Century-Old Camera Snaps Modern Scenes
By EDWIN TEALE
COVERED with dust and dumped higgledy-piggledy into a box of odds and ends, one of the first cameras ever used in the United States was discovered recently in a New Jersey attic. Almost 100 years ago, it produced some of the first “tintypes” seen in this country.
To commemorate the one hundredth birthday of photography, which the world is celebrating this year, Robert N. Dennis, a New York amateur, bought and renovated the ancient daguerreotype machine. Through its lens, he is photographing skyscrapers and other modern wonders undreamed of in the days of Louis Daguerre.
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We’ve seen these pigeons before. This article also has examples of the pictures they took.
Carrier Pigeons Turn Cameramen
SOMETHING entirely new in aerial photography has been developed in Munich, Germany. In place of trained photographers carried aloft in airplanes or observation balloons, camera equipped pigeons are released to fly over the object to be photographed.
The pigeons do not fly at random. Months of training and selection are required before a few birds are chosen for camera work. Then their flights in each direction are timed so that the trainer knows exactly at what time the bird will be over a certain point. It is then a simple matter to time the camera to expose the film at the point desired.
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Science Takes the Measure of Man
Strange instruments are pointing the way to the shapes of tomorrow—from hats to space cabins
By S. David Pursglove
FURNITURE for your future house, seats for next year’s cars, desks for new schools—all are being designed by scientists who specialize in studying man’s past. The Air Force is leading the way and business and industry are following close behind—in using anthropology to make clothing fit better, seats more comfortable and working conditions safer and more efficient. The Air Force started using anthropology, the science that led to reconstruction of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man, to design pressure suits and other space-age clothing and equipment.
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How Photographic Film Is Made
“Mustard” plants and chemical “noodles” contain the elements that must be put into film base and emulsion before your camera can do its work.
PHOTOGRAPHY has wedged its way into our daily lives so securely that we do not view it with the alarm and mysicism people did when Daguerre announced the first successful photographic process one hundred years ago, in 1839. We have come to expect and accept the seemingly impossible with little exhibition of surprise or enthusiasm. This is, in many ways, unfortunate, for the real joy of science comes from knowing her intimately—knowing how she can make so few characters play so many parts, disguised outwardly but working inwardly to the same objective.
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Synchronizing Photo Flash Lamp With a Camera Shutter
THE difficulty of synchronizing the flare of a photo flash lamp with the click of the shutter is frequently encountered by enthusiasts of the camera art. There’s a way to overcome this difficulty, however, and that is by constructing the little gadget shown in the accompanying photo.
The contrivance consists of a flat type pocket flashlight battery mounted between two pieces of wood, on the top of which is affixed a common porcelain socket to hold the photo flash lamp.
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If this had been in Mechanix Illustrated they definitely would have made a joke usingthe two meanings of the word hide. Popular Science is so stuffy!
HIDE CAMERA IN COW’S SKIN
Stretched over wires and padding, a cow’s skin is now part of the photographic equipment of the California State Fish and Game Commission. The lens of a camera is poked through a hole in the skin, and pictures of wild animals, otherwise unobtainable, are taken.
cigarette-case camera
by Max Spitalny
YOU’VE said a hundred times, “Oh if I only had a camera with me!” Raymond La Rose, veteran Hollywood cameraman and incurable inventor, said it too. He said it often. He said it so often he got tired of saying it: he got busy. He ended by turning out a snapshot camera hardly larger than a cigarette case—so small one can carry it ready but unnoticed in the pocket at all times, and so well designed that it takes excellent pictures.
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This is pretty awesome. Anyone know if it’s still around?
Periscope House
YOU walk across the green-lawned, palm-hemmed park overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica, California, and climb the stairs to the little house in the picture above. Your party gathers around a circular rail in the center, the door is closed and at first all is darkness.
Then, slowly and as if by magic, the scene you left outdoors a few minutes before appears on the revolvable table in front of you. Colors are perfectly natural. Strollers in the park move about, quite oblivious to their observers.
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