94 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[July i6, 1910. 
Sportsmen’s Cameras.—l. 
The camera of to-day is a useful thing, and 
there are few well-regulated households that do 
not possess at least one. This one may be used 
occasionally in the ordinary manner by the aver¬ 
age person, who leaves the developing and print¬ 
ing to professionals, with the result that he un¬ 
derrates the camera’s true value and shows but 
little improvement in his picture making. The 
exceptions are those who make a more or less 
thorough study of camera work in all its phases, 
and they are increasing in number as improved 
cameras appear, many of the improvements 
being due to the ingenuity of amateurs. 
The scope of photography has grown so wide 
that it is no longer possible to describe a typical 
camera and its possibilities. The only one of 
the old cameras which has survived and may be 
described as a type is the large view camera with 
its tripod, slow lens and glass plates. In all of 
its outshoots its cardinal principles are retained, 
but each of the modern cameras in its peculiar 
way differs radically from the old type. Some 
are better than it is for general work; others 
are mainly for special purposes, and those of the 
third class are chosen for their small size.and 
light weight. 
Because of the long array of cameras, each 
differing in some way from every other one, the 
prospective purchaser is dismayed when he at¬ 
tempts to make a choice, and the purpose of 
these notes is to give him some small assistance 
in the selection and use of his camera. 
The “vacation habit” is growing on us as a 
nation, and with the passing of the snow in 
spring we begin to plan summer or autumn jour¬ 
neys into distant regions. One wants to fish, an¬ 
other to shoot, a third to canoe, a fourth to 
search for specimens, a fifth merely to see all 
there is to be seen, but to have a sort of occu¬ 
pation while loafing. The camera has come to 
be a part of the equipment of nearly all those 
found in each of these classes. The tourist is 
satisfied with the small affair which makes 
pictures of the bird’s-eye order. Another obtains 
beautiful land and sea scapes with the cheapest 
sort of the old-fashioned view camera. The 
canoeist is generally satisfied with water and 
woods scenes and camp pictures snapped with 
the little box camera. 
These are all nice pictures to have in one's 
collection, but they are merely the surface gloss; 
the view through the small end of the telescope; 
long range effects. They do not satisfy one who 
searches with a microscope, who would retain 
the magnified image of the beetle, depict the 
hawk in full flight or preserve a record of a 
friend in the act of landing a leaping salmon. 
Catering to this demand, the camera, lens-and 
plate makers have all responded with improved 
articles, so that the sportsman now has a wide 
range to select from, each article said to be the 
fastest or best of its kind. 
It is difficult to write of photography so that 
the veriest tyro will understand, for there is so 
much of a purely technical nature which, for 
his benefit, must be excluded, yet is necessary 
to clearly explain what he wants to know. I 
have tried, however, to mention a few facts in 
simple language, merely to help beginners along, 
leaving them to absorb the technical information 
as they come to it in the usual way. They will 
then be in a position to fully understand the 
technical treatises found in text books on pho¬ 
tography. Of these there is a large number, 
while the supply houses furnish free booklets it 
will be well to read. 
A young man who is fairly well versed in 
shooting lore, but who has never gone very deep¬ 
ly into the technical details, purchased a small 
rifle with which to practice on week-end trips 
and the like. One day he saw a rifle in a show 
window, mounted with a telescope sight. As 
the rifle was a duplicate of his own, he was 
interested at once, and acting on impulse, de¬ 
cided to purchase one of the telescopes. He en¬ 
tered the shop, examined one of the glasses, and 
asked the price. “Thirty-nine dollars,” replied 
the salesman — an announcement that dumb¬ 
founded the would-be purchaser, ignorant as he 
then was of the cost of making an instrument 
of this sort, with its micrometer adjustments, its 
ture making. Hence it is more or less of a lottery. 
It is just like this with many would-be camera 
buyers. To them all cameras look alike, and a 
lens is a lens, nothing more. To educate them 
up to a proper appreciation of high grade articles 
is a slow process and often an expensive one to 
them, for in this as in other things there is 
nothing truer than the saying that by experience 
we learn. We cannot become discerning and 
critical buyers of cameras without first “going 
through the mill,” and the advice of an enthu¬ 
siast is often colored by the light of his mature 
experience. He may have followed ruts his 
pupil will not be prepared for or is not qualified 
to follow, and even that past master, the dealer, 
may not be a keen enough judge of human 
nature to forecast the buyer’s ability—or lack of 
it—to master the simple, yet difficult, art of pic¬ 
ture making. Hence it is more or less of a 
lottery. 
The dealer whose advice is asked is guided 
to a certain extent by the price the buyer, ex¬ 
pects to pay for an outfit. The latter has set 
a maximum price he is willing to pay, but lacks 
judgment born of experience, and may unwit¬ 
tingly practice false economy in his purchase, 
either from necessity or a conviction that the 
figure he has in mind is sufficient to meet his 
needs in outdoor photography. Therefore, in 
view of the fact that the intending buyer will 
keep in mind his limit price, though he may not 
give expression to it, I will first mention the best 
types of' cameras for the sportsman’s nqeds, their 
approximate cost and qualifications, following this 
with references to other useful types that cost 
less, and what may be accomplished with them. 
If I were writing for the benefit of the be¬ 
ginner -who merely wishes to make photography 
a pastime, I would say, purchase a good sym¬ 
metrical anastigmat doublet lens, a folding 
camera having long bellows, a strong tripod; 
make every picture with time exposure; use 
glass plates; and carefully study every step in 
exposure, development and printing, reading all 
authorities meanwhile. But as I am writing 
for the benefit of sportsmen to whom the camera 
is merely an adjunct to, and not the mainstay 
of, their outings, work of another sort takes 
first place in these notes. It should be borne 
in mind, in any event, that the lens is of prime 
importance, and the box secondary. You can 
work a good lens in a cigar box, but in these 
days this is not necessary. 
Let us, then, consider first a high grade camera 
and a lens for making pictures of game, canoe 
cruises, yacht races and the like, where motion 
must be overcome through the medium of rapid 
lens and shutter, and where the carrying of a 
tripod is out of the question. The outfit for this 
work is the .reflecting camera—known under 
various trade names—fitted with a first class 
doublet lens in a plain tube mounting called a 
barrel, with diaphragm between the lenses, so 
that the aperture through which the light enters 
the lens can be instantly changed from the 
largest stop, or full opening, to an aperture the 
size of a pinhead. In this type the light which 
enters the lens is reflected by means of a mirror 
on to a ground glass the exact size of the plate, 
and placed in the top of the box, so that you 
can see that your horizon line and vertical ob¬ 
jects are properly fixed, and you can see just 
what your picture will be like, how distinct and 
how large the principal object will be. This 
will often help you to avoid making a picture, 
for when you see just how it will look it may 
not please you until, if there is time, you have 
changed your position or other details, if these 
are under your control. The large reflected 
image also enables you to focus sharply up to 
the very instant of pressing the button. This 
alone is an immense advantage, for it obviates 
guess work. 
Most of these cameras are fitted with hoods so 
shaped as to shade the eyes, enabling you to 
focus sharply and to see the image distinctly. 
They are also equipped with focal plane or cur¬ 
tain shutters, adjustable in many ways. This 
shutter is the fastest form known. It is equip¬ 
ped with full-width slits of varying sizes from 
Y& to \/ 2 or more inches (or with a slit adjust¬ 
able to various sizes). At the moment of ex¬ 
posure the mirror is sprung up out of the path 
of light between lens and plate, and the curtain, 
actuated by a powerful spring, moves down a 
sufficient distance and stops there, the desired 
slit meanwhile passing over the plate, exposing 
all parts of it to the full strength of the light 
entering the lens. 
With a reflecting camera and high-grade lens 
it is possible to make time exposures and 
others through a wide range of speeds from a 
flap-and-drop exposure and the ordinary ones of 
1-5, 1-10 and 1-25 of a second, up to 1-1000 of a 
second, with all sorts of combinations between 
the fastest and the slowest exposures, so that 
every condition likely to be encountered afield 
can be met. I11 other words, you can place the 
camera on a stone or log, level it by means of 
a pebble or twig placed under it to offset the 
uneven surface, and make a long time exposure 
with the lens stopped down to a mere pinhole, 
and in this way secure a beautiful photograph 
of a mountain or river scene. Then, after chang¬ 
ing the plate or film and resetting the shutter, 
be prepared to make a sharp and clear picture 
of a flying bird or leaping trout, with the lens 
wide open and the curtain working at the rated 
speed 1/500 to 1/1000 of a second. You can use a 
tripod or not as you wish. You can even set it up 
before a woodchuck’s den with a thread attached 
to the release lever and leading through a screw- 
eye hastily inserted in a convenient limb or log, 
and back to your place of concealment. Excellent 
pictures have been made of aeroplanes flying 
fifty miles an hour while the photographer stood 
on the platform of a swaying train traveling at 
an equal rate of speed. In short, the reflecting 
camera is adapted to a wide range of usefulness. 
