.Pinhole ‘LENS’ – Secret of New Photo Miracles
WORKING with a tiny needle and a wafer-thin piece of sheet metal, William A. Wallace, New York photographer, has taken an amazing series of pictures of New York skyscrapers. From street level to topmost floor, he has registered every detail on his film with his camera placed just across the street from these architectural giants. An ordinary camera, similarly placed, would take in only the entrance way and the first two or three floors.
.First Photo Took 8 Hours Now – 20,000 in a Second
By H.C. DAVIS
IN 1830, it required eight hours to take a photograph. The other day, Baron C. Shiba’s remarkable camera recorded 20,000 pictures in one second (P.S.M., Nov. ’29, p. 31). In this dramatic advance, which has taken place within a single century, a Parisian painter of stage scenery and a magic cupboard in his home workshop laboratory played leading roles.
The painter was Louis Daguerre, who made photography practicable. Before his time, a few indifferent pictures had been made by the painfully slow process of exposing asphalt-covered plates all day and then treating them with solvents.
.Phonograph-Movie Machine Plays Tunes for Pictures
A COMBINATION phonograph, and motion-picture projector that plays appropriate music as the film is being shown has been invented by A. L. Edminson, of Los Angeles, Calif. After eight years of experiment he has combined the two machines into a cabinet slightly larger than that of the standard phonograph. The upper part contains the phonograph; the lower a motion-picture projector.
The films are exhibited on a silk screen, measuring 18 by 22 inches, which is placed behind the doors of the sounding-box. It is claimed that the pictures are projected clearly enough to be seen by an audience 40 feet away.
.NATURALIST, POSING AS CACTUS, SNAPS DESERT ANIMALS
No Sherlock Holmes of fiction ever disguised himself with more versatility than Arthur N. Pack, president of the American Nature Association. When this well-known naturalist wants to approach timid animals in their native haunts, without frightening them out of range of his camera, he dons an appropriate costume.
A disguise resembling a giant desert cactus was his creation during a recent expedition through the desert wastes of Arizona along the Mexican border, with William L. and Irene Finley, noted naturalists. Clad thus, shy desert animals walked up to him to be photographed.
Mountain goats, among the most difficult of wild animals to approach, were successfully photographed by Pack. He fashioned for himself a white goat costume with horns and long whiskers.
Pack’s use of disguises was suggested by natives of central Africa who creep through the tall grass, wearing a wooden headdress carved to resemble a bird. Pretending to stop and peck, from time to time, the hunter can approach birds and other game dose enough to capture them.
.He Made Sky Mapping a Big Business
High above the broken floor of the Rio Grande River basin, an airplane growls monotonously over 32,000 square miles, each click of its Cyclopean camera bringing nearer to completion the largest photographic mapping project ever undertaken in the United States.
EXACTING and tedious is the scientific job of gathering up 32,000 square miles and literally pasting them in your hat. Only one man is utterly capable and he is the fellow who supervises the shooting and assembling of this vast mosaic.
.Camera Worn Like Wrist Watch Loads Thirty Six Pictures
Latest in the line of miniature cameras is a tiny affair worn like a wrist watch. Sighted easily by raising the wrist to eye level, it carries a load of thirty-six exposures despite its diminutive size. It has an f4.5 lens and a focusing scale graduating from one foot to infinity.
.Flashlights Reveal Frog Monsters
Camera Hunters Find Strange Reptiles EXTRAORDINARY flashlight photographs of strange barking and climbing frogs that inhabit the coral island of Santo Domingo in the West Indies form part of a valuable collection of reptilian life recently gathered for the American Museum of Natural History by Dr. and Mrs. G. Kingsley Noble.In one of the most unusual scientific expeditions ever undertaken, the explorers used automatic flashlights to photograph frogs in their native haunts. Months of preparatory labor were spent in perfecting this method of photography, which Doctor Noble first practised in obtaining pictures of frogs that infest New Jersey meadows.
Anybody have a similar shot from today?
.NEW YORK SKYLINE NOW AND FIFTY YEARS AGO
Nearly half a century lies between the two views of New York City’s skyline shown in the pictures above. The two photographs were taken from the same point—a tower of the famous Brooklyn Bridge. The upper one was made only the other day and the lower one is over forty-seven years old.
.BANKS PROTECTED BY CAMERA
AN AUTOMATIC movie camera which is expected to play a big part in the detection of criminals has been invented by John E. Seebold of Los Angeles. The camera is hidden inside an automatic telephone box, where it is invisible and silent. The device will be installed in banks and other places likely to be visited by criminals, and in case of robbery the cashier can set the hidden camera going by pressing a button, getting a clear action picture of the holdup men. Pictures have been taken at a distance of 85 feet, the subjects being unaware of the camera’s presence.
.COLOR PRINTING by the yard
A NEW assembly-line technique is turning out as many as 300 prints an hour from Kodachrome and Ansco transparencies, providing seven-day service to the growing army of color photographers. The speedy apparatus that makes this possible has recently been put to work by Pavelle Color, Inc., at its plant in New York City. Electronic controls in the enlarging machines make them function almost automatically in blowing up 35-mm. transparencies to 3 by 4-1/2-inch “Printon” prints.
