Lenses in Photography

Posted on August 24, 2019 by Robert

1951 – Rudolf Kingslake

Toronto. The late Rudolf Kingslake was born and educated in London, England. In 1938 he joined Eastman Kodak in Rochester NY as a lens designer. By the time he published this book in 1951, he was the Director of Optical Design at Eastman Kodak.

This book is intended to be, “the practical guide to optics for photographers“. It is written in plain English with a few charts, graphs, diagrams, and formulae to clarify some items.

In University we learned from an older/newer (1949/1958) book titled, “Optics” and  written by Francis Weston Sears. Illustrated in colour in this printing, Sears used many more formulae, and much more intense writing to convey the basics of optics for those intending to specialize in the field.

It may be surprising to some that photography demanded special lens designs (dating back to Petzval’s portrait lens for a Daguerreotype camera). The goal was to keep the field of sharpest focus flat to match glass plates and film; to cancel out as much distortion as possible; to focus at least two wavelengths of light in the same plane (anastigmatic) and ideally three (apochromatic); and to have a wide aperture to let in enough light to allow fast shutter speeds to be used in spite of very insensitive (slow)  media (glass plates and film).

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Karl goes digital

Posted on August 23, 2019 by Robert

Digitizing Zotán Glass Photo

Toronto. Mankind has always been fascinated with transportation: horses, trains, bicycles, cars, ships, aircraft, etc. As a kid I always thought Henry Ford invented the automobile. Not so! Ford adapted the assembly line to automobile manufacture and dropped the cost and price so any of his employees could afford a car, like his Model T.

The invention of the first practical automobile was in Germany in 1885 by Karl Benz, whose company evolved into Daimler-Benz,  makers of the famous Mercedes-Benz.  In 2009, Mark Green of the Science and Media Museum in Bradford, England told how the museum was commissioned by  Daimler AG to digitize 10,000 motoring photographs taken in the 1930s by Zoltán Glass like this photo of Hans Stuck in a  Mercedes-Benz SSK racing car.

My humble thanks to George Dunbar for the patience to find this page and the decision to copy me, Thanks George – a great find.

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le magasin des Galeries Lafayette de Paris en 1912

Posted on August 22, 2019 by Robert

Galaries Lafayette, Paris

Toronto. What a wonderful use of photography – and architecture! A 1912 photograph shows how the Lafayette Galaries (retail department store) used natural lighting at their flagship store in Paris with this beautiful dome. The new store opened in 1912. Check it out on Google maps!

The huge open area reminds me of the Toronto Reference library at Asquith and Yonge!

Galaries Lafeyette is still in operation today as an international chain. The flagship Paris store offers clothing from off the shelf budget wear to high fashion. Same location as in 1912.

Their website shows some of goods n offer, while the Wikipedia site shows international stores in operation, closed, and planned. My thanks to Russ Forfar for thoughtfully emailing me his find on facebook. By the way, the photo was posted by a person with the nom de plume “Lumière de l’Atelier” – check his blog for his fascinating lighting creations.

 

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a blast from the past…

Posted on August 21, 2019 by Robert

Aires 35 IIIL ad in LIFE

Toronto. … to borrow a line from a local radio station. Aires cameras were made in Tokyo, Japan. The Aires Camera Industries Company lasted less than a decade (1952 – 1960). While short lived, the company rode the wave of Japanese cameras crashing on the shores of the Western world routing most of the competing non-Japanese manufacturers.

This ad, tucked away on page 108, in the June 17, 1957 issue of LIFE magazine touted the modest little 35mm camera made by Aires Camera and imported by Kalimar Inc in St Louis Missouri for North American consumption. The Kalimar company imported and rebranded many photographic products. At the end of 1999 it was bought by Tiffen of Tiffen Filters fame.

I remember admiring Aires cameras around the time I purchased my Minolta Super A and being pleasantly surprised by the quality of the Asian cameras (complete with their instruction books written in a strange language a bit similar to English :-).

Thanks to fellow PHSC member George Dunbar (once an IBM photographer) for sharing the Aires ad in Life magazine…

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double your pleasure

Posted on August 20, 2019 by Robert

Whoops! c1981

Toronto. The “double your pleasure, double your fun” jingle may have applied to Wrigley’s Double Mint gum but it certainly did not apply to accidental photographic double exposures.

In fact, camera makers went out of their way to tout their designs as “double exposure proof”.

Unfortunately, we all succumb to those momentary periods of stupidity –  even Leica users. Usually my mistake was rewinding a fully or partially exposed roll of film then forgetting to mark it. It would then be used some weeks or months later in the camera and re-exposed to totally different scenes. Bah!

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the long and the short of it

Posted on August 19, 2019 by Robert

extension tubes

Toronto. Those photographers wishing to get closer to their subject than their camera allowed had two choices: an auxiliary lens could be added to the front of the normal lens, or if the lens was interchangeable, the lens could be mounted away from the body using extension tubes, or if money was no object, a bellows.

The remaining issues then where how to focus and how to frame the camera so the subject was in sharp focus and framed without accidental surgery, like missing heads or feet in normal shots. The major camera companies not using an SLR design had lots of options – spider legs, focussing mounts, mirror boxes, tape measures, tables etc.

A tripod or a copy stand was often essential to keep the subject framed and in focus – spider legs or a fancy wire frame could be substituted.

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faster than a speeding bullet

Posted on August 18, 2019 by Robert

Super Anscochrome ad in 1957

Toronto, No, it’s not Superman – it’s Super Anscochrome colour film. Anscochrome touted its film as being “faster than standard black-and-white film” on pp32-3 of the June 17, 1957 issue of LIFE. With ads like this, the Binghamton Brigade set out to tell the world about their marvellous products.

As number two in the photography industry, Ansco always had to try harder to catch up with Kodak. They too made film, cameras, papers, projectors, etc. Post war Ansco became a division of GAF – General Analine and Film.

When Don Douglas and I did a dog and pony show for the PHSC, Don always brought samples from his Ansco camera collection, He was fond of saying that Ansco cameras always used a bright red shutter button, “so you could tell your aunt Tilley to just push the red button…“.

 

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a long shot

Posted on August 17, 2019 by Robert

working for peanuts

Toronto. I saw this Exakta ad long ago. In fact, it was part of my mental background making me decide to go for an Exakta decades ago back before I was married, or a father.  The big selling point was that viewing was through the lens rather than through a squinty viewfinder.

In those days, I had no idea that Leica mirror boxes let you see through the lens as well, all be it in a much clunkier fashion. Or that Exaktas were not really meant for wide angle lenses. Or that the bulk of my photographs would ultimately be taken with a medium wide angle (35mm) lens.

This photograph appeared in LIFE magazine’s “Miscellany” column at the back of the June 3, 1957 issue. It emphasized the virtue of using an SLR over a viewfinder/rangefinder camera back  in the late 1950s before the onslaught of Japanese SLRs and their innovations. Exaktas were made in Dresden which after the war ended up in the Russian zone. My camera body, although imported via New York, is boldly stamped U.S.S.R.

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CNE and Cinematographe

Posted on August 16, 2019 by Robert

An exciting time at the CNE in 1896

Toronto. Cinema and Movies seem so passé these days of TV, streaming, and smartphones but over a century ago movies where the newest means of education and entertainment. The CNE was known as the “Toronto Industrial Exhibition” in those days and was the place to go to see the very latest ideas and inventions.

In 1896, the Lumiere Brothers latest movies and machines were on exhibit for all to see. What a marvellous time! This photograph is courtesy of the Ryerson University’s website. I noticed the Dreamland theatre in Barrie was mentioned as one of the province’s movie venues in a 1915 listing. The Dreamland moved to a building just south of the “five points” in Barrie around 1929 and closed forever about a decade later.

When I was a kid in grade 9 or 10, my dad took me to that long closed theatre. It had become a used goods ((junk) store known as Nipper Tuck’s. Nipper was said to live in the projection booth while the entire auditorium area was filled with junk he had collected over the years for future resale. The building was being cleared to house the new home of the local newspaper, the “Barrie Examiner”.

Since the 1930s/40s movies dwelt on the main street in three nearby movie houses. A fourth, a drive-in, opened post war in the town’s south west area. Since then, the excitement of 1896 and the Cinematographe of the Lumière brothers, has drifted into history and few regard “going to the movies” as a special event these days. With a population of over ten times its size when the Dreamland shut forever, Barrie has only half as many movie houses left (two).

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Louis who? Movies before Edison?

Posted on August 15, 2019 by Robert

Single Lens Camera

Toronto. Thanks to my good friend George Dunbar who emailed me when he found this insightful article. Back in August 29, 2013, the British National Science+Media Museum website in Bradford, UK posted the article by Kieron Casey. Casey suggested that Louise Le Prince invented and demonstrated movies years before Edison and the Lumière Bros. promoted their inventions in North America (Edison) and Europe (Lumières).

Have a read – it is a thoughtful mystery!

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