THE CAMERA 



279 



were good, but now they are ninety- 

 eight out of a hundred. 



Your letter reads like the cross- 

 questioning of a lawyer in a court 

 room, but there are some things that 

 will not submit to a lawyer's inquisition, 

 and there are some things that are right- 

 even when the jury disagrees. 



By "old plug" I mean exactly the 

 sense in which that term is used and 

 applied to a horse. An "old plug" will 

 draw me for ten miles, and when I get 

 to the end of the journey, the journey 

 will have covered as many miles as if 

 I had been riding behind the finest 

 horse in the land. But, compare the 

 dissatisfaction of riding after the "old 

 plug" compared with the pleasure of 

 bowling along behind the good horse, 

 yet at the end of the ride Mr. Kellogg 



and Mr. jump out — one on each 



side of the road and pointing their 

 fingers at me say, "See, you got here 

 didn't you. I got here. Anybody else 

 can get here if you show them how to 

 ride after an 'old plug.' What's the 

 use of getting a better horse?" 



"Submit the proofs." I cannot. I 

 give it up. There are lots of things 

 that I should be puzzled to prove. I 

 could not prove the difference to one 

 who has never experienced the differ- 

 ence between satisfaction and dissatis- 

 faction, between joy and sorrow, be- 

 tween sunlight and darkness, but I 

 know these things, and you can learn 

 them by experience, and in no other 

 way. 



(From a Specialist in the Use of High Grade 

 Lenses.) 



The commercial photographer must 

 have a lens that will not distort straight 

 lines along the margins of his plate ; 

 otherwise his outfit is useless for archi- 

 tecture and other subjects requiring 

 a wide angle. Rectilinear lenses will 

 not cover a much larger plate than that 

 for which they are made, even when 

 stopped down. Anastigmat lenses of 

 moderate speed (which means nearly 

 twice as fast at full aperture as the rev 

 tilinear lens) will cover a plate more 

 than twice as large at F 32, as at F 7 : 

 so the same anastigmat is frequently 

 used on two or three cameras. The 



combined effect of the aberrations pre- 

 sent in rectilinear lenses is seen in a 

 slight haziness all over the image. This, 

 although not especially noticeable in 

 most amateur work, is enough to com- 

 pel engravers and others who make a 

 specialty of copying to use anastigma- 

 tic lenses exclusively. Thousands of 

 portrait photographers use large ex- 

 pensive anastigmats for most of their 

 work in preference to the regular por- 

 trait lens. In this case there is no gfain 

 in speed, but the curvature of field in the 

 portrait lens makes it unsuitable for 

 full length portraits and groups .But to 

 the average amateur, and especially to 

 the nature photographer, the greatest 

 advantage of the anastigmat is its speed. 

 The cheaper cameras are fitted with 

 lenses working at about F 16. Snap- 

 shots with these are possible only in 

 bright sunlight and even then there is 

 no detail in the shadows in landscapes. 

 The writer asserts this from experience 

 having taken along a $4 camera and 

 lens on a certain trip because it was 

 so much lighter than his reflecting mir- 

 ror camera fitted with an anastigmat. 

 The result was several dollars worth 

 of wasted films and much disappoint- 

 ment over lost opportunities. We 

 would not advise anyone over ten vears 

 old to begin with such a cheap outfit, if 

 he can possibly afford a better one, 

 as his difficulties, * even though he 

 takes the greatest care, will be increas- 

 ed a thousand-fold. 



The best class of rectilinear lenses 

 work at about F 8, which is a vast 

 improvement over the cheapest ones, 

 and it is true that for ordinary subjects 

 in a good light they may give results 

 which lead the inexpert to doubt the 

 superiority of anastigmats. But F 6.8, 

 a moderate speed for anastigmats, is 

 40 per cent faster than F 8, and this 40 

 per cent is just the difference between 



f* It is encouraging to note that this ex- 

 pert regards the anastigmat as easier to use. 

 It has been claimed by some camerists that 

 the difficulties (requiring great skill to over- 

 come) are with the anastigmat. Mr. Kellogg 

 is so skilled a camerist that he can get good 

 results even with a rectilinear. It is to be 



feared that he and Mr. do not realize 



how much is due to their skill in overcom- 

 ing rectilinear difficulties. — E. F. B.] 



