AN IDEAL OUTFIT. 



GEO. E. MOULTHROPE. 



Ten years ago I first tried to decide what 

 was the best camera. At that time ama- 

 teur photography was nearer its infancy 

 than it is to-day. One could not buy in 

 almost any store on the street the latest 

 developers or some new brand of paper. 

 It was only in the larger cities that one 

 could find what he might wish in the line 

 of high-grade outfits. To find such I had 

 to visit New York, where, of E. & H. T. 

 Anthony, I bought one of the best 8 x 10 

 outfits they had in stock. 



I soon found I had started on too large 



the box series, and, having no place to put 

 them, lay them on the ground where some- 

 one walks on one or 2 of them, breaking 

 the plates; or the sun warps the slides so 

 badly that when you draw one to make an 

 exposure nothing will induce it to enter 

 the holder again. 



Since buying my first 8 x 10 outfit, I 

 have owned 12 high grade cameras of the 

 leading makes, all 5x7 except 3 4x5's, 

 one of which I won in the Eastman con- 

 test, held at the Academy of Design, New 

 York, January, 1898. I took eleventh place 



THE RESULT OF A CLOUD BURST. 



PHOTO BY GEO. E. MOULTHROPE. 



a scale. With dry plates nearly double 

 their present price and other materials cor- 

 respondingly high, I found amateur pho- 

 tography with an 8 x 10 outfit slightly ex- 

 pensive. If you do not possess a block of 

 Standard Oil or Ice Trust stock don't buy 

 an 8x10 outfit for your first one; 5x7 is 

 the size. Get one of the Cycle style, which 

 has a leather carrying case, holding the 

 camera in one end and the plate holders 

 in the other. Then you don't have to take 

 out half a dozen plate holders every time 

 you use the ground glass, as in case of 



in a contest of 130 prizes and 25,000 entries, 

 from negatives made in all parts of the 

 world. 



Last spring, on looking through my 

 March number of Recreation, I opened 

 to the amateur photography department, 

 and the first thing that caught my eye was 

 the ad, "Wizard Cameras are the best." 



Pretty foxy, I thought, to put their ad 

 in so conspicuous a place, and I could not 

 get over wondering if the Wizard was any 

 better than many of the outfits I, had 

 owned. 



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