolution microscope.

“It improves the microscope’s resolution (from 200 nm to 40 nm) so that it can be used to directly observe finer structures and details in living cells.”

I took the photograph at left. It shows tiny seeds from the Red Bud tree. Some of the seeds are infected with weevils. Perhaps some day such a technique will allow ordinary close-up photographs like this one to benefit from much higher resolution too…

My thanks to PHSC member Russ Forfar, a long time fan of science, for the suggestion and link. N.B. At one time I collected light microscopes and related books as well as cameras, photographs and ephemera.

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brick by brick

Posted on June 6, 2021 by Robert

Folder print. Chimney making by bricklayers. Taken outdoors.

Toronto. The photograph at left was faded and damaged, but I still bought it (cheap) at the Thornhill, Ontario Antique place the end of July, 1976 because it was unusual.

Firstly, it was taken out doors and secondly it showed workmen and a work environment. The location and photographer have been lost over time. It looks like a chimney was being built for a ‘summer’ kitchen at the back of the house, perhaps replacing the stove pipe jutting out of a window.

The clothing suggests early 1900s for the date.

Note that the post title is a riff on a line from an old vaudeville routine made most popular by the Three Stooges in 1944.

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feeling liverish?

Posted on June 5, 2021 by Robert

CDV of young lady taken at the Livernois Studio, Quebec City c1890

Toronto. Well, in the late 1800s/early 1900s in Quebec City that likely meant you had an urge to have a likeness taken at the Livernois Studio. Many of the photographs taken by the Livernois family can be found at the  “centre d’archives de Quebec” in the “fonds J E Livernois Ltee”.

Click the archive link above to practice your French and to browse the astonishing number of images. The Livernois studio alone has some 109,000 negatives (on glass, nitrate and acetate), and  prints!

The likeness of the young lady in the CDV portrait at left was captured in the late 1800s when J E Livernois ran the family business. Click on the above studio link to read the family history and see some example photos from the fonds. The samples include the Livernois studio c1900 (also online in the fonds). The family opened a pharmacy on the ground floor of the studio building …

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after one and a quarter …

Posted on June 4, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. Hard to imagine, but the PHSC executive held its fifteenth monthly meeting by ZOOM! We cannot get into our North York Memorial Hall venue before September. All events are in abeyance just now but there is real hope on the horizon. Read the image file below and our PHSC News newsletter for program information. I will post all auction, fair, trunk, and image show details as soon as they are released.

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brave new world again

Posted on June 3, 2021 by Robert

Kodak ad in January 1944 issue of Popular Photography magazine

Toronto. Well into WW2, Kodak took this ad out in the January 1944 issue of Popular Photography showing how research by their labs resulted in lens technology that out performed the German industry and led to superior fire power when American airplanes bombed the Axis ships.

This ad was found by my good friend George Dunbar who has kindly shared it here. As history shows, Kodak did make many fine lenses mid last century, but post war, the Germans regained their lead and were later matched, not by Kodak, but by Japan.

Later last century, Japan and Japanese optical firms routed most of the German optical industry. Today, in the era of the smart phone, most people no longer care who makes the lens or camera that is built into their mobile device.

Note: British writer Aldous Huxley published his novel, “Brave New World” in 1931. I used the same title for this post. I must have been very impressed by the title since it is the FOURTH time I used it in a post title.

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Kalart saves the day

Posted on June 2, 2021 by Robert

The Kalart synchronizer for Graflex – 1944 ad

Toronto. When I was a kid, I saw small ads in the American photography magazines of the day for a Kalart rangefinder to bolt on to a press camera. The strange name caught my eye.

This particular ad is for a Kalart flash bulb synchronizer gadget that custom-attaches to a Graflex to permit use of shutter  speeds above 1/500th (up to?) second with bulbs. George Dunbar came across this novel war time ad in the March 1944 issue of Popular Photography.

The arrangement uses the focal plane shutter and must be factory installed.  As far as I know, the only bulbs that worked with focal plane shutters at all speeds were the FP bulbs.

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Kodak shows its mettle

Posted on June 1, 2021 by Robert

October 1942 ad for Kodak and its achievements in photography

Toronto. I often make derogatory sounding comments about Kodak, but the company was a force in the industry and for many decades a true leader. Few others had the support and customer base to create new film sizes. In fact the very popular single use 35mm film cassette was created by August Nagel at Kodak in Europe and adopted world-wide.

Kodak became synonymous with films and inexpensive cameras. The cameras helped sell Kodak films and other disposable photographic products that added significantly to the company’s bottom line. The above ad from the October, 1942 issue of Popular Photography lists many of the significant contributions the company made to photography and the many, many medals received by its laboratories for front line research of topics related to the future of our art.

This ad is just one of the many contributions to photographic history uncovered by my good friend George Dunbar. Well done, George!

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a positive spin on WW2

Posted on May 31, 2021 by Robert

Wartime ad for ILEX optical products in Popular Photography

Toronto. Ilex of Rochester NY ran this ad in the February 1944 issue of Popular Photography. The company bravely said, “When war clouds clear **look to Ilex”. The Ilex Optical Company in Rochester made “lenses, shutters, gunsights, and other precision optical equipment” for the American war effort “on many battlefronts”.

According to Kingslake, Ilex was formed in 1910/11/12 as a spin off from Bausch & Lomb and stayed active at least to the publication of  a brochure “The Rochester Camera and Lens Companies” by the then tiny but important TPHS of Rochester in 1974.

Sadly, Ilex seems to have faded away post war in the face of better known brands. One source suggests it was gone by the mid 1980s … We seldom see Ilex products at our fairsor auctions.

We owe a big thanks to fellow PHSC member, George Dunbar, for sharing this ad and its nostalgia regarding one of the old continental European emigrant based optical firms of Rochester, NY.

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Leica in Peace and War

Posted on May 30, 2021 by Robert

Sep 1943 Popular Photography ad for E. Leitz, Inc. NY

Toronto. Before and for awhile after the second world war, the Leica was the most popular high-end 35mm camera sold. As many readers know, before WW2, the German camera industry was the undisputed world leader. During WW2, German technology was no longer exported to the west. Dresden, the city central to Zeiss-Ikon was flattened by Allied bombs. Worse, post war, Jena and the famous Zeiss works fell in East Germany, a part of the Soviet Union. Fortunately, Leitz in Wetzlar was not bombed, and was assigned to the western part of Germany.

During America’s participation in the war, foreign European branches were removed from their parent organizations and operated under the US government. Leitz was no different. They survived by repairing Leicas, selling American made Wollensak lenses that mimicked their German counter parts – except the long focus 135mm became a long focus 127 mm. And made and sold popular accessories like viewfinders, extension tubes, and the ‘Sliding, Focusing, Copying Attachment’ shown in this ad in the September, 1943 issue of Popular Photography. And of course Leitz NY sold the famous Leica Manual published by Morgan & Morgan too.

A huge thanks to good friend and fellow PHSC member (and photographic historian), George Dunbar for sharing his findings.

Note: The post title is a riff on a then famous American radio show, ‘The FBI in Peace and War“. Ironically to me, the theme of the program was Prokofiev’s march from, “The Love for Three Oranges“. Prokofiev was Russian …

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one camera’s wide angle …

Posted on May 29, 2021 by Robert

Berthiot Angulor 28mm for Leica. Made in Paris FR

Toronto. … is another camera’s telephoto. Did you ever wonder why the tiny smart phone camera has an equivalent 35mm camera size? For example my iPod Touch camera has a 3.3mm, f/2.8 lens but images it takes are considered to be equivalent to those taken with a 35mm lens on a 35mm camera – same angle of view.

As a general rule, a lens focal length about equal to the sensitive media diagonal is called a normal lens. A focal length of less than the diagonal constitutes a wide-angle lens for that camera/media while a focal length greater than the media’s diagonal size is said to be a telephoto or long focus lens. For example, most of us consider a 50mm lens as a normal lens for a 35mm camera. The film frame diagonal is about 43mm so the traditional normal lens is slightly ‘telephoto’. The smaller the sensitive media, the shorter the focal length of a normal lens and by extension both wide angle and telephoto lenses.

If you crop a wide-angle shot, the result can be the same angle of view as a normal lens or a telephoto – only the grainier look and lower resolution might give it away.  Because the majority of film photographs were taken with a 35mm camera, it became popular to show the tinier sensored digital camera as if it had a 35mm camera lens. Of course the un-cropped image from a shorter focal length lens gained a greater depth of field (think of the Minox subminiature). This made computerized images popular since the camera image could be changed to look as if a lower (wider) f/stop had been used with its narrower depth of field.

Attempting to use a lens designed for one size of media with another larger media may result in vignetting as the image’s illumination falls off before the edges of the media are reached. This was an issue in the days when camera bodies, plate holders, and lenses were all purchased separately; not specifically designed as a unit.

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