Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 edition. Excerpt: ... It will be seen at once how quickly an arrangement of this kind works. In the first place, the light comes down almost vertical, and therefore it is the hest of all lights for the purpose. In cloudy weather the light is not interfered with in the least; but in bright sunshine a screen of opal glass is employed. The assistant slips the negative to be copied into the camera; he focuses at A, measures with a quarter-plate in his hand the size of the head (for all heads are enlarged to this size), and then calls for a sensitized plate. A lad, whose duty it is to supply him with these, withdraws a collodionised plate from the bath, drains it, and simply places it on the table (A). There is no dark slide required--no loss of time involved in fitting the plate into an apparatus of any kind; it is bare and moist, and laid on the table. An exposure of two minutes suffices, and the film is then carried off for development. All twenty-four lenses are of the same make--No, 1b Dallmeyer's; all the plates are coated with the same collodion, and all are treated with the same developer, &c. Consequently the work of all assistants should be the same if they work well and conscientiously. The Messrs. Taylor thoroughly believe in system, and they have here initiated a self-checking method that cannot fail to work satisfactorily. We have been talking about collodion transfers only, but opalcoated plates are here produced under the same conditions. But we ought, perhaps, to go hack a moment to the preparation of the glass, &c. The chief difficulty in making collodion transfers, or collodion enlargements on opal, as many of our readers know to their cost, is the tendency of these to stain, and on this point we had some conversation with our good friend the...