Amateur Photographer & Cinematographer (1933)

December 13th, 1933 The AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER v 6 CINEMATOGRAPHER a BROMOIL METHODS AT a recent meeting of the Watford Camera Club, L Mr. Murry Barford gave a talk on “ The Sins of a Bromoilist,” but at the outset he protested that he was no more sinful than the worker who applied ferricyanide to the high-lights of his bromide enlargements and who doped the surface of his pictures in order to work upon them with stump and pencil ! He was not at all perturbed at the nasty names hurled at the bromoilist by the “ straight ” workers. The plastic nature of the process enabled him to get the results he desired, and he freely passed along full details of his methods. He recommended the worker to stick to one make of bromide or bromoil paper until he had mastered it, and to aim at a very soft, fully-developed image with plenty of detail. His procedure was as follows : The Bleacher. A. Copper sulphate . . . . . . . . 2 oz. Potassium bromide . . . . . . . . i| oz. Water . . . . . . . . 20 oz. B. Chromic acid . . . . . . 30 grs. Water . . . . . . . . 20 oz. The working bath is made by taking one part of A, one part of B, and 8 parts of water. This solution should not be colder than 70 degrees Fahr., and the print should remain completely immersed in it for about three minutes. After bleaching, wash the print in six complete changes of water and transfer for two minutes to an acid bath made by adding half a dram of sulphuric acid to half a pint of tepid water. In this bath the pale green bleached image changes to buff. The print is then rinsed and fixed in hypo solution, about three ounces to the pint for five minutes, washed for fifteen minutes and dried. To prepare the print for pigmenting it is soaked in water for ten minutes at 70 degrees Falir., and transferred to a large sheet of glass upon which is placed two thicknesses of blotting-paper and two thicknesses of butter-muslin. Under the prints edges a~e slipped four strips of oil-proof paper so that they protrude two inches all round the print. This enables the picture to be inked up to the edges. A squeegee is then passed lightly over the print, and all surface moisture carefully lemoved with a fluffless cloth. The best work is accomplished in an equable temperature of about ordinary living-room warmth. Mr. Barford uses a hard ink for pigmenting, and for his palette he prefers a glazed tile which has been heated. When asked if he could execute exact repeats of his bromoils he retorted, “ When it comes to pictorial photo¬ graphs, who wants a gross ? ” |etters to the Editor STAINED PRINTS. The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of his correspondents. DRY MOUNTING. Sir, — I notice most of your readers who have sent in sugges¬ tions regarding stained prints are those who admit they have never experienced this trouble. May I, as an almost confirmed print stainer up to a month ago, add to the list of “ cures ” ? The real cause of most stains is very simple to counteract when once you know. Firstly, local stains are caused through handling the paper with hypo dried on the fingers ; cure, wash the hands after every print is made. Secondly, a stain all over the print is sometimes caused by dissolving the hypo crystals immediately before use, this decreases the temperature of the fixing solution by almost 20 degrees ; cure, use warm water, or dissolve at least two hours before use. If, after these precautions are taken, prints are still stained, they should be treated to a final hypo bath to which a little ferricyanide of potassium has been added. This rqakes the bath into a reducer in a -weak form, and care must be taken to remove the print immediately the stain is cleared or the image itself will be attacked. — Yours, etc., H. P. ROUSE. Sir, — My own experience of dry mounting and elaboration of Mr. Eastman’s letter in your issue of November 15th may encourage amateurs like myself. I have dry mounted a 16 x 12 print with an ordinary domestic flat iron, plus a metal cover obtainable at Woolworths, without any trouble, but, of course, plenty of care. I used three and a half sheets of whole-plate tissue which I laid carefully on the back of the print and tacked in position with the point of the hot iron. I then placed the print in position in the mount and worked from the centre to the edges. Experience has taught me the correct temperature of the iron. No trimming of the tissue was necessary as I placed the edges on the edge of the print, any of the inner portion being allowed to overlap. Wishing your very useful paper every success. I greatly enjoy “ How I make my Exhibition Pictures.” — Yours, etc., J. MOSSOM. SUMMER SNAPSHOTS. IDENTIFYING LANTERN SLIDES. Sir, — Nowhere in the recent Lantern Number of The A mateur Photographer did I see any reference to what has always appeared to me to be an urgent necessity in the making of lantern slides. For those who amass a fairly large collection of slides it is extremely convenient, if not absolutely essential, to place shortened titles of slides on the top edge so that the names of a number of slides can be read at once without the necessity of running through the whole collection one by one. I would also urge the importance of numbering slides, and numbers also should appear on the top edge. If a small book is kept with an alphabetical index of slides, new slides as made will receive the next highest numbers and will be immediately indexed. Although this method entails a slight mixing up of subjects in the slide cabinet, it will be found that it affords the quickest method of assembling any given group of slides for lecture or display purposes. — Yours, etc., W. R. G. Sir, — In “ Topics of the Week ” in a recent issue of The Amateur Photographer, I notice the paragraph “Too Hot to Snapshot ? ” and remarks about snapshotting not being so popular this summer. I run a small D. & P. business, and many of my clients are . personal friends, so I perhaps get a better idea of public opinion than most dealers, and I consider the falling off in production is due, not to indifference and laziness, as is suggested, but to two other causes : (1) the increased price of roll films this summer, and (2) the eight-exposure film. Nine out of ten of my customers complain about (2). Not only does it want very careful loading into the camera, but often two or three exposures at the end are wasted on anything, or not used at all, as many of them are, just so the film can be developed and the results seen. If manufacturers had wanted to increase the price of their films this summer, they should have marketed a six-exposure 3 J X2J film for about iod., and I think this step would have brought better business to all branches of the trade. — Yours, etc., LEONARD BASKETT. 537 13