Review of Shanebrook’s epic “Making KODAK Film”, 2nd Edition

Posted on February 9, 2017 by Robert

Making KODAK Film 2nd Edition by Robert Shanebrook

Toronto. Newsletter impresario David Bridge shows his other talents in this erudite and thoughtful review of Shanebrook’s massive 2nd edition of his Making KODAK Film book. Well worth the price of $100 USD, the book provides technical details showing just how important Kodak was to the photographic world in its pursuit of perfection in photographic films and papers. You can order the book (recently reduced after a lower than expected production cost) by visiting Robert Shanebrook’s website here.

I took the liberty of including a pdf version of the review here. The review is included as a SUPPLEMENTAL EXTRA with the latest edition of Photographic Canadiana, 42-4.

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A Little Paint, A Little Pencil

Posted on February 8, 2017 by Robert

Lizzie and Art Mosher in the late 1930s

Toronto. Professionals liked the larger negatives and glass plates last century before the onslaught of the minicam. The plates and cut films could be easily retouched by a skilled practitioner.  Contrast could be varied or features emphasized by careful use of pencil lead and an x-acto knife. The lead could emphasize detail or lighten highlights while the x-acto knife could carefully scrape away layers of emulsion to deepen the shadows.

Colour was a fading proposition in the mid last century. More  permanent black and white prints could be coloured with inks applied to the surface. Special dyes were sold that covered a wide gamut of colours. I remember a studio in Midland, Ontario that offered large hand coloured prints based on a monochrome portrait taken by them. They emphasized the durability and permanency of this rather expensive approach.

My grandparents had a black and white portrait taken outdoors in the mid to late 1930s at their home in Long Branch. When their daughter married my father and moved north of the city, my dad had the print coloured. Continue reading →

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A Wide View Vista

Posted on February 7, 2017 by Robert

An air nozzle used to operate a spinner on the Goerz Hypergon lens of 1900.

Toronto. The earliest camera lens designers were more concerned with plate coverage than aperture. Often a lens was described in terms of coverage –  half plate, full plate, etc.

Numerous strategies were used to allow a greater coverage – mechanical devices like the little air fan Goerz used in its Hypergon lens to lower the light from the central rays, a special filter to reduce the light from the central rays like Zeiss used for its 1970s 15mm Hologon lens – or simply reduced apertures like the Leitz Hector 28mm f/6.3 and many other lenses used.

The Hypergon used its spinner for about 5/6 of the exposure to hold back light from the central rays. The last 1/6 of exposure, the little fan was flipped back and the central rays allowed to exposed the plate too. Continue reading →

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A Repeating Flashbulb (November 1941)

Posted on February 6, 2017 by Robert

Mechanix Illustrated –  a repeating flash

Toronto. We never think about flash or flash bulbs today. With our digital cameras or smart phones a built in flash automatically goes off  (or the camera/phone warns us) to provide sufficient light. Even in the 1950s (unless you were well heeled or a pro) people used flash bulbs and flash guns to add illumination so the painfully slow film of the day could be used indoors or at night.

Edgerton at MIT in the USA experimented with electronic flash that operated at an astonishing speed of 1/20,000 second (give or take). And the November 1941 Mechanix Illustrated (not always the most reliable source – great in this day of alternative ‘facts’) reported on a repeating flash. The flash was depicted in use by a diminutive young women holding a massive news camera to her eye. Attached is the ‘repeating’ flash gun and over her shoulder hangs the heavy case holding the batteries and capacitors that trigger the flash. I had a used Ultrablitz Reporter IIL in the late 1950s that was only slightly smaller in size and fired at 1/800th to 1/400th of a second. It was capable of firing two flash guns simultaneously.

This 1941 ad is courtesy of an email from George Dunbar. George adds this comment, “That’s quite a portable power unit there. Then again it’s also a pretty big camera. I think it’s funny that they always use female models for these things. While I get the ‘it’s so easy a woman can do it!’ angle, it tends to make big things look more unwieldy.”

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JollyLook Instant Camera

Posted on February 5, 2017 by Robert

JollyLook Instant Instax Camera from Popular Photography article.

Toronto. Thanks to Russ Forfar for this link to a blast from the past as a Toronto AM music radio station used to say before playing a musical oldie. In my youth a number of photography magazines served us instead of Google and the web to show the newest ideas, how to do better at photography, test and compare camera gear, etc.

Russ passed on this link to Popular Photography. An article called “Jollylook Is an Instant Film Camera With a Vintage Look and a Body Made of Paper and Cardboard” is the subject of the latest GEAR column by Stan Horaczek. The little camera is another user of Instax Instant Film, a film brand by Fujifilm of Japan. The link has a short video loop showing how you crank the print through the rollers in camera to develop and fix the image. The company plans to make this camera and is raising money through crowd sourcing a recent phenomenon which circumvents traditional means of raising funds. Continue reading →

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It’s a digital world after all!

Posted on February 4, 2017 by Robert

Fibre Cable ready to be installed underground

Toronto. I woke this week to a heavy rumble. Bell finally began to install fibre lines on our street. In the next few weeks we will be able to switch our TV and land line telephone over to the internet and the internet protocol. This system, called Fibe TV, offers fibre to the home and high speed internet downloads and uploads, plus IPTV up to 4K – about 8x the resolution of the over the air TV I grew up with. Our best TV receiver at home at present is HD or high definition which is 4x the resolution of traditional TV.

We have seen the digital wave wash over and nearly crush traditional film based photography, nearly bring newspapers, magazines, and books to their knees, wipe out travel agencies and the music business, push traditional stores to the brink, and revolutionize our appliances and automobiles. This week I had my teeth x-rayed (a two year routine). The  dental assistant used a tiny sensor in my mouth and a small x-ray machine against my cheek. In seconds the result was on her computer screen. Low dosage and rapid results all thanks to digital technology.

Today’s cameras are almost all digital – in fact they are often smart phones. The most common camera on Flicker is the iPhone. It’s a digital world after all!

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Watch the Birdie

Posted on February 3, 2017 by Robert

Toronto. My thanks to friend John Linsky for reminding me of the old photographers who used a novelty to attract the attention of smaller subjects (John has some of these too). In the 1800s and early 1900s it was important that subjects sit still for a few seconds – or minutes – to have a decent portrait captured in the studio.

A typical gadget was this small brass bird which was mounted on the big studio camera and would chirp when the photographer pressed his rubber ball to snap the photo.

One of our members had an original birdie which he happily displayed at a meeting for all to see. The little brass bird sparked the popular expression “watch the birdie“. The icon and link will take you to an article on the birdie at Smile for me Toys.

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Innovation in the Digital Era

Posted on February 2, 2017 by Robert

Ed Warner’s Mirror device that attaches to the accessory shoe for back of camera IR signals

Toronto. Nearly a  half century ago, I modified my Heathkit Mitchell Fotoval enlarger light meter with a built-in timer that used a 555 chip, a tantalum capacitor, and a series of switches and resistors that set the enlarger timing in ever doubling steps – 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, … seconds realizing that you had to double exposure time for the equivalent to a one stop increase in light. I changed my Gralab darkroom timer to add a fuse, relay, and a foot switch outlet plug.

When colour printing came a long, I built an enlarger bench with a built in iron vane (true RMS) AC meter and a variac transformer so I could adjust for vagaries in Montreal’s somewhat erratic power system of the day (pre Hydro Quebec). Continue reading →

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Groupies

Posted on February 1, 2017 by Robert

Principal Bill Bell and his teachers at KES on October 12, 1928. Taken by Denton Photo, Kitchener, Ontario.

Toronto. Selfies are common today. You can even get a stick so you can take them. So lets call group photos groupies. This subject came to mind Monday when the Globe ran an article in “Life and Arts” called “Say ‘Cheesy'”. The author’s husband used a regular 35mm camera for his group photo.

Years ago  a panorama camera would have been an option as such cameras were a popular means of photographing large groups of people or wide vistas.

As journal and newsletter editor, Bob Lansdale has reported on a number of historical  panoramas over the years. In fact, Bob unearthed the unmarked grave of the pioneer panoramic camera inventor, Canadian born William James Johnston, here in Toronto. Johnston was the original patent holder bringing the Cirkut camera to market in the States but he went bankrupt and came back to Toronto to found the Panoramic Camera Company of Canada. My thanks to Bob Lansdale who did extensive research on Johnston.

Lorne Shields has also shown a number of panoramic photographs at the annual Show and Tell meeting held each December. I chose to use the centre third of this 1928 panorama of all students and teachers at King Edward School (built as the Burton Ave. School)  in Allandale (Barrie). This picture of the school’s student body and staff was recorded by Denton Photo of Kitchener, Ontario with what was likely a Cirkut camera.

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PHSC Consignment Auction March 19, 2017

Posted on January 31, 2017 by Robert

PHSC Consignment Auction March 19, 2017

Toronto. Our PHSC consignment auction will take place this March 19th at the previous location, the Legion Hall 101 in Long Branch (West End Toronto). The redesigned poster favours an old fashioned broadsheet theme.

Just click on the icon at left to see a larger version that can be printed. Photos of the lots will be added to the site as they are received. A minimum dimension of 1,200 pixels is preferred. Anything larger can be adjusted in Photoshop. Smaller images may suffer from artifacts.

A map and general details are here on the web site.

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