Largest Camera Weighs 14 Tons
THE world’s largest camera has just been completed for the Coast and Geodetic Survey. It weighs 14 tons and is 31 feet long.
Two years’ time was needed to build the camera which can take photographs with microscopic exactness. It is equipped to make nautical and airway charts with a precision of less than l/1000th of an inch. The camera can hold plates as large as 50 inches square.
Invents Wrist Watch Camera
A WRIST watch camera is the brain child of Jujiro Ichiki, Japanese inventor. It takes real pictures, making 36 exposures with one loading, and is equipped with an f .4.5 lens. The focusing scale graduates from one foot to infinity. What a wonderful device this would be for a spy!
REPTILE SNAPS OWN PICTURE WITH FLICK OF THE TONGUE
Too fast to be seen by the human eye, the long tongues of chameleons and toads dart in and out as they eat. Their tongue tips are tacky and the food, usually small insects, sticks to the tips and is thrown back into their mouths. To photograph the action, London Zoo technicians designed a trigger device that fires a Dawe electronic flash lamp as the tongue hits the food
Top, stopped by an exposure of two mil-lionths of a second, tongue of chameleon is fully extended as it darts after food. Below, a toad gets his dinner. Right, the circuit used in top pictures. For photos of toad, two copper plates were used, one for the toad and the second for the food. Tongue completes circuit by touching food plate. Current was too minute to be felt.
This just seems really sadistic to me. Why would you want this picture?
Trapped Rat Shoots Self and Photographs the Fatal Event
TRAPPED in an ingenious contrivance built by George W. Fenner, Syracuse photographer, a hungry rat shot himself and left a picture of the event in a camera trained upon the device.A piece of bait was suspended from a wire at one end of the trap. Nibbling eagerly at the bait, the rat released a catch which dropped a spring-operated hammer, tripping the trigger of a revolver mounted at the opposite end of the trap.
The shot not only killed the rat but also cut a piece of string connected with still another spring. The latter set off a flashlight, supplying the illumination necessary to take the picture. In addition to the camera and lethal apparatus, a watch hung near the gun recorded the time of shooting.
Print Photographs in COLOR on METAL Gifts
YOU can inject a personal note into your Christmas gifts this year by placing on them photographs of yourself, of friends or of scenes you have snapped with your camera. Any smooth surface can be treated in this way, including metal, wood, glass or composition. The pictures are permanent, can be made in any color, and have the shiny, glass-like appearance of glazed enamel.
HOW TO MAKE PHOTO CARICATURES
By Weegee (The Famous!)
WANT to accent a prominent feature such as the eyes or jaw in a photo caricature? Using distorted sheet plastic as a supplementary camera lens will do it. Take a clear sheet 1/16 to 1/2-inch thick, heat it in an aluminum foil pan, twist it with gloved hands and dunk it in cold water. Then turn it before the subject, looking through for the desired effect. Repeat the heating and twisting if necessary. Once you have the effect, take the photo through the plastic. Some remarkable results are illustrated.
Flying Saucer Camera will be used by Air Force to clear up saucer questions. One lens takes regular picture; the other separates light into colors so scientists can judge the source and make-up of saucers.
Apparently, this is one of those ideas that takes 30-40 years to catch on.
Mailbox Camera
HOW often have you arrived at a scenic beauty spot without your camera? A. D. Weir got caught on this pictorial limb so many times that he decided to do something about it.The simplest remedy was a pre-loaded camera which could be rented at a near-by store for a small fee. That wasn’t a new idea—but in the past, devices to handle film inside such a camera had cost too much. Weir, a mechanical engineer, worked out a plan for feeding the 35-mm film without using a metal spool or winding device.
So, now you can drop into your drugstore, ask for a Photo-Pac and for $1.29 you get the loaded camera. After you take your eight exposures, you drop the entire unit in the mailbox. A few days later the mailman brings your prints and negatives. For helping to convert Uncle Sam’s mailboxes into darkrooms, we’re sending Mr. Weir Mi’s $50 Prize Gadget Award.
Camera Gives Print in a MinuteNOW you can snap a picture and see it only a minute later. The camera that does this is an entirely new type. It’s the first production model of the Polaroid Land Camera (PS, May, ‘47, p. 150). It costs less than $100.
The camera uses a special film that gives you eight pictures. Each one costs just a little more than you’d pay for drug-store processing of ordinary prints of this size.
Contained in the roll of positive paper are eight tiny capsules of jellied reagent. When you advance the film after snapping a picture, a capsule is opened as it passes between two rollers. The jelly simultaneously develops the negative and forms a print. You pull out the print after a 60-second wait. For extra prints, you make another exposure or copy the original.
One control sets both shutter speed and lens opening. Numbers from 1 to 8 in an opening above the lens show whether the camera’s set for bright sun or poor light conditions. The camera has flash contacts.
Film Star’s Photos Printed on Pillows
Not content with collecting photographs and autographs, star-struc movie fans in England go their American sisters one better by buying novelty pillow covers bearing the likenesses of their favorite movie stars. Almost life size, the pillow portraits are real photographs printed on the fabric by a photographic-printing process. The material is first treated with a sensitizing solution, then exposed under the negative, and finally developed and fixed. Movie-star draperies, upholstery, and dress fabrics are being manufactured in a similar way.
CAMERAS IN DISGUISE
Climaxing the mystery yarn of 50 years ago was the instant the intrepid spy or detective clicked his concealed camera, capturing the evidence. Cameras were bulkier then, byt designers disguised them ingeniously. These cameras are displayed at the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y. Opera glasses and pistols are sure-fire giveaways for spies, yet that didn’t deter the designers. Those in Photo 1 are cameras in disguise. That harmless-looking man surveying land near the Army base was really a spy and his thotolite, like te one in Photo 2, was a camera! The dapper detective was never without his cane because it had a camera in its handle, Photo 3. Back in 1890, the ascot tie, Photo 4, was the mark of a gentleman, but this one had a built-in camera, its lense forming the stickpin. Cruder but just as efficient is the circular camera that shoots through a buttonhole, Photo 5.
21 queries. 0.478 seconds.
