2204 Journal of Applied Microscopy 



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I Journal of 



Applied Microscopy 



and 



Laboratory Methods 



Edited by L. B. ELLIOTT. 



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Laboratory workers are becoming more and more alive to the possibilities 

 of photography as a practical assistant in demonstration, record, and investiga- 

 tion work. 



The chief objection to photography for laboratory purposes has been based 

 upon the inaccuracy and undeveloped condition of apparatus which has been at 

 the disposal of laboratory workers, and of the lack of processes easily workable 

 in the laboratory for getting the desired results. 



The recent efforts of the manufacturers of optical apparatus in all lines, in 

 the production of improved types of photomicrographic cameras, improved 

 lenses for photomicrographic work, and more suitable projection instruments 

 for using the results of photography in the lecture room, in the form of lantern 

 slides, has given a great impetus to laboratory photography in all its branches. 

 More attention is now being given to the photographing of what may be termed 

 macroscopic objects, that is, objects which while too large for observation under 

 the microscope in the ordinary way, are still small enough to require at least a 

 pocket magnifier for their examination, and it is for photography in this class of 

 objects that there is a wide field for improvement in apparatus generally, and in 

 the methods of photographing. Our knowledge of many familiar objects as, 

 for example, the house-fly, would be immensely enhanced by the ability to make 

 photographs of ten, fifteen, or twenty diameters enlargement with facility, photo- 

 graphs which would represent the creatures as they really are instead of the 

 flattened out macerated silhouettes of their external coverings usually found in 

 the collections of microscopists under the title of prepared insects. 



Photographs by transmitted light are necessary for many things, but there is 

 an immense and unexplored field in the photographing, with medium and low 

 powers, of transparent as well as opaque objects by reflected light. With the 

 proper methods of illumination and lenses of proper foci and aperture, it is pos- 

 sible to obtain just as good and natural looking photographs of these small 

 things as it is of large objects. 



The biological laboratory has only in recent years had such a luxury as a 

 photographic dark-room. What is needed quite as much for modern photo- 

 graphic work in the laboratory is a photographing room where the light conditions 

 can be controlled, and where the electric arc light can be used for artificial 

 illumination of objects when desired, so that when objects of any kind are to be 

 photographed by reflected light, they can be lit in the proper manner to bring 

 out the form of the object and its detail so as to give it a natural appearance. 

 How many times we see photographs of such objects as fossils, shells, plants, 

 etc., which, while having all the detail which one could desire, are yet as flat 

 and unlike the objects themselves as anything could well be. 



While it may be possible to make properly lighted pictures, having full de- 

 tail, of natural objects without any special adaptations, the time saved, and the 

 superior results obtained, if a studio room could be had in the laboratories, would 

 amply repay the extra expense. In the new laboratories which are being planned, 

 the biologist should, by all means, insist upon a properly located photographing 

 room in which both macroscopic and microscopic photography can be done, and 

 adjacent to it a well and properly equipped dark-room. Such an addition will 

 do more toward profitable demonstration in the institution than the employment 

 of an extra instructor or demonstrator could do, and at a far less expense. 



