1 
Sportsmen’s Cameras.—II. 
The' hand camera as furnished by the makers 
is better adapted as an anchor than anything 
else. It has a < stif¥ leather handle, but no strap, 
and you are supposed to buy a sole leather 
case for it in order to utilize the shoulder strap. 
Have the camera itself fitted with loops for the 
strap. Then it will be taken along when other¬ 
wise you would leave it at camp. The sole 
leather case, good enough in traveling, is of no 
special use in camp. Roll the camera in a spare 
flannel shirt or sweater, or some waterproo'f 
article, and stow it in a duffle bag while en route. 
The handle is well enough for short strolls, but 
if you also carry a gun or fishing rod, you will 
need the shoulder strap. The reflecting camera 
is especially handy if its strap encircles your 
head and left arm, for in this position it can be 
swung round in front of you, opened and an 
exposure made very handily, while, for carry¬ 
ing, it is supported in the best possible position, 
leaving both hands free. 
For the reflecting camera purchase the best 
lens you can afford—a big one that will let lots 
of light in on the plate and reproduce nearby 
objects a decent size; with which a squirrel five 
feet away will cover an inch or more on the 
plate, and a flying bird will appear larger than a 
pinhead. Modern outdoor photography calls for 
one object on the plate, but that object must 
stand out plaiffly. Concentrating the power of 
the lens on a deer fifteen feet away will make 
all objects in the background look like a ghost 
picture of a pile of hailstones, but you will get 
what you are after—the deer—and you will be 
proud of him. If he does not see you, you can 
back off twenty paces or so and make another 
exposure. If the object is motionless you can 
decrease the lens opening—stop down—use a 
larger shutter opening and slower speed, and 
bring all details in the picture into sharp focus. 
Your deer will then be a part of the general 
scheme, not the whole thing. A lens of this 
sort is invaluable, and the greater your experi¬ 
ence with it the more you will prize it. 
Lenses have come to be what might be termed 
a medium of exchange, and it is always possible 
to purchase one at a moderate price in the 
camera exchanges. No matter what its trade or 
maker’s name is, it should be a doublet; that is, 
composed of two sets of lenses, each made up 
from two, three or four crystals cemented to¬ 
gether, or otherwise fixed, and held in metal 
cells that can be unscrewed bodily from the bar¬ 
rel. These two sets of lenses are termed the 
front and the back combination, and in some but 
not all lenses each combination may be used 
alone for certain work, though you will not go 
into that at first. What you want is a lens 
adapted to the special work you have planned to 
do, and one which will fit the camera selected. 
The merits of their lenses are all treated in de¬ 
tail by the several reputable manufacturers in 
handy booklets the supply men will give yofl on 
request. Much of this information is technical, 
but the dealer will explain it for you with say 
two lenses before him, so that you will grasp 
his meaning much more easily than if it were 
set down here, where space is not available. 
The ordinary rectilinear lens is only one step 
in advance of the cheap acromatic lens, hence if 
you wish to do serious work, the anastigmat is 
worth the additional cost. The rectilinear lenses 
are symmetrical doublets not corrected for astig¬ 
matism. In the anastigmats there are two well- 
known types. One, the unsymmetrical anastig¬ 
mat, is composed of two members whose ele¬ 
ments are dissimilar, both combinations there¬ 
fore being necessary to accomplish the end 
sought. In the symmetrical anastigmat the ele¬ 
ments in each combination are similar. The rear 
combination can be removed and the front com¬ 
bination employed in certain work. The rear 
combination used alone will give a magnified 
image. That is, an image reproduced an inch in 
length on the plate at fifty feet with the doublet, 
will appear the same size if made at ioo feet 
with the rear combination alone. At fifty feet 
with the latter combination the image will be two 
inches in length. 
The single or acromatic lens found in the 
cheapest cameras will make landscape pictures; 
so will a pinhole. But with this lens you will 
discover chromatic and spherical errors'. There¬ 
fore, you want a lens in which the errors have 
been corrected; which will render all details in 
correct proportion; which will make a clear 
picture of your dog at four feet, and a properly 
proportioned picture in whiqh there is a moun¬ 
tain on one side and a river valley on the other, 
with a robin perched on a bush nearby, all clearly 
defined. This calls for a tremendous range of 
usefulness in a lens, but such lenses are to be 
had at moderate cost, and they are worth the 
money. If you do not think so, try a cheap lens 
on a tall building and develop the plate. See 
how the lines trend, the angles and the curves 
that were not visible to your eyes. If you do 
not suffer from astigmatism, your eyes render 
these correctly, and so does a good lens. 
An illustration of this can be found in look¬ 
ing at a row of buildings through a reducing 
or minifying glass, both surfaces of which are 
concave. The image is sharply defined, the 
buildings are right side up, but they appear much 
wider at the top than at the bottom, and the 
vertical lines are curved away from the lens 
center. Look through a magnifying gla-ss, both 
surfaces of which are convex, at the same scene. 
The angles are not so much distorted, but the 
image, while less distinct, is upside down. Look 
again through both glasses held together. Again 
the image is erect though not so clear and the 
other errors are partially corrected, showing the 
need of a third element, to correct the remain¬ 
ing defects. Assembling two sets of three or 
four elements each so that definition be good, 
that every part of the plate be illuminated— 
covered, it is called—and that optically correct 
images be rendered, no matter how far away 
they may be, is a somewhat expensive propo¬ 
sition. The result is the modern anastigmat 
doublet lens, the one you want. Marvelous prog¬ 
ress has been made in recent years along this 
line of endeavor, and the lenses turned out are 
given fearful and wonderful names, but no mat¬ 
ter by whom made, each is a good one provided 
it be used in its proper sphere. 
The larger the lens, the greater the illumina¬ 
tion of the plate and the larger the image, while 
its inherent possibilities for speed are greater, 
all things being equal. The cheap single lens has 
a fixed focus, so that you can make a fairly 
clear picture with it at ten feet or a mile. There 
is no universal focus for the doublet. There is 
a point at which all objects in range will be fair¬ 
ly, well defined, and this is ofterr called its uni¬ 
versal focus, but the finer the lens, the more 
carefully it will have to be focused for all near¬ 
by objects. It is made to render the highest 
possible definition at every point at which it 
may be focused, up to a certain distance, say 
about ioo feet. Focused at So to ioo feet, every¬ 
thing will be sharply defined at and beyond that 
point. This is as it should be for your use. 
With it you can make an enlarged picture of a 
tiny flower or insect at a distance of three feet 
or less, then focus for another picture of your 
dog working on quail at twenty yards, and so 
on. You will not want the field this side of him 
sharply defined, so you tilt the camera slightly 
to omit part of it, and get what you are after, 
the dog and his immediate surroundings. That 
is picture making outdoors. 
The single lens has grave faults which can 
only be corrected by the addition of other lenses, 
all cemented or otherwise rigidly fixed in such 
position as to correct these faults. The light 
enters the lens in parallel rays. Those striking 
the center of the plate are fairly true, but those 
passing through the edges of the, single lens are 
foreshortened by it, and render a blurred image. 
In other words, if the plate presented a con¬ 
cave surface to the rays of light, the image 
would be theoretically true to nature. As this is 
impracticable, the astigmatism in the lens is cor¬ 
rected by the addition of other crystals, and the 
result is a flat field, a true rendition of the scene 
photographed. 
There are important exceptions to the literal 
truth of this statement, however. For example, 
if you wish to photograph a tall building with a 
camera not fitted with rising and falling front— 
the adjustment by means of which the lens board 
may be raised or lowered—and swing back—so 
that the plate can be tilted out of the vertical 
plane—your position should be in another build¬ 
ing just half as high as the one you wish to 
photograph. The distance from your lens to the 
street level of that building will then be equal 
to the distance from the lens to the roof, and 
careful focusing will result in a nice picture. 
For such work the ordinary reflecting camera 
is not adapted, but the illustration is necessary 
to your success, as you will frequently apply the 
principle in photography where tall trees and 
mountains appear, or even with a friend stand¬ 
ing before you. To make a picture of him you 
will naturally hold the camera about midway of 
his height, for if it is placed on the ground, it 
