"Elementary Photo-Micrography," Bagshaw, 1903

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bralex
Posts: 129
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2018 11:34 am
Location: New Mexico, USA

"Elementary Photo-Micrography," Bagshaw, 1903

Post by bralex »

I was looking at an old magazine (Model Engineer and Amateur Electrician, 1903) and spotted a book review for the subject book. Thought others might be entertained, I found both the 1903 and a 1915 edition online. The figures look very familiar :)

Google Books link to the 1903 edition:
https://books.google.com/books?id=Rn1EA ... hy&f=false

edit: shortened subject to fit

Chris S.
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Location: Ohio, USA

Post by Chris S. »

Bralex, thanks for posting this. :D Very interesting book to skim through.

My, oh my, has the photography of small things gotten easier in a century or so. While this is hardly surprising, reading the old process described in detail puts these changes into starkly fascinating reality. I suspect the authors would be streaming tears if they could see what we can do today.

Couple of random observations:

1) The book describes photomicrography with glass plate negatives, even though some of the advertisements at the end of the book tout roll-film cameras. As roll-film cameras would seem much more convenient, I wonder why the authors didn't use them? Had they simply not changed their ways, or was roll film inferior somehow?

2) At one point in the book, the authors discussed the problem of "film" puckering up on the glass-negative plate. I've always thought of film as a flexible material on which photo-chemicals have been affixed within a gelatinous layer. But this reference makes me suspect that the term "film" originally referred to the photo-chemical enriched gelatinous layer itself, in contrast to the glass substrate on which it was deposited. And thinking about it, this layer would indeed seem like a "film deposited on a plate of glass" to anyone working on creating such a thing. (How cool! It's delightful when new data come along to challenge one's preconceptions. :D )

--Chris S.

bralex
Posts: 129
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2018 11:34 am
Location: New Mexico, USA

Post by bralex »

I was particularly interested in the opening line, where the author notes the large number of other books on the topic!

Olympusman
Posts: 5090
Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2012 12:31 pm

Puckering

Post by Olympusman »

"Puckering" might be reticulation, but for reticulation to occur it usually requires a severe shift in solution temperatures during processing.
When I look at photos of some of those 8X10 and 5X7 bellows cameras, focusing must have been an arduous process, especially if you didn't have carbon arc illumination.

Mike
Michael Reese Much FRMS EMS Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA

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