3^4 



RECREATION. 



&t/ 2 inch plate, with bellows of red Russian 

 skiver sufficiently long to admit of focus- 

 ing. The splendid lens, in its mounting 

 of- brass, stands wide open, and a focal 

 plane shutter works automatically in front 

 of the plate. A handsome ground glass, 

 laid off in squares to assist in leveling, is 

 full plate size, set in the top of the camera 

 and protected by a hood of maroon calf- 

 skin. By means of a mirror the light rays 

 passing through the lens are deflected up- 

 ward and the picture is thrown full plate 

 size on the glass, where you can watch it 

 up to the instant of ' exposure. Then it 

 drops from sight the i-iooo part of a sec- 

 ond, or for whatever length of time you 

 have set your speed. The exposure being 

 made, the picture instantly flashes back 

 again. If it is still as you desired to take 

 it, you may be sure you have secured your 

 object without wasting 2 or 3 plates, as 

 one almost always does when the subject 

 is rare and there is no hope of another 

 chance at it. This camera, with so power- 

 ful a lens working so directly on the plate, 

 is primarily intended for moving objects, 

 and while it can be set for time, the 15 

 speed numbers range from 1-10 to 1-1000 

 part of a second. To make an exposure 

 5 operations are necessary: 



Focus; set the shutter at the speed and 

 opening you desire; wind up a curtain that 

 protects the plate in case you want to 

 carry the camera with the slide drawn; re- 

 move slide; and expose. The chief merit 

 of this camera is the celerity with which 

 exposures may be made. When you have 

 made one exposure, you may wind up the 

 curtain, insert the plate holder, remove the 

 slide, set the speed number at what you 

 will require, an you are ready. If you 

 don't want to take the J / 2 second required 

 to focus, you can hasten the operation still 

 further by setting the lens at universal 

 focus, leaving you nothing to do on the 

 appearance of a subject, but to level the 

 camera and expose. I recommend the 

 Reflex camera to the m*an who is afraid his 

 object will "be a mile away or die of old 

 age while he sets up a tripod, clamps and 

 opens camera, opens shutter, gets out fo- 

 cusing cloth, focuses, inserts plate holder., 

 sets shutter at time and arranges dia- 

 phragm, draws slide and is ready to ex- 

 pose." He can take his picture with a 

 Reflex, providing he reduces the opera- 

 tions to focusing and exposure, just as 

 quickly as he could sight and fire a gun. 

 With the powerful lens working directly 

 on the plate, this camera is guaranteed to 

 take moving objects in the shade and rain. 

 Two excellent examples of this work are 

 .uiven in the Reflex catalogue. I can see 

 only 2 objections to the Reflex. It is 

 "arge, but not so heavy as it looks. The 

 size is necessary if you use a plate large 



enough so your pictures do not need en- 

 larging to reproduce. It is unfortunate that 

 the release must be by hand. With a 

 camera so splendidly adapted to moving 

 objects, there ought to be a bulb release. 

 I feel like saying there must be. 



Was there ever another such a spring 

 and summer for cloud effects? Every time 

 you lift your eyes there are new wonders 

 and beauties in the heavens. You can se- 

 cure any effect; mountainous masses of 

 snowy white clouds; light, floating, lace- 

 like clouds; violet, pink and purple clouds; 

 heavy, black, banked-up storm clouds; and 

 thick, gray, evening clouds that the setting 

 sun rims with burnished gold. It is one 

 situation in which you may take all you 

 will, and impoverish nobody. 



I am not an advocate of patchwork 

 prints, but I realize there are times when 

 judiciously introduced clouds may save 

 a situation. Skies of paper white repre- 

 sent nothing, and if you have not 

 been able to secure a good atmospheric 

 effect all you can do is to print in clouds. 

 Cloud negatives are so easy to make there 

 is no reason why every one should not 

 have a lot in reserve. The supposition is 

 that to produce a good cloud negative you 

 must make a shutter exposure, well 

 stopped down, with a slow plate, isochro- 

 matic, of course, preferred, a color screen 

 and use much care and patience in devel- 

 oping. The fact is, some of the cleanest, 

 finest cloud negatives I have ever seen 

 were made with hand cameras, smallest 

 stop, 1-100 exposure, snap shot plates, and 

 were developed like any snap shot. 



The next American Salon of Photo- 

 graphic Art will be held at Philadelphia, 

 October 21 to November 18. All the 

 arrangements are completed, and applica- 

 tion blanks and full information will be fur- 

 nished by the Salon Committee. The jury 

 of selection consists of Mr. Alfred Steig- 

 litz, Mr. Frank Eugene, and Mrs. Ger- 

 trude Kasebier, of New York; Mr. Clar- 

 ence White, of Newark, Ohio, and Miss 

 Eva Lawrence Watscm, of Philadelphia. 

 In placing Miss Watson on the commit- 

 tee Philadelphia gives herself a member. 

 Chicago did not do that, and I think after- 

 ward, she was sorry; for Chicago with 

 her splendid Amateur Club was repre- 

 sented in but 4 instances, while New- 

 ark, Ohio, with Mr. White on the commit- 

 tee of selection, was represented in 3. It 

 pays to have a friend at court. 



My thanks are due Aimer Coe, of Chi- 

 cago, for one of the handsomest catalogues 

 of photographic materials I have seen 

 lately. I visited Mr. Coe's establishment 

 recently, and there is no finer line of 

 cameras and optical goods in the West 

 than he carries. This firm is the head- 



