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The Editor's Desk...

One of the more unique historical photographic image and equipment collections is housed in what some might consider a surprising location-The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin. A large part of the initial collection was assembled by the late, somewhat controversial, photographic historian, Helmet Gernsheim. Gernsheim and his wife created almost as much interest in Gernsheim the individual, as the collection. Aside from its historical value, one of the collection's more interesting facts was that many of its items were said to have been rescued after WWII from massive scrap heaps in devastated parts of London, England. Hard hit by German air raids, when the war ended. English families began cleaning out what was left of their homes and throwing away items that seemed no longer worth keeping. Many of the items were photographs and some were old photographic equipment. Of all the items, one salvaged picture may have been the first photograph ever taken. How that picture and the rest of Gernsheim collection reached Texas. and the man responsible for it's acquisition, is the rest of our story.

Harry Ransom was one of the more popular presidents of the University of Texas. Genuinely well liked by students and even full professors-who normally tended to regard any holder of an administrative post as someone less than a peer. More important, Ransom brought to his post something that previous administrations lacked, at least in detail. He had a grand plan for UT. It's key objective was to raise the university s academic standards to where it would become well known for its educational superiority in every field of study it offered. Being in Texas, that probably included football.

Ransom appropriately involved the Board of Regents in his plan and emphasized to the resident faculty that each one must strive to be the best in their field, or UT would no longer need their services. He also guaranteed his support in funding original, as well as continuing, research, in a wide range of subjects, one of which may well have been photography.

UT's low tuition, which by today's standards was minuscule, would not support Ransom's plan. But the university had powerful friends in the state legislature. If Ransom needed more funds to meet his goals they weren't too difficult to find. And there was always the fact that the University engineering school was the source of most of the trained oil-field engineers and other personnel key to the industry. Ask and you shall receive.

The nearest anyone seems to know what attracted Ransom to a photographic historical collection or to Helmet Gernsheim, was Gernsheim's possession of what may or may not have been the world's first photograph. While we don't know who made the first contact, we do know that the publicity for construction of what would later become the Harry Ransom Research Center, emphasized its possession of the first photograph as well as other unique images and photograph equipment. Neither do we know the exact amount of money that Gernsheim received for his collection At the time a persistent rumor placed it at $75,000.

Not only were the crates and boxes inadequate, they tended to spook volunteers who never knew what was going to come out of them, photographic or alive. The only interesting feature of the main packing material was several month's old English newspapers that provided reading material for the volunteers on coffee breaks.

Unpacking was one thing, where to put what we unpacked was another. Eventually, a small number of items were displayed in the main library. But the the majority remained stored for several years, most in the twenty-story, clock tower on one side of the UT campus mall. Later, the same tower would become a tragic part of Texas history.

Construction of a building that would become The Ransom Research Center and house the photographic collection and other research materials would not soon become a reality. Meanwhile, volunteers continued sorting,cleaning and cataloging as much of the items as possible. Attracted by the chance to play with the equipment collection, your editor, became one of the many. It was a slow dirty process. Unfortunately, computers smaller than a large barn, were not yet available and most of us were hunt and peck typists. The turnover of volunteers was about 98% a week, meaning that only a few of us knew what needed to be done. So we developed an informational tour for new volunteers. It wondered through full shipping containers, trash piles of London newspapers and on occasion an unidentified alive "something". Following which, many would suddenly remember they had to get to a class. They seldom returned.

Years later at one of the TPHS Symposiums your editor had a chance to ask Mr. Gernsheim about the shipping containers and the resulting condition of many of the items. He said that he knew nothing about them and that no one at UT had ever complained.

Fortunately, not only the best of the Gernsheim collection, but many other acquisitions can now be seen at the Ransom Center at the corner of Guadalupe and Martin Luther King Bled Should you be in Austin, drop by. It's well worth the time. Meanwhile, you can find the Ransom Center on the WEB at http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/photography/coll3.html

"World's Oldest Photograph Will Undergo Analysis"- Associated Press 3-16-2002...

"One morning. Joseph Nicephore Niepce peered from a window of his home in the French countryside, framed the view of a tree, the sky and several buildings and then did something remarkable: He took a picture. Uncovering the lens of a rudimentary camera for eight hours that day in 1826, Niepce exposed a polished, thinly varnished pewter plate and produced what may have been the world's first photograph. In June, 2002, 176 years later, the faint image will arrive at the Getty Conservation Institute, where experts will analyze it for the first time since it was authenticated in 1952. Details of its chemistry are a mystery. The goal is to understand all the chemical.processes used to produce the photos. which is essential to preserve the art form. The analysis is part of a joint photo conservation involving Getty, the Image Permanence Institute at the Rochester Institute of Technology and France's Centre de Recherches sur la Conservation des Documents Graphiques. Jim Reilly, director of RlT's Image Permanence Institute, emphasized that RIT is not working directly on the Niepce photo, rather, it is providing photographic expertise and samples of early photos -Rochester Democrat & Chronicle

Assuming that it might be of interest to the researchers to know that what was probably the same photograph, had came with the UT Gernsheim collection I talked with Dusan Stulik, conservator for the Getty Institute which will analyze the Niepce photo this summer. I told her that the picture was flrst displayed in the UT library under fluorescent lighting for a number of months, if not a year or more. Depending on the angle at which you looked it, it had an almost color tinted or early Kodachrome appearance.

The item to be analyzed is scheduled to arrive in Rochester in June. It will first be analyzed for metals. Then it will then be put in a new housing, fllled with inert gasses and sealed-the same process that was used to preserve the original U.S. Constitution.


Mystery question # 1
What Rochester business did George Eastman attempt to buy in 1922, but was unsuccessful?

O.K. Enough of the Retorts on Retorts...

We try not to repeat ourselves but, this is a short retort on retorts for all you readers who have a better definition of a retort. Mr. Webster says a Retort is first, but by no means the least, "A vessel in which substances are distilled or broken up by heat." It is also a "quick, witty, or cutting remark or "To answer back sharply".

Our friends in Canada have apparently assigned Everett Rosebrough to apply salt to your editor's wounds. All I can say is I have checked out what's going on down in the basement. If the retort isn't working right, the still may explode and waste all those corn drippings before I can find enough storage containers. Thanks Everett. Comment again anytime.

VOLVO Has A Warning For It's Owners: "Stay Out Of Our Magnetic Fields. They May Effect Your Health" ...And Possibly Make Digital Cameras Pay Off

Swedish Volvo, a unit of the Ford Motor Company, says it is neither a safety-related nor a health question, but the company may still make a design change. Meanwhile, the Swedish auto magazine,Vi Bilogare, said its tests of the Volvo S60, V70 and S80 models exposed drivers to 12 to 18 microtesla. Microtesla is a unit of measure for magnetic field strength.

In testing other cars, the worst scores were made by models that had the battery mounted in the back of the car with a high voltage wire running under the passenger compartment up front. BMW has no plans to change their cars because there is no scientific consensus that electromagnetic fields cause cancer. A normal level in Swedish apartments is 01 microtesla. but in a workplace the level may be twice that due to electronic items such as computers. Studies advise computer users to stay a foot away from computer screens

There are no compatible home and workplace standards in the USA but household appliances put out higher electromagnetic fields than cars. Example: a vacuum cleaner puts out 800 microtesla.

As for photography? All you digital camera users...Think! You have that electronic camera right up to your eye. Has it occurred to you that you are being exposed to electromagnetic fields? Were you warned about them in the fine print in the instruction manual? Better check it out, assuming, you can find the manual. If it doesn't have a warning. perhaps it's time to call one of those tort lawyers that run ads on TV. Who knows, digital photography might make you a millionaire...even if you can no longer enjoy it.

Mystery Question No 2 ...

A.What camera manufacturer is more famous for its medical products than its cameras.
B. Name one of its medical products

Mystery Question No 3 ...

A. What was probably the first important digital print?

The Cinema's Digital Dilemma...A Bonanza For Some? Costly For All ?...

Last summer, a joint venture between Thompson Multimedia, Technicolor and Qualcomm, Inc. announced a plan to to fund the instillation of 1000 digital movie screens across the nation. Recently. the aim has been lowered to 250 installations by the end of 2002.

Eastman Kodak's Entertainment Imaging Division plans to begin selling its digital-cinema system in early 2003. Price: about $100,000 per screen. Technicolor Digital Cinema, says it is ready now for major theater-chain orders. If they do will the public care? Perhaps more important, what will happen to TDC if they don't order?. Industry insiders feel most theater owners will wait hoping for a sharp drop in prices, quoting the old expression: "Remember: It was the early pioneers that blazed the trail, but most didn't make it to the land of plenty.

Digital Cinema: Around the Corner Or Up The Creek...A Bit Of Both

While Kodak has revealed a bit more on how it intends to make money on non-fllm “digital cinema” we don't know much more about what may really happen as we did before. But digital imaging is nothing new to Kodak. That the company holds numerous patents and applications is not well known but in March Kodak revealed how it will make money as the movie industry shifts from film to digital. It has already created a digital-cinema services unit to support studios, theater owners and movie makers in adopting the new technology. Kodak envisions helping theaters install fllmless movie projectors and train a support staff. It also plans to work on a cinema operating system that will electronically distribute films within a multiplex and download and organize advertisement trailers and other content. The unit was announced at the ShoWest Conference in Vegas, where Kodak displayed its filmless projector for the first time. -Rochester D&C 3-5-2002

While George Lucas is the biggest backer of digital, the Boeing Company says they will have around 40 systems in place world-wide in the next few months. The company hopes to use digital cinema as a high-profile example of its ability to use satellite technology to move the films across the country. meanwhile Technicolor Digital Cinema feels Episode II:Attack of the Clones, shot digitally, without film will be the impetus for digital conversion. The digitally generated effects for the movie will draw an audience, and hopefully sustain movie goers interest in it.

However, theater owners are not relishing the change and many do not see why they should have to pay for the change when it's mostly the promoters who seem to really believe is the biggest change since movies learned to talk. Theater owners did agreed that the effects may be better and perhaps less expensive to make, but the fact that the whole movie is digital and not on film has little to do with a paying audience. When movies began to talk it was an obvious improvement. And for the average movie goers, it's what the special effects do for the film, not how they are made, that's important.

At the moment there are no global technical standards for digital films. This risks incompatible systems. Quality is another issue. "It's very easy to say it is "as good as 35mm film" John Fithian, President, of the National Association of Theater Owners stated. "So what? It has to be better!" There's no reason to make the biggest transition in the history of the theater business unless the better quality is obvious." And, again, there is the cost.

A top of the line 35mm film projector costs $30,000 and will last 20 years. A digital film projector costs $150,000, and will last until the next generation comes out.".

Who will pay the cost of the digital switch? Some suggest the movie studios which are just coming off the best year ever, could help the financially strapped theater chains- some of which are just emerging from bankruptcy protection.

In the end, it will be the moviegoers who will decide the success of digital and pay the costs. And a great percentage of that success will be total content, not just technical aspects. Think back, while his movements might become more realistic, would King Kong hanging
onto the Empire State Building have been any more impressive to an audience if he had been created digitally, rather than the original the stop-action puppet that he was?

Finally, the question of film distribution. Presently, films for theaters are usually distributed by mechanical but well oiled systems, such as Fed-X or UPS. Digital distribution may work but it also may also open the door to electronic piracy. While 35mm feature film piracy is not unknown, it is comparatively small. The potential to distribute a "film" in digital form over some form of electronic network opens a whole new opportunity for interception. The industry is already looking for a way to fight the potential copying of digital originals. And the tests of "Dial-A-Movie"in some areas, has yet to f~nd a way to stop videotaping .

Reminder: despite every blocking system tested, the copying of a VHS movie from Blockbuster isn't hard, and comparatively low tech.You probably already have a VHS machine and you can buy another for as low as $25 at K-Mart. Sure it's low-tech but it works. A tape only costs a dollar and at slow speed you could record three two hour movies.

Peterson's Photographic Cerebrates N's 30th Anniversary With A Digital Buyers's Guide...Plus A Brief Look At Guides & Catalogs From The Past...

First published in May, 1939,Popular Photography's yearly equipment “supplement" has become a standard yearly reference almost every significant camera and photo accessory sold that year in the USA. Each issue has a convenient layout, and graphics that are seldom exceeded by similar publications. While not a catalog, the ads in the back make up for that.

Now, from out of the west coast, comes the memory of the thundering piston beats of what was the Peterson Publishing Company, publishers of Hot Rod,, Motor Trend and Photo graphic. the latter is celebrating its 30th anniversary with the May 2002 issue. Well done, if not all exclusive, it features a digital buyers guide plus a bit on the late side feature article on the 10 best APS cameras. It is also interesting to note that while it retains the Peterson's name for the magazine, the publisher is actually the Primedia Specialty Group, about which we know nothing.

Reviewing old files, only Montgomery Ward's yearly photographic catalog with its outstanding graphic quality, detailed equipment listings, and better graphics than Pop. Unfortunately, Wards gradually cut its photographic offerings, then quit the mail-order business. A few years later the they closed entirely. Sears also had a photo catalog, relatively small, and never close to Ward's in quality, the last issue was extremely thin and featured, of all things, home movie cameras. It was issued, just as videotape cameras were becoming popular. Some Sears buyer must have thought he had a bargain from suppliers, but great timing it wasn't. Shortly thereafter, a business recession brought a decline in the photo equipment business and Both Ward's and Sears ceased issuing photo catalogs.

Who Makes The Best Digital Printers for 4"x6" Prints? How About The Best Inexpensive Digital Cameras?

According to the Imaging Marketing Association the winner is the Crystal Digital Corporation at 250 Mill Street in Rochester, N.Y.. The Association's Digital Printer Shootout award for the best 4 by 6 printer and paper. Durst Dice America, at 150 Methodist Hill, Henrietta, N.Y., took top honors in several categories including best 11-35 inch printers. Kodak's new Easy Share DX 4900 was named best S300-499 digital camera.

What Is Crystal Digital? Who Is David Weaver? And Why Are They Getting All Those Awards?

Few people have heard of Rochester's Crystal Digital Corporation, nor their cameras designed by CEO David Weaver. Currently being manufactured in China, the company hopes to move production to their Rochester, 350 Mill Street 14614, location (585) 777-4006.

Founded in March 2000. the company sells a line of 12 digital cameras, printers and other equipment designed by the company. All are targeted at the entry-level user, with prices beginning at $50. In March, Crystal Digital finalized a contract to make digital cameras for one of the nation's largest retail chains. A week or so later it's CP-PP10 printer won the Digital Imaging Marketing Association's award for best 4-by-6 printer. Last year, the company's Crystal Digital Dual Smart 400 camera won the DlMS's point and shoot camera award. This alone should increase sales more than 20-fold to roughly $80 million. Not bad for a company founded by David Weaver, a former camera designer for Eastman Kodak, who left in 1998 after a 25 year career.

What's next for the company? We'll try to keep you posted.

The Year Is 1939...The Ad Says "Snap Brilliant Pictures In Any Light!".. But The Price Was About Two Week's Pay- $30!

Come with us now to those thrilling days of 1939. The October Popular Photography has a full page ad for the International Research Corporation's ARGUS C-3 complete with its plug in synchronized flash gun. This is no average camera. Aside from the fact that it weighs in at what seems about five pounds, it has a built-in timer, synchronized flash and shutter speeds". (The implication: other cameras do not have shutter speeds.) The coupled rangefinder assured critical focusing "...from 3 feet to infinity". It's high speed f:3.5 "Cintar" triplet Anastigmat lens was "fully color corrected." Shutter speeds range from 1/5 to 1 /300 second. and the camera uses 35mm. film in "standard cartridge-. If you are not to thrilled with the weight of the camera, there is the new ARGUS Tripod, 14 1/2" folded and 41 3/4" extended. A Swivel Head was $1 and a carrying case $1.50.

In addition to the camera and accessories, ARGUS suggested using their ART Fine Grain Developer- 70 cents for enough to make one quart. Also, ART Universal Print Developer, 45 cents, Or ART Paper Developer at 40 cents. Argus Bromex "versatile projection printing paper in sizes 2 2/4 x 4 1/4, 5 x 8 and 8 x 10, single and double weight from 35 to 95 cents

Answers To Mystery Questions
1. George Eastman wanted to buy the Rochester Telephone Company in 1922 but the
company wouldn't sell. Just why, we don't know.

2. Ol~rmpus is famous for it's medical products, most of which use optics.
One is a Bronchoscope, an instrument that allows a doctor to see inside a patient's lungs,

3. Fingerprints were probably the first digital impressions,