Amateur Photographer & Cinematographer (1933)

October 25 th. 1933 The AMATEUR PWDTOCRAPHER 6 CIUEMATOGRAPHER a PICTURES oftkeW C • • 7 on the Beginners’ prints reproduced on oome Kjritical Comments the opposite page. DURING the past summertime, most of us will have acquired a more or less respectable bag of negatives. We have been blessed with plenty of sunshine, and conditions have been more favourable than they have for manv years, so that if we have not something to work up in the course of the winter months we have only ourselves to blame. Work in Winter-time. At all events, now is the time to go through the negatives we have made with a \iew to seeing what can be done with them. It mav be that some of them will lend themselves to enlargement, and, naturally, the thought of making an exhibition print is one that occurs first of all. Many a pleasurable evening can be spent in so doing ; but an alterna¬ tive which may not suggest itself to evervbody is that of making a series of lantern slides. If the holiday has been productive, it may even be found possible to make up a complete lecture, and the good fun of the holiday might then be shared by mamothers. Moreover, there is a quality and attraction in a good slide that takes a great deal of beating, and its features are such as are altogether different from those of a print. Xo. 3, ” Die Kerk,” by X’. Wesson, is an excellent little print. It is clean and sharp, has good tones, and a quality about it that inclines one to the belief that it would make a fine slide, particularly if the very pleasing blue-grey afforded by the thiocarbamide process were adopted. It would have to be printed by projection, partly because of its small size and partly in order that the slight convergence of the verticals — caused by tilting the camera at the time of exposure — may be corrected. Projection Printing'. It is fortunate that it is so clean cut and well defined, for when it is considered that it would have to be enlarged a little to fill a lantern slide, and, when complete, the enormous magnification to which it would be subjected when shown on the screen, the need for absolute accuracy in such details will be apparent. It is true that printing by pro¬ jection calls for a little more manipula¬ tive ability than printing by contact, but there is nothing difficult about it, and it enables adjustment to size to be carried out in a wav that is impossible with any other method. Most forms of enlarging lanterns can be employed, and a gadget for holding the slide on the easel can easily be improvised, or. if a good deal is to be done, an instrument designed for the job can be obtained. The different methods are described else¬ where in this issue, and reference should be made to them for further data. Unless the negatives approximate to lantern slide size (3^x3 1 1 . there is no alternative but to emolov this method of printing ; and, if it were desired that a slide should be made of Xo. 4, “ The Pool,” by Alfred Gilgrass, or Xo. 5. ‘‘ The Sands of Dee,” bv G. E. Gidman. and the whole of the negative is to be included in each case, thev must be printed by projection. Reduction of Image. In these instances, the size of the image Ins to be reduced, and, anoma¬ lous as it mav sound, there is no way of doing this so conveniently as by means of an enlarging lantern. What it means is that the slide must be brought fairly close to the lens of the enlarger and the distance between the lens and negative extended, so that, instead of the image being enlarged, the reverse applies. In en¬ larging, the easel carrving the printing paper is at a considerablv greater distance from the lens, and the lens is much nearer the negative. It is onlv a matter of adjustment according to the kind of work to be done, and, if only care is taken in the focussing, there should be no loss of definition when the finished slide is projected. Both of these two prints seem to come from negatives of a character that would be suitable for slide-making, and, if they have not quite the same subtlety of gradation that Xo. 3 exhibits, it mav easily happen that slides of equal attraction might be made from them. In the case of Xo. 6, “ By the 384 Windrush,” by Gertrude Bell, it is possible, however, that the reeds in the foreground would prove something of a drawback. Critical Focussing . They are slightly out of focus, and, although it is scarcely noticeable in so small a print, if a slide were made from the same negative and projected to any degree of magnification, the defect would become unpleasantly obvious. Something might be done with the upper portion, but the reeds encroach upon part that would be wanted, and it goes to show that not only must focussing be critical when the slide is being made, but also when the subject is taken. The sky, too, is rather lacking in printable gradation, and, if the faint suggestion of cloud could be brought out, it would show points of advantage over the present rendering. With a scene like Xo. 1, “ One Summer Evening,” bv X W. Lewis, the small amount of skv that shows would scarcelv matter, but it is suggested that the distance between the tree and the left-hand edge should not be so nearly equal to that of the figure from the right. Something like three-eighths of an inch could be removed from the left, and just a fraction from the right — the latter to avoid the inclusion of a patch of sky showing through the foliage at the edge. Skies and Slides. As a matter of fact, skies are as difficult to deal with in a slide as in a print, and, in view of the scale in which they are shown, and the fact that they are projected by light, it is most important that they should be graced with either clouds or an . appropriate ^degfee of tone, for, other¬ wise, their blankness becomes both distasteful and wearying to the eye. For this reason it would be wise to remove — or refrain from including — that patch of sky showing above and to the right of the fountain in Xo. 2, The Fountain,” by A. Wallis Myers. Were this done, not only would the veiled figure become more obviously the centre of attraction, but the composition, as a whole, would be appreciably improved. " Mentor.” 2 5