The Optical Magic Lantern Journal (December 1900)

The Optical Magic Lantern Journal and Photographic Enlarger. 159 The programme for children’s parties must consist of humorous slides. For adults and children something more solid must be submitted, in the proportion of 80 per cent. of humour and 20 per cent. of solid but interesting matter. an incandescent gas lantern may be used. It ig so easily connected, and has the advantage of being cleanly and not cumbersome. In remote places where there is no gas, Stocks’ paraffin oil lamp is recommended. The very best oil should always be obtained, and Stemp’s patent wicks are excellent. A 6 feet screen is large enough for parties. In schoolrooms 10 or 12 feet screens should be used. It will be necessary to add fresh slides as the business grows. The old stock can easily be exchanged for others, or sold at a slight loss and new purchased. The advantage of this business is that it grows annually. If the returns are not quite up to one’s expectation the first year, do not despair; experience and engagements will have been gained. With but little trouble or loss of time a nice sum may be netted annually—a thing not to be despised in these days of keen competition. , SQ ae Further Use of Reducers. By T. PERKINS. OUT yey AW. fi SAY aK é 5 N the November issue of the OpricaL \*~ Maeic Lantern Journay I showed SY how the two reducers—the Howard We yi, Parmer and the persulphate of ae ammonia—enable us to convert OF slides which after fixation seem of on no value, into really good trans parencies which will show well on the screen, but there is another method of using the xl resorted to with good effect. to describe. To illustrate a lecture I am preparing for the present season on ‘‘ Rouen and its Churches,” I desired to make a slide showing, on a large scale, the upper part of the central tower of the Abbey Church of St. Ouen, the ‘‘ Crown of Normandy ” as it issometimes called. The wealth of carving and the delicate detail of this tower could not be brought out by printing by contact from any quarter-plate or half-plate negative in my possession, so I resolved to make a contact slide This I will proceed temo “Ra In London and the provincial towns | ; blotting paper. | saturated ferridcyanide solution into a cup, , some object in the landscape. , , ' landscape, for instance, taken on a dull day. former reducer which may occasionally be from a 12 by 10 negative 1 had taken of the church. Unfortunately, however, this part of the negative was backed up by a cloud, effective enough when a paper print is made from the whole negative, but which in the slide rendered the background heavy. To use the ferridcyanide reducer generally would have had the effect, not only of removing the cloudy background, but also of destroying some of the ; general detail, so I devised another method of applying it. I removed the superfluous moisture from the slide when taker. from the washing water with fluffiess blotting paper, and mixed a somewhat strong solution of the reducer. This I applied locally with a camel hair brush and lightened to a certain extent portions of the sky to give the effect of clouds, but not satisfied with the result, I determined to introduce some still higher lights. The plate was well swilled, and the moisture was again sopped up with the I poured out a little of the then dipped the brush in the hyposulphite fixing ' bath, shook out the superfluous solution, thus bringing the brush to a fine point. Then I just dipped the point in the strong ferridcyanide, | and proceeded to outline the edges of the ciouds. The strong reducer at once removed the deposit from the film, so that the high lights were as clear as bare glass. As the surface of the plate was free from all superfluous moisture, and very little of the strong solution was used, the reducer did not run, and I was enabled to obtain lines of light clear yet free from hardness. It is manifest that this method of procedure may be adopted in many cases, sometimes to increase the brilliancy of any portion of a cloud already shown on the transparency, sometimes to introduce a point or line of light in a uniformly dark sky, or even to give a brilliant light to We may have a The sky may be uniformly dark and the general appearance of the slide heavy, but if a few horizontal bars of light are introduced above the horizon, we can give the effect of a view taken just after sunset, when the bright sky is seen through breaks in the clouds that hang about the west, and the effect will be true to nature, since the light from such a break in the clouds is not sufficiently strong to throw any shadows across the landscape portion of the picture. ; The slide maker who is possessed of some artistic taste and skill may by reducing with a