﻿160 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Art. XYIII. — Notes on the Practice of Out-door Photography. 

 By W. T. L. Travers, F.L.S. 



[Eead before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 28ih October, 1871.] 



The following notes and suggestions on the practice of ont-door pliotogi-aphy 

 may possibly be useful to those who propose to follow this art, premising 

 that they are offered as the result of my own experience during the last 

 three or four years. 



In the first place it is essential that the operator should use the very 

 best instruments and chemicals, and above all things, as the most important 

 condition of success not only in this, but in all other branches of the art, 

 that he should observe the strictest cleanliness in all the ojDei-ations. After 

 trying several instruments, I ultimately selected, and confined myself to, 

 a Ross doublet, constructed for whole plates, but which covers, without the 

 least distortion and with pei-fect definition, as may be observed from my 

 pictures, ten by eight glass plates. I have always used Mawson's collodion, 

 "with the accompanying directions for development, and I have found this 

 important advantage fi-om adherence to one formula, that the operator 

 ascertains by experience the best length of time for exposure of the plates 

 under the most varying couditions of light and temperature. I may add, 

 also, that I always use the wet process, and for this purpose I have succeeded 

 in constructing portable apparatus of different, but in each case of simple 

 kinds, ■which I have fovmd no difficvilty in carrying safely over country in 

 ■which a pack-horse alone can travel, and over which, in many cases, it 

 required very well trained pack-horses to make their way at all. Indeed, 

 to those who are compelled to use pack-horses in the more rugged and 

 difficult parts of the Middle Island, for the purpose, for example, of supplying 

 gold-diggers and others with provisions, the sagacity and surefootedness of 

 these animals, under kind treatment, recall the anecdotes of the mule in 

 travelling through the mineral districts of Peru, or in crossing the snow- 

 capped passes of the Pyrenees. 



The advantage of using the wet process over every form of dry plate 

 is, that the operator knows at once whether he has obtained a satisfactory 

 picture or not, so that he can, by the use of a second or third plate if 

 necessary, correct errors or imperfections appearing on the fi.rst trial. It is, 

 in effect, for the purpose of describing the apparatus I use in connection 

 ■with the wet process that these notes are written, as I venture to think them 

 superior, in point of simplicity and general utility, to any which are to be 

 found described in treatises on photography. 



