66 



RECREATION. 



Will you kindly state in Recreation 

 whether I can get satisfactory negatives un- 

 der the following conditions : I have a No. 

 3 F. P. Kodak, for films, without plate at- 

 tachment. With this I wish to copy some 

 very artistic engravings, 10x12 inches. A 

 friend tells me to put the print on the 

 wall, place the Kodak about 8 feet distant 

 and draw out Kodak as far as it will ex- 

 tend ; but I should like your opinion in the 

 meantime. 



E. Worthington, Montreal, Can. 



ANSWER. 



To obtain good copies of the engravings 

 you speak of with your F. P. Kodak No. 3, 

 will require some careful experimenting. 

 There are a number of details to be ob- 

 served. 



Fasten the engraving on the wall so that 

 it will be perfectly flat and smooth. Ar- 

 range the lighting so it will be uniform 

 over the whole picture. Side light and top 

 light should be screened off, as they inten- 

 sify any grain or roughness of the engrav- 

 ing. Set your camera on a level with the 

 center of the engraving. See that the plane 

 of the film is absolutely parallel to the pic- 

 ture to be copied. To focus, remove the 

 back of your Kodak and fasten a strip of 

 paraffined paper, without folds or creases, 

 across the rollers in the same position the 

 film will occupy. Focus on this paper the 

 same as on the ground glass of an ordi- 

 nary camera. As the focusing must be 

 sharp, use a magnifying glass. If you pre- 

 fer you can have a piece of ground glass 

 cut to fit in the back of the camera instead 

 of the paper and hold it there by rubber 

 bands, but it is more difficult to fix the 

 glass in the proper plane than it is the 

 paraffined paper. After having focused 

 properly, remove the paper or glass, put 

 in a film and make your exposures. Of 

 course the camera should not be moved in 

 the least between the focusing and the ex- 

 posure. To get detail and sharpness stop 

 the 1 jns down small and give full exposure. 

 The development should be slow and not 

 forced in the least, in order to get detail 

 and clearness without choking. — Editor. 



During my vacation last summer I de- 

 cided to develop some plates as soon as 

 they were exposed, instead of waiting until 

 the end of my vacation to do the work. 

 Being away from home this was inconven- 

 ient, but I finally rigged up a place and 

 procured the necessary chemicals. The 

 weather was warm and one or 2 trials 

 showed that before the various manipula- 

 tions could be performed the gelatine film 

 became decidedly soft. Of course the use 

 of alum at once suggested itself, so I added 



a quantity to the hypo bath. This was ef- 

 ficient in hardening the film sufficiently, 

 but when I gave the negatives a careful 

 examination after washing, I found that 

 they were mottled and covered with patches 

 of uneven density, and, in fact, useless 

 for printing. 



I had developed several dozen plates be- 

 fore I discovered the trouble, and these ex- 

 posures, of course, should have been dupli- 

 cated, though in several instances this was 

 impossible. 



Though it is possible to use a fixing 

 bottle containing alum without this mottling, 

 as I have proved, still it would appear 

 safer to use the alum as a separate bath 

 after the plate is fixed and washed ; or, what 

 is much more convenient, use one of the 

 numerous fixing baths which contain in 

 addition to hypo, sulphite of soda, sulphur- 

 ic acid and chrome alum. When properly 

 prepared a fixing bath of this kind is effi- 

 cient in hardening the gelatine. It lasts a 

 long time without renewal, though there is 

 no economy in overworking it.- Lastly, it 

 works evenly on the film, never leaving 

 patches of uneven density. 



C. M. Whitney, Bayonne, N. J. 



WARMING THE DEVELOPER. 



The advantage of warming developer to 

 get out detail in under exposed plates has 

 lately been attracting notice. In one case a 

 jet of hot air is strongly advocated, this 

 being turned on to the particular spot where 

 detail hangs back most. A jet of steam 

 from a kettle is also suggested, but great 

 care would have to be exercised in its use 

 for fear of melting the gelatine film, espe- 

 cially when using metol, which has not the 

 tanning and hardening effect of pyrogallic 

 acid. Good as the 2 methods undoubtedly 

 are in expert hands, a still better plan 

 for the ordinary amateur is to dilute the de- 

 veloper slightly with hot soft water, so that, 

 the glass feels comfortably warm to the 

 hand. The effect of the developer on the 

 film will be best appreciated if one plate of 

 the same exposure is developed with cold 

 solution, and one with the warm liquid. In 

 the first case details will come up in a man- 

 ner little short of marvelous, while the 

 other will hang back an uncomfortably long 

 time, and finally come up hard and black, 

 short of detail and with a decided tendency 

 to fog. Another good way is to place the 

 developing dish in a tray a size larger, full 

 of common hard water just so hot that the 

 finger can be placed in it, and then rock the 

 2 trays steadily, adding fresh hot water as 

 the heat evaporates. This plan is to be pre- 

 ferred when hot soft water is not easily ob- 

 tainable. — The Queen. 



