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. Read the rest of this entry »

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.
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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.
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That grizzly bear chair is one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen.

Eye-Stoppers

QUAFFER EXTRAORDINARY is Auguste Maffrey, French beer-drinking champ, who slurps up about 12 quarts of suds in 52 minutes from king-sized vat. Any challengers?

GRIZZLY-BEAR chair presented to President Andrew Johnson in 1865 won’t take a chunk from your hide when you sit down, but only a man with steady nerves can relax in it

TIBETAN GHOST TRAP imprisons visitors from space, it says here. Trap at rear is for demons who bring illness.
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CAMERA TAKES 60,000 PICTURES A SECOND

Many believed that the ultimate limit in high-speed photography had been reached when Baron Shiba, Japanese engineer, announced not long ago a camera that could take 40,500 pictures a second (P.S.M., May ‘31, p. 143). Now, however, the Japanese Institute of Aeronautical Research at Tokyo has installed an amazing camera that can take as many as 60,000 photographs in a single second’s time. It will be used to film the movement of air at high speed around models of airplane wings and struts. Read the rest of this entry »

200-Mile Air Camera
ALONG distance aerial camera perfected by Captain A. W. Stevens of the U. S. Army Air Service has proved itself capable of taking photographs from a distance of 200 miles. The secret of the amazing performance of the camera lies in the fact that it is equipped with a dense red filter that cuts through the haze which usually clouds long distance pictures. The above photo of New York shows how the smoke which always hangs over a large city is pierced.

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GIANT Pictures From Pigmy Prints

By H.H. Slawson

LIKE all big things that have a small beginning, the making of giant photomurals was just a little idea back in 1927, when Mrs. C. B. Goodspeed of Chicago walked into the photo studio of Kaufmann & Fabry. She carried with her a 4×5 negative of India’s famed Taj Mahal and explained to the skeptical Messrs. Kaufmann & Fabry that her idea was to have a picture large enough to cover the entire wall of an alcove in her home.

“We told her at once,” said Arthur E. Clason, the veteran photographer who eventually completed the job, “that a picture the size she wanted had never been made before. Enlargements, as known today, were unheard of. The widest paper available was only forty inches, so three strips would be required to cover her eight-foot alcove. Read the rest of this entry »

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Penniless INVENTOR Gets Million for Photo Machine

Ten years ago a penniless prisoner of the Bolsheviks; today an American millionaire! This fascinating story tells how a young Russian inventor persevered through years of discouragement and finally perfected a machine for taking automatic photos which he sold for a million dollars.

By ORVILLE H. KNEEN

BEGINNING in 1888 with the first crude gum-dispenser, hundreds of different steel-encased, gear-spring, lever-plus salesmen have been invented, down to the latest which pleasantly says “thank you” as it digests your nickel. But until a few short months ago the very idea of automatic portraiture seemed absurd. Certainly anyone familiar with the complicated and highly technical process of adjusting the light, posing a trembling sitter, waiting for an elusive smile or appearance of sanity, developing and fixing plate or film, and finally making recognizable prints, would be the last to turn the job over to machinery.
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Flying Cameras Map America for War

By ANDREW R. BOONE

FROM aerial photographs snapped by giant bombers soaring four miles above the earth, U. S. Army engineers are compiling maps that will serve as eyes for our armed forces if they ever have to wage a defensive war on American soil.

Flying out of Fort Lewis, Wash., the camera planes have recently been engaged in photographing all unmapped areas between the Cascade Mountains and the Pacific, from Puget Sound to the Siskiyou Mountains of California. With their multiple cameras they make five pictures at a crack, one straight down and four at angles ahead, astern, and to the sides. Finished prints of the photographs are sent to the 29th Engineers at Portland, Ore. Here, in two old school buildings, they are turned into topographical maps showing all important features that would figure in wartime plans. Read the rest of this entry »

UNUSUAL PHOTOS MADE IN HIGH-VOLTAGE GLOW

By passing high voltage current through familiar objects, remarkable photographs of them have been taken in Germany. Coins, necklaces, and belt clasps, used in the experiment, glowed with fantastic radiance and the material was easily photographed in a darkened room. Voltages ranging from 100,000 to 150,000 were used in making the pictures but the objects were not damaged.