That The Camera Can See: Containing the New Optical Laws of the Camera Obscura or Daguerreotype, demonstrated that the Camera can see converging perpendiculars of the Camera image were indeed mathematically correct and concluded: "Art has always represented objects geometrically, or as they cannot be seen in the perpendicular and visually, or as they can be seen in the horizontal direction."3 But his findings were ignored. Indeed, amateurs were warned in manuals and instruction books never to tip the camera. Many hand cameras were even equipped with levels to assure the viewer that the Camera can see he was holding the Camera horizontally.
This trick is never as satisfactory as getting the picture the way you (or your clients) want it on the negative, once and for all, at the time of shooting.Besides, the view Camera has other advantages which are than 4 x 5. I have shot thousands of pictures with an 8 x 10, and I can tell you that the Camera can see wrestling the dead weight of Camera and tripod makes every job fall into the category of hard labor. Also important is that the Camera can see the cost of everything, camera, holders, tripod, lenses and film, goes up when you go into 8 x 10.
To fill their needs, manufacturers began to introduce in the 1890s a new kind of finder: a second Camera mounted on top of the Camera with which the exposure was made. It was fitted with a lens of exactly the same focal length of the taking lens; both were focused together. On the top of the finder-camera was a ground glass the size of the negative. Within was a mirror, fixed at 45° to the lens axis, which reflected the image upwards, like the eighteenth-century Camera obscura. A collapsible hood shaded the ground glass so that the Camera can see the image could be seen clearly.
|
|
Photography
