The Optical Magic Lantern Journal (October 1890)

38 The Optical Magic Lantern Journal and Photographic Enlarger. placed in the dark slide, the slide is placed in the camera, which we will suppose has been adjusted inthe platform to the required place. Stop the lens down to F16 or F22 (if light is good the latter). Cap the lens, draw the slide, and place the whole in the box, which has been made with a light-tight fitting cover anda door at the end where the negative is. Placethis box in any position suitable, either pointing it to the sky, or even setting it on end. Should this, however, be impossible, | Owing to walls or trees, a cardboard reflector can be placed at an angle of 45 degrees to the negative. This reflector may be supported in the door at the negative end. So as to make a box that is portable, the lens should not be more than Gin. focus. The lens having been previously uncapped. the exposure is made by Opening the flap door. I have also found another use | for this box,—when notin use it forms a nice dust-proof cupboard for stowing away the ever-increasing photographic impediimenta. =———=10; Music Halls and the Lantern. Monstzur R. Pirrot, whose forte lies in per| sonating several prominent individuals, possesses the ability to so bedeck himself and change his countenance in a short space of time, that he is able in the course of half an hour to represent about a score of the public men of the day. This change was easily recognizable by those to whom the features of the party represented were’ known, but to the uninitiated the change, beyond seeming clever, represented nothing. So the lantern has been called into requisition, and Mr. Walter Tyler, Wraterloo-road, has added zest to this performance by so fitting one of his Helioscopic lanterns with a revolving plate containing sixteen photographs, so under control of the wt’stc that he is enabled by a mere touch to change the picture upon the screen, and then proceed to represent the individual depicted. ‘Chis apparatus is used with a transparent screen, and the image projected being little over life size, the audience are easily enabled to make a comparison. When a change is about to be made the artist steps behind the screen, rotates the disc containing the photographs—say to Mr. Gladstone —and with the aid ofa “collar,” and a few dexterous touches, assumes the | facial expression of the individual depicted on the screen. Of course suitable means are provided for the proper illumination of ce living panoplicum. Metamorphosic Effect Slides. By C. A. P. SETTING to one side the serious and instructive part that the optical lantern fulfils, there is also the comic department, a little of which agrees with old as well as young. As the juvenile can ‘hardly be expected to prepare slides for himself, the paternal element is looked up to in order to obtain certain slices that cannot be purchased ready prepared. The word metamorphosis means a change of form or shape, or a transformation. There are numerous subjects which appear in the comic Papers, illustrating in the course of half-a-dozen sketches how one picture may be transformed into another of quite a different nature. As an example, Punch, in an issue of two or ‘three weeks back, illustrated this change, the subject commencing as a four-wheeled cab, which developed in the course of a few sketches into a snail ; ' but subjects suchas are alluded to will readily suggest : themselves to those who are handy with the pencil. Having the serics of sketches made, the next most important part is that of colouring,asupon this depends ‘to a great extent successful and pleasing effects. The first picture, which represents the subject which is to undergo the change, should be coloured as desired, and then the last picture representing the series. Although these two may differ in every respect in colour as well as shape, it is necessary to establish harmony between them by so colouring the intervening ! slides that the contrasts between 1 and 2, 2 and 3, 3 and 4, and so on, will not be too violent. A dark colour on No. 1 should be considerably lightened in | No. 2, if it is to be entirely changed in No. 3; bit perhaps it will be found best in a series of, say, seven | pictures, to colour them in the following order—3, 7) 4: 2, 6, 3, 5. Slides of this nature are best depicted upon the j screen with either a bi-unial or triple lantern, and when the changes are made rapidly and smoothly have a very pleasing appearance. They may be i changed either backwards or forwards, with equally good effect. ‘0: ~The Lantern and Art Education. WRITING to our contemporary, 7%c Beacon (Chicago), Mr. Peter Dow says :— ‘Being an old lantern hand and slidemaker, I have long ago held strong views as to the valuable use of the lantern, for educational purposes, in science and art. These views were publicly and privately declared, as well as my opinion as to many lantern | exhibitions, projecting slides on the screen at therate of one to two hundredinan hour, or two at most. A glance ; Was got—some slides good, others indifferent or bad. . After sight, tumbled into their boxes and there an end. To most of them it may have been just what should i have happened, but to some quite otherwise. It has at limes reminded me of some agricultural exhibitions, where farmers showing their best specimens of, say, ‘turnips, bulb by bulb for a few seconds to the _ audience, and when done, pitched into a cart and off ‘ta the yard for consumption, nevermore to be seen ; .or like a glance at a landscape from a railway train going ata rate of fifty miles an hour. ‘“The lantern may be made one of the best aids to ; improve the eye and mind to correct knowledge of jtrueart. The eye requires to be educated as well as ;the mind. There are many hidden beauties in nature, as well as in art subjects, brought to light through the , lantern. Nothing used to give me greater pleasure ‘ than the opportunity to study a high class work, pro; jected on the screen by a pure limelight, where it could be examined in quietness, going over every i part perhaps foran hour or more, leaving an impresj Sion that even a hundred slides flashed across the screen in the same time could never impart. Anold ; photographic friend of mine, a great slidemaker and the best colourist of slides I have ever known, used oil colours, and was so thoroughly conversant with the quality of slide necessary to be penetrated by the ago, wD