138 THE BOOK OF THE LANTERN. 



cially necessary that he whose negatives are intended to 

 yield lantern-pictures of a uniform size should do so. The 

 beginner is, perhaps, not likely to see the advantage of this. 

 Let me point it out. Suppose that he has focussed the 

 image of some wayside cottage, and finds to his chagrin 

 that the building fills up all the proscribed circle, and that 

 the surrounding foliage and other accessories which really 

 make up the beauty of the scene, as presented to the eye, 

 are "far, far away." His natural impulse would be to 

 carry his camera farther from the object, but a blank wall 

 behind him forbids him to do this. But with a shorter 

 focus-lens, which should screw into the flange fitted on his 

 camera, the accident can be immediately remedied, and 

 he can proceed on his way rejoicing. This same difficulty 

 has occurred to me time after time, in the case of 

 country churches having small burial-grounds shut in on 

 every side by foliage. From no point can a view of the 

 building be focussed on the glass except by using a lens of 

 very short focus. Very often the conditions are reversed, 

 and the photographer finds himself before a scene with some 

 obstacle in front of him which forbids nearer approach, 

 and the image on the focussing- screen is quite insignificant. 

 Here the obvious course is to-screw off the front lens of his 

 combination, and to treat the back one as a long-focus 

 single lens. Of coarse, the camera must be extended to 

 double its normal length, and no amateur should possess a 

 camera that will not do so, should occasion require it. 



The most experienced workers often obtain a negative 

 full of brilliancy and delicate detail, but with a very thin 

 sky, a sky so thin that if a lantern-slide were taken from 

 it raw, so to speak, we should have in it a very good repre- 



