January 2, 1909. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
3 
Photography for Garden Liovers. 
By the Rev. F. C. Lambert, M.A., F.R.P.S. 
(Continued from -page J4.0, vol. xxv.J 
IX.—LARGE PICTURES OF SMALL OBJECTS. 
)f course, many of my readers will 
5 - that there is nothing in this subject 
aall one need do is to make an enlarged 
pnt from a small negative. But some 
0 them may not possess any form of 
e arging apparatus, or may not care to 
b at the extra trouble which such a 
peedure involves. Then again there 
a times when it is a convenience to see 
0 the ground glass an enlarged picture 
0 the object under study before any 
pitography is commenced. This may 
s e time by preventing one expending 
\rk on a subject which when thus seen 
irecognised as unsuitable for this treat- 
Lnt. Digressing for a moment I may 
s that we shall soon find by actual 
eierience that the best subjects for such 
elect enlargement are those which are 
f.rly flat, i.e., their various parts more 
and it is to this that I invite the thrifty 
minded reader's attention as it means 
only an outlay of something less than 
a shilling. In a word the method—which 
is old enough to be called new—consists 
in altering (temporarily of course) the 
focal length of our ordinarily used lens 
into a shorter focal length and thus en¬ 
abling us to get a larger scale image 
with the same bellows range of camera. 
The camera selected for use in this case 
was a hand-camera of the folding pocket 
type. The maximum distance ‘ available 
between lens and plate was only 7 inches. 
Using the lens supplied with this camera 
and the 'maximum bellows range of 7 
inches, the largest size of image thus 
obtainable is shown in Fig. 1. The speci¬ 
men is a seeding spike of grass plucked 
Fig. 5. 
up from a gravel path. The end of the 
stalk is wrapped round with a slip of 
blotting paper and then is inserted in one 
of the test tubes described on page 685, 
October 31, 1908, Fig. 1, A and B. To 
enable the reader to get some idea of the 
actual size of this small object I set up 
on edge (resting against two pins) a penny 
piece. This then shows us the limit of 
this lens and camera. 
Now to shorten the focal length of the 
lens, what we have to do is add to it a 
suitable convex lens. In this case I se¬ 
lected an uncorrected spectacle lens of 
(approximately) 6 inches focal length. 
This lens in its rough edge state cost 
only sixpence, bought from a practical 
spectacle maker. In fact, these rough 
lenses are commonly called and sold as 
“spectacle lenses.” Now to hold this 
close up to and in front of the usual 
lens I employed a piece of springy brass 
wire. This was first bent round a wooden 
office rule to give it the circle twist. Then 
‘he two ends were turned up so as to form 
Fig. 1. 
oless in one plant so that they may all 
!< chiefly) come at about the same dis- 
t.ce from the lens. 
low I dare say the reader knows that 
wh the same camera and same size of 
ngative, he can get different sizes of 
ptures of the same object and also that 
tls variation of scale can be obtained 
ii various ways. First—because simplest 
-ye can vary the size of the image by 
p.cing the camera at different distances 
f:m the subject, i.e., the nearer the 
cnera is to the subject the larger the 
sfle of the picture. But by approaching 
tl camera to the subject we also have 
t‘ increase the lens-to-plate distance and 
p sently we arrive at a limit, viz., when 
tl camera bellows is extended as far as 
itlvill go. 
another method of getting pictures of 
dering scale is by using lenses of differ- 
e focal length. This sounds rather a 
1 midable plan inasmuch as a battery 
01 lenses will cost several pounds. 
Tere is yet a way out of this difficutly 
holders for this spectacle lens. The cir¬ 
cular bend of the wire, is easily sprung 
off or on to the front end of the lens 
tube. In Fig. 2 we see how the springy 
brass wire, A, B, makes two turns round 
the ruler R. 
In Fig. 3 we see the two ends of the 
wire are turned up to form hooks. 
In Fig. 4 we see the wire sprung on to 
the tube or hood H of the lens, while the 
spectacle lens L rests in the two hooked 
ends of the wire C and D. They hold 
this supplementary lens — as we may call 
it--close up against the front end of the 
lens tube. The original lens has a focal 
length of about 5^ inches, but by this 
supplementary lens just added we get a 
lens system of just under 3 inches focal 
length. This enables us to bring up our 
lens to just about 5 inches between the 
lens and specimen, so that we get an 
image on the ground plan a trifle over 
life size. The result of our experiment 
is shown in Fig. 5. 
If now we compare the sizes of the 
image in Figs. 1 and 5 we shall find that 
this supplementary lens has enabled us 
to get a magnification of about six dia¬ 
meters. We have to bear in mind that 
we are using our lenses under somewhat 
peculiar conditions; therefore some cau¬ 
tion may be needed regarding the stop 
numbers. I do not suppose my readers 
want to be bothered with a lot of mathe¬ 
matics, so I will just simply explain the 
easiest way to get at the required expos¬ 
ure. 
First of all let me say that when using 
this supplementary lens it will be neces¬ 
sary to use a small stop, say that marked 
as f/32, in the original lens, but this is 
no longer f/32 with the new arrangement. 
We need not linger to explain why a 
small stop becomes necessary, but a 
glance on the ground glass will show that 
it is necessary if we are to get anything 
like fairly good general sharpness of 
origination. 
To simplify matters I shall suppose 
that two negatives are about to be made. 
The small scale one with the original 
