American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1940)

the pan." And so the inquest proceeded. And the dissection, too. When the job was finished the Doctor looked up. "I have thrown out thirty feet or more. I am going to put that together and we'll run it just to show you. After we have seen that we'll see the part that's good." The discarded film was shown. The Doctor smiled as the film was unwound. "When it is all grouped together it does not look so bad as when it is sandwiched in with the good," he said. "We'll now look at what you are going to keep." The Doctor was silent a moment when the selected film had been shown. "I can't understand this," he said as he talked directly to the two other persons in the room. "These pictures we have just looked at are better than the ones I had to show when I made my first moving picture film. Now I had been taking still pictures just the same as he had when I made my first movie. "How the devil did it happen he was ahead of me the way he was?" No one answered as the Doctor sat in deep thought for a half a minute. The Doctor banged his fist on the table. Meter Makes Difiference "I've got it," he said triumphantly. "The damned rascal used a meter and when I began meters were not used. I feel better. In fact, I will go so far as to say that any one who can use a meter to good advantage on a still camera can do the same thing on a movie." Plainly the Doctor felt better. And as plainly the Greenhorn had lost some of the inward cockiness he had felt but had tried not to show. For the Greenhorn had been unable to understand how a man could tackle what to him seemed like a new medium, a strange field, going from a still camera to a movie, and getting almost the same results with a movie as he had with a still. The initial thrill of looking at your own film, where some of it got by and some of it certainly did not, was almost equaled by the reaction of looking at film that had been revised, where the weak sisters had been dropped by the roadside or in the wastebasket more properly speaking. One is reminded of the force that rides in the remark of the professional photographer who said the chief difference between the amateur and the pro is that the amateur insists in showing all his work and the pro only the best, leaving to himself and God the sight of what appeals to his own judgment as not so good. "How much did you use that new tripod?" asked the Doctor. "You know you have read a great deal about always using it." And the Doctor looked quizzically at the Greenhorn. "Well," was the response, "I cheated several times. I couldn't use it on the train, meaning that regardless of what others do I could not. Perhaps half the times I shot at the bi'ook I did. That l)rincii)ally was where I discovered I had difficulty in getting it to line up quickly. I learned very soon it was not all so easily done in making that camera stand up right and look straight ahead or down as required. Eye Glasses Out "On the desert I tried it with the tripod nearly all the three or four times I used it but on the freight train I saw I would not have time to get a proper set-up. I very promptly acquired the information that using a tripod is no simple matter. Time is required, but of course it is well worth it." "What did you do about eye glasses when you were panning?" said the Doctor. The Greenhorn chuckled. "About the last thing I learned during the photographing of that first hundred feet is that the thing to do is to take 'em off," was the response. "I had thought of doing that, but believed the finder was too small. "I did not believe I could follow with the naked eye what was going on, that the aperture was not large enough. But I was driven to it, I guess, by circumstances. I determined to find out, NEW BOOKS The American Annual of Photography 1941. American Photographic Publishing Company, 353 Newbury street, Boston. Chapman & Hall, Ltd., London, 1940. Volume 55. Price: Paper, $1.50; cloth, $2.25. Edited by Frank R. Fraprie, F.R.P.S., and Franklin L Jordan, F.R.P.S. 276 pp. Plus 48 pp. advertisements. Over 100 illustrations. Pages 7% by 9% inches. Fifty-five years is a long time, but it is an unusually long time w^hen it is related to things photographic. Certainly, when any firm stays with any subject that length of time we may be sure men associated with it know what's what. The articles printed and the illustrations chosen for printing are pretty sure to be out of the ordinary. And so they are. The first article in the book is by Julian Smith, "My Aims and Methods." Mr. Smith tells how he always had a yen to take pictures — of humans; how as he began to get busy with his surgical work he found his photography being crowded out of his reckoning; how then he determined to get an even break for his camera. And he did. Some of his models are shown, one of them particularly striking, under the titles of "The Squire" and "Brother Ambrose." It is altogether a most interesting tale. Calvin Rutstrum writes of "Using Polarized Light." Paul L. Anderson's subject is "Modern Trends in Pictorial Photography." He goes back nearly a hundred years and tells us of how photography was adopted in 1843 by a painter, David Octavius Hill, who remained with it five years. Hill then was induced, or cajoled, or commanded by anyway. I threw my hat on the ground and dropped the glasses into it. I pressed the camera close up to my eye. I could see perfectly! "The camera was steadied much better. It occurred to me right then , why the old-time cameramen so commonly formerly wore caps and turned them backside forward when they were working. It gave them a chance to get their eye on the ball." "Did you try panning with your tripod?" "No, I did not," was the decided response. "That's another thing I have got to learn. I tried it just as a sort of rehearsal and found I jerked it worse than if it were free. It will be some time before I try any panning or tilting with a tripod when the film is moving. Did I answer your question?" "You did." And the Doctor smiled. "And you may have some difficulty in locating a tripod in the amateur field that will pan and tilt to your satisfaction, one, for instance, with a ratchet arrangement the professionals use." "That must be something like Fred Hoefner's True Ball Tripod Head, which goes on the big tripods," was the quick answer. "I got my hands on it one day for a minute. It's as smooth as velvet." his wife, tired of the part of darkroom widow, to resume painting. He is classed as a fifth-rater in painting. As a photographer he is considered a master. Lynwood M. Chace wTites of "Diversions of a Nature Photographer," Stanley N. Tess of "Press Photography," Robert R. Miller of "Making the Most of Architecture," Roland F. Beers of "Expose for the Shadows or For the Light Areas," H. W. Honess Lee of "Lines in Landscape," Adolf Fassbender of "The Paper Negative," R. Fawn Mitchell of "Race-Track Photofinish Photography," Charles W. Seager of "The Photographic Darkroom" (and this is a humdinger), F. L. English of "Bromoil: Facts and Fancies," Roy L. Gallagher of "Fluorescent Light in Photography," Hy Schwartz of "Photoflash Photography," Joseph S. Friedman of "Color Photography," Allen Stimson of "An Eclectic Approach to Pictorial Photography," Eugene V. Connett of "A Perfect Print" and Frank R. Fraprie of "Our Illustrations." Seventeen pages of small type are devoted to "Who's Who in Pictorial Photography 1939-40," with the exhibition record for the past three years. The book deserves a niche in any photographer's library. Hollywood Visits Camden William Bullock, in charge of general administration at RCA Photophone's HolIj^ood office, and Barton Kreuzer, in charge of Photophone sales and recording operations on the West Coast, are in Camden for meetings with Edward C. Cahill, RCA Photophone Manager, and other executives at Company headquarters. Plans for 1941 operations on the West Coast are being formulated. 560 December, 1940 • American Cinematographer