214 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 6, 1910. 
mountain men who visit seashore resorts for 
the first time, and vice versa. 
I have dwelt at some length on the equipment 
of reflecting cameras because of the importance 
of the relation of one to the other. Now as to 
probable cost: These cameras are somewhat 
complicated and their parts require careful ad¬ 
justment, hence they are more costly than the 
folding cameras; and then they have not been 
on the market long, and great efforts are made 
to keep the prices up. Not that the reflecting 
camera is a new idea. It has been on the 
European market fifteen years at least. In the 
winter of 1896-7 a friend of mine made the first 
one I had ever seen. He said at that time that 
he was its inventor, but after I had shown him 
an illustration of the foreign reflecting camera, 
clipped from an advertisement that had been 
running for months in a London paper, he 
hedged enough to admit that while the idea was 
not his, he had improved on it. At any rate his 
reflecting camera was an excellent one. He had 
made it from mahogany and brass and used in 
it an excellent little French lens. His pictures 
were fine and some of them were published in 
Forest and Stream years ago. But the curtain 
shutter was actuated by a heavy spring which 
made so much noise that the first tirne I was 
permitted to try the camera I came near drop¬ 
ping it out of a canoe into salt water. There 
was a push button, and when this had been 
pressed there was a squeak, a scrape and a 
bang, rfnd the image was fixed on the plate by 
main strength, as it seemed. 
Remembering these things, it was with sur¬ 
prise that I learned, two^ or three years later, 
that the reflecting camera was ‘‘a new and won¬ 
derful invention!” That was at the time the 
first reflecting camera was placed on the Ameri¬ 
can market. Shortly afterward several firms 
adopted the principle, made improvements and 
flooded the market with boxes of all sorts and 
sizes. Because these were sold without lenses 
there w'as a good deal of exchanging, with the 
result that the high prices demanded for new 
boxes caused amateurs to purchase used cameras 
turned in at the supply houses. The majority 
of these were as good as new, and to-day the 
exchanges sell the better models as fast as they 
are received, and at prices far below those asked 
for new boxes. At the same time these houses 
keep a large stock of lenses, and the buyer can 
equip himself there at a reasonable outlay. 
The best 3 * 4 * 4 f 4 and 3 % X 5 T A reflecting 
cameras sell without lenses for $40 to $50 to¬ 
day, or about one-third less than the list price 
for new boxes; others as low as $20, perfectly 
good, but with plainer finish and fittings. The 
4x5 with reversible or revolving back, and with 
long bellows, average around $50; with short 
bellows and fixed back, about the same as the 
smaller sizes. These are all dependable cameras. 
Lenses of proper focal length cost at the ex¬ 
changes nearly as much as the boxes. You can 
often pick up a high grade anastigmat for $20 
to $30 or even less if you are content with one 
made three or four years ago. Lenses, like 
women’s hats, go out of style quickly, the makers 
each year claiming that their newest line is bet¬ 
ter than any previously made. New names are 
applied to every new issue, and there are de¬ 
cided improvements, but if your lens is a good 
one, do not worry if you fail to find it listed in 
next year’ a catalogues, but if you want to do 
the best possible work, stick to it like a leech 
once you have gotten acquainted with it. 
Big lenses are the rule now for all work 
where rapidity is demanded, as in newspaper 
work. Newspaper photographers must do their 
work, rain or shine, and as a rule their pictures 
call for a single object, as an individual in ac¬ 
tion. As they cannot always get close to him, 
they depend on obtaining a large image through 
the medium of a lens as big as your fist, which 
will work in very poor light and in rain or 
snow. 
Too many amateurs have been carried away 
with this idea, or rather they follow it to ex¬ 
tremes. The result is a vast number of good 
small lenses in the exchanges. Hence, if your 
box is a 3 Ya x 4 1 A, 314 * 5/4 or 4*5, you have a 
wide range of choice of good 5x7 lenses that 
will be just right for general work. For all¬ 
round use this size is large enough for the 
boxes just mentioned; in fact, while the big 
lenses are not what the average person needs, 
it is always best to have a lens that will cover 
a plate one size larger than the one you use. 
By this is meant that with the lens open every 
part of your plate will be exposed to the full 
strength of the light entering the lens, detail 
being as sharp at the extreme corners as in the 
center. The field of the lens at its fullest open¬ 
ing must be wider than the diagonal of the plate. 
Because your box has a focal plane or curtain 
shutter, the lens you select will cost less than 
if you intended to use it in a folding camera. 
Its cells will be mounted in a plain tube called 
a barrel, with iris diaphragm, collar and flange, 
ready to be mounted on the lens board with 
three small wood screws. 
For the naturalist there are several reflecting 
cameras that are adapted to long range and tele¬ 
photo work, but both the boxes and the lenses 
are costly and they are too large for the sports¬ 
man’s use unless picture making is his hobby. 
The reflecting principle has recently been fol¬ 
lowed in the manufacture of low priced cameras, 
but while these may satisfy a certain class, their 
range of usefulness is restricted and serious 
amateurs prefer to pay a little more money and 
get better outfits. 
If the smaller reflecting cameras are too bulky 
and heavy for your use, there are several small 
folding cameras that will do fair work. These 
are about the size of an ordinary book, have 
rounded ends, come in a leather case with shoul¬ 
der strap, and weigh \y 2 pounds and upward, 
according to size. They are equipped with recti¬ 
linear lens and adjustable shutter, brilliant view 
finder and roll films. Time and instantaneous ex¬ 
posures are possible, but the limit of speed of the 
shutter is around 1/50 of a second, though it 
is rated twice as high. The price is $15 to $25, 
and for occasional use where speed and perfect 
pictures are not demanded, they give surprising¬ 
ly good results. Fit one of them with a good 
anastigmat lens and a shutter that will work 
close up to 1/100 of a second, doubling the cost 
meanwhile, and you have an excellent little out¬ 
fit for fishing and shooting trips. 
One temptation which the sportsman should 
avoid will be found in the so-called pocket 
camera. Theoretically such an outfit would be 
ideal; practically it is moonshine. Not that 
there are no good cameras small enough to go 
in a coat pocket, for a number of them can be 
carried in this way. I do not refer to them, 
but to the condensed affairs that go by this 
designation. The best you can do with them 
is to carry the empty camera in one pocket and 
the film pack or plateholders—often single—in 
another. One trial is generally enough. If you 
wish to prove the contrary, carry a pound of 
lead in your coat pocket for a day and be con¬ 
vinced, for that is just what the pocket camera 
is like—a solid, hard lump that grows heavier 
every hour. Neither is it handy nor a very good 
one in any respect. 
The folding film camera in its leather case 
is far better, for it can be carried over or under 
the coat, the shoulder strap supporting the weight 
in a much more satisfactory manner. There is, 
too, sufficient space in it for better lens and 
shutter than those that come with it regularly, 
whereas the lens-and-shutter space in the pocket 
camera is generally too small for any improve¬ 
ment. Perry D. Frazer. 
Dove Season Opens. 
Los Angeles, Cal., July 20 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: The opening of the dove and deer sea¬ 
son, July 15, found an army of hunters afield, 
although the weather was unusually hot and 
conditions therefore none too pleasant. All the 
places generally favored of doves in other years 
were well patronized, and ante-season predic¬ 
tions of plenty of sport were borne out, but gun¬ 
ners reported the flights very late owing to the 
heat, a number quitting before the shooting 
really began. 
The bags showed a large proportion of young 
birds, from one-half to two-thirds being of this 
season’s hatching. Considerable difference in the 
size and plumage of the young indicates that 
they were the fruit of two hatchings at least. 
The food supply was abundant, as might have 
been foreseen before the opening. 
Many gunners took their first outing Sunday, 
and in the country adjacent to Los Angeles the 
almost continual shooting reminded one of a 
bombardment. It was a hot, and for this climate, 
unusually oppressive day owing to the humidity. 
As was the case on the first day, this made the 
flights late, but many came home with the twenty 
birds permitted by law. 
The river bed and various grain fields near 
town were thronged Sunday. All along the 
splendid interurban electric car system were 
scattered hunters. Those fortunate enough to 
command seats in automobiles went on long 
jaunts. 
Reports from all the outlying districts in 
Southern California tell of an abundance of 
doves this year, and people in general are inclined 
to give the excellent game laws in force the 
last few years full credit for the improvement. 
The result is to create a very favorable senti¬ 
ment regarding game laws in general. 
Deer hunters found climbing the mountains 
after bucks well nigh impossible, although a num¬ 
ber were brought in, killed early in the morning. 
It was trying weather for venison, and scant 
satisfaction attaches to killing a nice buck only 
to be unable to get him out without the meat 
going bad. Most of the veteran deer hunters 
have called off their trips for the time being, and 
seasoned sportsmen have decided to wait until 
September when the rush will be over, the nights 
cold and deer hunting altogether more enjoyable 
than in mid-summer. Edwin L. Hedderly. 
