Newsletter for March-April 1998

The first society devoted to the history of photography and the preservation of photo antiques

President's Corner - Tim Fuss

As my first official act let me introduce you to your TPHS Officers for 1998-9

President: Tim Fuss. Vice-President: Bob Navias. Treasurer: Frank Calandra. Social: Grace Holloway, Membership: Jim Morsh, Meetings: John Mitchell. GEH Liaison: Bill Fujimura, Kodak Liaison: Nick Graver, RIT Liaison: Andy Davidhazy. Photo History -X Coordinator: Jack Bloemendaal, Newsletter Editor: Joe Bailey

Treasurer Frank Calandra reports that the society is in its usual financial shape - "reasonably good". Money has been set aside for the next PhotoHistory and we are in the black. However, he asked that I remind members that 1998 membership dues have been slow in coming. Cash, check or money order would be appreciated. Frank's address is below.

For those who chastised us last year, the summer picnic will not fall on Father's Day this year! It will, however, again be held in Powder Mill Park. Also, because of the cost factors and general satisfaction with everything except the weather, the annual dinner wiII again be held in January. Details of both the picnic and the dinner wiII be reported shortly.

My final request: As has been noted repeatedly, ours is a group that has more members outside of Rochester than in the city. Expanding our local membership would help ease the work load on the present local members and contribute to to future growth of the society. If you have friends or new people who would enjoy other activities, ask them to a meeting. We'll also be glad to send them a newsletter and you could bring them to the picnic. If you have other ideas on how to attract new folks, let your officers know about it,

PS: If you have borrowed a Videotape of a meeting please return it to Jim Morsh.

REMEMBER- Send your $20 dues to: Frank Calandra, Treasurer The Photographic Historical Society, 350 Witting Road, Webster, N.Y, 14580-9009

This Month's Mystery Question-

You probably already know that the price of silver recently took a high jump when super investor Warren Buffett bought heavily in it. Newspapers pointed out that more silver is used yearly than is being mined in the world. Just to be on the safe side. should you buy up a lot of film anticipating a great jump in price? Well, first answer this question. How much silver is there is in a 24-exposure roll of color film? Answer at end of Newsletter.

Gordon Brown Wows Members with an Educational Class Act...

In February, Gordon Brown, one of Kodak's best informed and best platform performer's on professional photography, presented a condensed version of his professional photography seminars for the Society. As usual, he left the audience asking for more. Gordon's credentials include a long personal friendship with Ansel Adams, plus being a leader of Kodak seminars for professional photographers over the past twenty-five years. He is also the expert in Kodak on filters. Your editor has had the pleasure of knowing Gordon since he was a star performer at Kodak's Marketing Education Center concurrent with obtaining two degrees from night school and helping his wife raise two exceptionally bright kids. We hope Gordie will make a return engagement this fall.

Does Popular Photography Give You What You Buy It For? Assuming You Do.

During those thrilling days of yesteryear real shutterbugs could hardly wait for the next issue of Popular Photography and Modern Photography. Mainly, they wanted to see what bargains the mail-order dealers in Chicago, LA and especially, NYC. had this month. Sure, they also devoured features on equipment, debating whether the magazines had been bought off by their advertisers (they obviously had). Occasionally, they read a feature on actually taking pictures, mostly in glorious B&W. But to real photo bugs it was the the ads that reigned supreme. By the late '70's a depressed economy had brought down many small and large mail-order dealers. Two of the largest, Peerless and Willoughby's in NYC went bankrupt. The number of ads dropped each month. By the eighties POP was a shadow of its former self. Fewer ads meant fewer pages and subscription numbers dropped almost in half. Modern ceased publication. In the early '90's Popular was sold, at a bargain price, to publishing giant, Hachette Flipacchi of France. Hachette then hired Herbert Keppler, former editor of Modern. as managing director and told him to do whatever it took to revive the magazine. Fortunately, amateur photography was regaining some of its previous popularity as electronic imaging begin to mix with conventional methods. Color pages increased and ad pages began to rise. Subscriptions shot up and today POP looks close to its former glory. It's thick and editorially interesting. But our consumer question is: Do you really get what you buy POP for? Are there enough informative articles ? Great photos? Tantalizing ads?

If you said articles, and photos, you loose. Of the 216 pages in the April 1998, issue, a whopping 163 pages were ads!. Only 85 pages were all or even part, pictures and articles.

But, really, there is nothing wrong with you if you like it that way.

Movie Magic From ... The Wall Street Journal?

Yes indeed! And if special effects in movies are your interest, a supplement to the March 19, 1998, WSJ is a must read. Not only does it cover the development of a huge variety of effects but the high tech companies that make them. The business is "... a constant battle between efficiency and the latest technology - and the high cost, high-tech option always wins." "The 1959 classic "Ben Hur" required 300 individual sets, Including a chariot-race arena that took 1000 workers more than a year to build and then had to be stuffed with 8000 extras and 40,000 tons of sand. Such touches pushed the cost of the movie to $12.5 million ... when the inevitable "Ben Hur" remake comes along someday, it will be virtual horses and digital chariots that collide and lock wheels, not real ones. In this digital age, spectacular visual effects are increasingly the creation of computers and keystrokes, not powder kegs and battalions of extras. But judging by Holywood's experience with technology, one thing almost certainly remain the same: lt will still cost a bundle," For the complete supplement. visit your public library or the WSJ on the web..

PROFILE: Canon, Inc. It's Not Just Cameras Anymore...

Question: What percent of Canon's business Is in cameras? Answer: 8%. Most of its profits come from copiers and printers, Canon's outspoken chairman, 71 year old Ryuzaburo Kaku is known in Japan as a critic of bureaucracy and corruption, a mahjong fanatic and a survivor of the bombing of Nagasaki. No team player with other Japanese businesses, Canon is one of the few Japanese companies that has transcended Japan's long economic decline. 1997 sales were $23 billion. placing it No. 63 on the Fortune 500, ahead of Kodak (99) and Xerox (75). For the past decade it has grown 20% per year. While it once followed others, today "there is no one left to follow" as they enter the unchartered universe of digital. But it has yet to demonstrate that it can get hot new products speedily to market, a weak point in a company led by engineers who outrank marketers.

Still Canon is No. 1 in SLR sales (34%) and compact cameras (160/o) in the US, It tops 30% in color and black and white mid-range copier sales. its second only to Hewlett-Packard in printers - and it makes the motors in HP laser printers. It's past growth has been based on a single emphasis of high-margain products-optics. imaging and printing. Each researcher is required to file for at least four patents per year. It is regularly one of the top five annual recipients of U.S. patents and unlike rivals. NEC and Toshiba, it steers clear of low margin, commodity business like computer chips. The heart of its technology is optics, started 60 years ago) when it tried to develop products to equal big German manufacturers. Founder, Takeshi Mitarai, organized the small company around the slogan "Beat Leca" which it did, on price and sales. U.S. occupation forces gave its cameras a huge boost and for the next 30 years it was primarily a camera company. But in 1962, Mitarai decided it should extend its optical expertise into office products. Xerox defended its copier technology with a wall of patents it would not license so Canon was forced built from scratch. The company's million yen bet it could create its own copy machine paid off in 1970. But one thing was different. Canon licensed its technology and today makes more than $100 million a year in royalties.

Another technology that has paid off handsomely is ink-jet printing. It is said to have been discovered in 1977 when a researcher accidentally touched a needle full of ink to a soldering iron. The ink heated up, increased in volume and squirted out--the basic principle of ink-jet printing. Today ink-jet is the primary means of computer printing and is even used in textile factories for printing patterns on cloth. Canon will soon release a digital camera with a built-in ink-jet printer that will spit out prints without a PC go-between. But it has been slow in getting digital cameras to market. Mitari argues that there is no profit in them as yet and they have stuck with two relatively low-resolution models.

Interestingly, Canon next sees itself making an end-run around Kodak and Fuji by building a huge business in specialty papers and ink cartridges. Both have margins of 50% or more. In the next two years Canon expects half of its profit to come from these "Consumables".

28% of Canon products are made abroad. It develops new products in Japan, then builds a pilot assembly plant in Oita, a city in Japan's southern island of Kyushu. Once the bugs are out they bring in workers from Canon Opto plants in Malaysia or Taiwan who train six weeks to build the items, then are sent home to train others. Hisashi Sakamaki, who directs overseas production, says he learned from the 1989 MIT Press book Made in America, how American companies rushed overseas before they learned how develop production at home. However, President Matarai, is a 23 year veteran of Canon USA. and wants to move Canon closer to American-style management to speed decision making.

Today, there is a feeling of restlessness at Canon headquarters. A feeling that it needs to branch out into some new category of technology - its new technology pillar for the future - perhaps in the undefined digital world. Canon Inc., had a pretax profit jump 17% to $ 1.5 billion last year on a 10% increase in sales. What share of this was in cameras, copiers or other equipment was not revealed.

- above article Condensed from FORTUNE magazine - Feb. 2, 1998 - Used by permission

Lens Fitting To Graphic Cameras --- By Tim Holden, Graflex Inc. Retiree

Not many users of Graphic cameras realized that all were shipped from the factory with a lens that had been custom fitted to that camera. If a different lens was used, the infinity stops, focusing scale and rangefinder should have been checked for potential need of readjustment. The same holds true for Graphic users today,

The factory custom fitting was necessary because all lenses of the same marked focal length, may or may not, in fact, have had that exact same focal length! For a lens to produce the best possible image, makers may make slight optical adjustments to compensate for production "tolerances" of the individual elements. This can slightly alter the focal length. For proper synchronization with rangefinders and focusing scales on Graflex, and similar cameras, compensation has to be made.

As lens design and production techniques improved, it became possible for makers to hold the variation to within a plus or minus 2% of the established focal length for a particular make, speed for their lenses. However. this "normal" focal length was still not necessarily the same for different makes of lenses. So while a major improvement, it still required custom fitting of each camera and lens combination. This involved a number of steps in Graphic production: (A) Attachment of the lens to the lens board into the front of the camera. (B) Setting the infinity stops. These were set as reference points, a little ahead of what might be considered as "infinity". This was necessary, since there is visually a slight difference in what even trained people consider "the sharpest image". Thus as the camera is opened and the lens drawn out, it has to be racked forward slightly to match the infinity location. (C) Adjusting the rangefinder for that particular lens. This involved several steps with the Kalart rangefinder, but only the selection of a suitably numbered cam for the post-1955 Graphic range/viewfinder. (D) Selection and checking at given distances of 1 of 5 scales for that particular make. speed and focal length of lens. (E) Entering the serial number of the camera, the name, make, speed, focal length, and serial number of the lens on the registration card. This was also entered on the factory work order of the shipping ticket and the permanent factory file record for that camera/lens combination.

With respect to (C) and (D), the allowed range for a given focal length lens was NOT the same for all lens makers. The +/- tolerance produced some overlap at one end or the other of a set of scales, so there had to be a set of 5 pre-marked scales for each make, speed, and focal length of lens. For example, this meant 3 sets of 5 scales for the 135mm length of lenses from Zeiss, Schneider, and Graflex.

In May 1940, TRADE NOTES, the Graflex Dealer Publication, contained this statement:

Originally, the focusing scales for the Pre-Anniversary Speed Graphics were made by focusing out of a window of the fifth floor of the plant at the Kodak tower for Infinity with a camera mounted on a tripod (Folmer Compact Stand). A pane of glass in the window with cross lines was used for the closer distances with the camera/tripod being slid,along the floor using foot markers painted on the floor. Scratch marks were placed on a bakelite strip for the focusing scale and after these had been made the scale was removed from the camera and small hand dies used to stamp into the material the indicator line and the footage-distance. Whiting was then rubbed into the recesses thus stamped to form the focusing scale. The index line had previously been stamped into the sliding track.

Reference was also made to the complete full Vernier scales supplied for miniature (2 1/4" x 3 1/4") Speed Graphic cameras. These were made up in sets of 5 as mentioned above. Incidentally, these scales, were engraved on a special engraving machine made by Deckle (the Compur shutter maker) of Germany and represented a distinct advancement. We had a battery of 6 to 8 of these machines going full blast turning out focusing scales. To compliment the scale manufacture, a newer, faster and more accurate method was needed for matching the scale to the lens and for adjusting the rangefinders that were usually ordered. Special "focusing-boxes" were developed. Each box had well defined targets at actual distances of 15' and 5' and a large reducing lens allowed the use of the 15' target as the infinity setting. It had been determined that compliance with these positions meant that other distance markings on the focusing scale would indicate the correct setting (focus) of the lens for these distances.

So, if you switch from one 135mm lens to another (possibly the same make), on your Graphic, the settings of infinity, the rangefinder and focusing scale markings may or may not require changing. But check! An error could be serious or, with luck, inconsequential. I've mentioned the recording of lens and camera serial numbers. Sometimes these records led to "interesting situations", which I'll discuss in a later article. TH

You Read it Here Earlier...Magnetic, now even Digital, images can be fleeting

Rolf Fricke sent us a copy of Photo Insider, an apparently free, professionally oriented, quarterly magazine. A letter to the editor contained the following statement supporting our item a few issues back on the potential short longevity of non-film media, especially tape.

"I recently had a (photo) CD in my shop which was unreadable due to a relatively small scratch ... add to that the fact that years from now we may be hard pressed to finding a working player when every computer becomes a third generation DVD player, or who knows what. This actually happened to NASA when they went back to print more of the tapes from the first Mars mission - the tapes were unreadable and the decks were unrepairable. The National Archive in Washington DC has refused to archive anything digitally."

The writer runs a custom lab and has just purchased a Kodak LVT film recorder to meet the demand for archival storage media.

--Photo Insider, published by Unique Photo. 11 Vreeland Road, Florham Park, NJ 07932

Coming Sooner or Possibly Later...

We have received permission to reprint a chapter from The Smithsonian Scientific Series - Great Inventions published in 1938 by the Smithsonian Institution. We recently discovered this slightly different approach to a concise history of photography in an obscure library. As soon as we can figure how to best run it we will, perhaps in a serialized version,

Things you may not have heard about...

Simple as a Ballantyne Simplex? And a Pox on Digital Movies, says Ballantyne of Omaha, Inc. Never heard of them? Well, you have helped pay for their products quite often. Their hugely popular machines are 4-feet high, used in Walt Disney World, and in most of the movie houses in America. They are Simplex 35mm theater projectors. Since 1990 the number of movie screens have increased 30% and are still growing. And Ballantyne has a 65% share of the market, including projectors for IMAX wild-ride shows. While there are continuing efforts to digitize film, so far efforts to unseat 35mm film have been sadly lacking in quality on the big screen. The Simplex, Ballantyne's most popular projector, is a design dating back to 1948, "It puts out a steady picture and just keeps running." says Barney Bailey, CO of National Cinema Supply, Ballantyne's largest customer. The manufacturer's latest achievement is an Academy Award for a device that tells an operator whether the light across a wide screen is even. Will new technology eliminate projectors and 35mm film? Not for at least 10 years, says John P. Wilmers, Ballantyne president.

Pentax Instrument Division announces the world's first Auto-Focus Automatic Survey Level Probably not available at your local camera dealer,

Danka Business Systems, the company that bought the Kodak Office Imaging (Copiers) business, is interesting for several reasons. One, because although they have an extensive line of office equipment besides copiers, and two, they do not make, nor apparently own anything to do with manufacturing, their products all come from contracted suppliers such as Kodak. While usually thought to be a British or Netherlands company, they are actually incorporated in the off-shore islands. In December '97, their shares dropped 57% in London when they reported that they had underestimated the complexity of its global integration of its Danka Office Products and the Kodak lmaging unit.

You Can't Always Tell A Potential Picture by its Pixels...

A question some of us less pixel savvy folks have had concerning the quality of pictures made by digital cameras has been somewhat answered in the March issue of Presentations magazine.

If price or the ads mean anything you would assume that the more pixels a digital camera has, the better the quality of the picture - something like the finer the film grain, the better the picture. Well, yes or maybe. It's true that very low pixel numbers (320 vertical x 240 horizontal pixels) produce only fair resolution, mid-range (640 x 480 pixels) do much better and very high (1,280 x 1,024 ptxels) results potentially bordering on "average" film.

To get an idea of how digital cameras differ, go to your friendly computer dealer and look at computer monitors with specs similar to digital cameras. VGA monitors display 640 x 480 pixels. XGA monitors display 1024 x 768 and SXGA monitors 1280 x 1.024 pixels. Select the picture quality you like best, then add something you would consider if using a regular film camera. The potential result you get from a film camera is not just from the film you use. The high resolution (sharpness, etc.) potentially recorded by the film is just that - potential. Other factors which help or hinder obtaining the full potential include: lens quality, the precision of the camera design and manufacture, correct exposure and proper processing. All of these elements, and more, are also true for digital pictures.

Digital cameras require more than good image sensor specs to make good picture: the quality of the lens optics + the quality of the image sensor + the sophistication and the quality of the software that translates and processes the color to produce the image. Add in the amount of compression used, plus the precision of assembly and housing of the components and you can at least somewhat predict the final image quality.

So how good is good for a digital image? A high-resolution XGA (1,024 x 768) or better printed as a 3 x 4- inch snapshot on a typical 300 dots per inch color printer looks "good" to the average person in about the same way a box camera picture looks to an average amateur. A lower resolution picture will "pixelate and degrade" as it is enlarged until you can hardly see the image. The better the software, the better it "interpolates" or guesses what pixels should be in order to make an image better than the actual detail you have captured. Somewhat surprising, the article says, lower resolution images are often satisfactory for slide shows and some print media. We assume that's like a halftone print in a newspaper looks acceptable.

Did You Ever Wonder...

How many "average" (non-camera collectors) people place high value or even remember names such as Bell & Howell, Ansco, Keystone or Argus. or the photographic products they once produced? Would the average person looking for a camera today buy one branded with these geriatric trademarks over a Kodak, Canon, Minolta or even a Polaroid 35, at roughly the same price? This question came up because a recent news item stated that the current Bell and Howell company is going to great lengths to inform people that they no longer make cameras and are now an "information processing company". This sounded all the more like a PR stunt since Bell & Howell does license its name for a low-priced line of 35's.

Not Necessarily Related, But Late Info for B&H history fans...

Fir Tree Partners recently made a 59% stake in B&H for "investment purposes". As of now, it hasn't plans for any change of B&H's "business, policies, management, structure or capitalization". But they may contact B&H's new president, 50 year old James Roemer, and others, "regarding potential strategies to increase shareholder value." A day later B&H announced a fourth quarter loss of $34.9 million. $27.7 million related to its discontinued postal-contracting business which processed mail for the U.S. Postal Service.

Worth A Look...

"Hollywood Celebrity: Edward Steichen's Vanity Fair Portraits" display at George Eastman House, 900 East Avenue through April 12. For info call (716) 271-3361

TIPS...

--Kodak Slide Projectors can be upgraded with the Kodak Ektra Bright Lamp Module. It provides 30% more illumination. Also available is the Kodak SP Laser remote to control your projector from as far as 100 feet. The control has a built-in pointer with a red laser dot that can be used from as far as 500 feet. New EKTAGRAPHIC III slide projectors have a comprehensive 4 year warranty. For info call 1-800-242-2424.

--For Kid Camera Collectors, the Nickelodeon PhotaBlaster lets aspiring young (and we assume older) photographers take four pocket-size shots per frame of film (looks 110 or 126). And its ultra-durable plastic construction and rounded edges make it safe for small children. List price $40- Haul Technologies, 500 Eastern Pkwy, Farmingdale, NY 11735--

This and That...

--Nick Graver has announced his retirement from Kodak at the end of March. He plans to travel and, we assume, take pictures. Our best wishes to Nick and his wife.

--Mind-Reading Exercise? A recent news item contained Kodak's Top 10 Tips for Better Pictures. With no further explanation these items were included: #1,"Keep your camera ready", #3,"Keep People Busy", #5, "Place the subject off-center", #7, "Look for good lighting", #9, "Use your flash" and #10, "Choose the right film" (Kodak we assume).

--Happy 70th Birthday to Minolta

--As of December 1, 1997, there were an estimated 45 suppliers selling 106 different (at least cosmetically) digital still cameras. New players included Vivitar and AGFA. Source: HFD

--Former Rochester member of TPHS, Obrin Bauer, is pictured on page 35 of the latest VIEWFINDER, quarterly Journal of the Leica Historical Society of America. Incidentally, the LHSA has its 1998 Spring Mid-Year Photo Shoot in Charleston. S.C., April 17-19. The invite says "... the city will be bathed in blankets of color." To sign up, send $60 fee to De. Stanley E. Hodges. LHSA, 7611 Dornoch Lane, Dallas, TX 75248-2327 before March 20.

--If your interest in early photography includes Canada, Early Photography In Kingston by Jennifer McKendry may fit your library. The book reveals fascinating images of the city's people and places from the mid- 19th century into the early 20th century". Over 60 professional photographers, from daguerreotypist to well know recent photographers and their work with virtually every type of photographic process is included. The first edition of this book was a 1980 National Film Board of Canada prize winner. The author is a photographer/architectural historian. 71 pages 81 illustrations. $15 + $1 post direct from the author, 1 Baiden Street Kingston ONTARIO, K7M 2J7 CANADA or call 613-544-9535

--Pictures of the Times -A Century of Photography from the New York Times- a collection of 154 B&W duotone photographs selected from more than 5 million in the NYT photo file. Originally $24.95, now $14.95, its available from Smart Shopper, P.O, Box 64494 St Paul, MN 55164-0494. Ad doesn't say who went through five million prints to select the 154 best.

Your Editor Stands Corrected:

Frank Calandra has taken umbrage to our saying that the GRAFLEX brand no longer exists. To quote Frank: "Even though it no longer exists as a line of exceptional photographic tools, the once-glorious GRAFLEX brand is still there to denote high quality equipment at reasonable cost. Especially a line of high quality cut-film holders. Will anyone's Graflex collection be complete without a full set of these holders?" Certainly not ours, Frank.

Answer to This Month's Mystery Question

According to USA Today , February 2, 1998, a 24 exposure roll of film has just seven - thousandths of an ounce of silver - and almost all of it is removed and recycled when the pictures are developed.

Meeting Notice

Thursday April 16, 1998 7:30 pm Brighton Torwn Hall, Lower Level Meeting Room 2300 Elmwood Avenue, Rochester, NY (Approximately one half mile west of Twelve Corners) Guests are always welcome

Plastic Cases for Miniature Photographs

Daguerreotys and Ambrotypes were fragile images easily damaged by physical abuse. Protective storage cases for these images were a necessity. Bob Navias will tell us about one type of case, the thermoplastic variety made of a mixture of shellac, dye, and wood fiber filler. Invented by Samuel Peck in 1852, these plastic cases were quite popular and were made in many types and styles for a period of about 15 years. Newer processes with more robust image properties eventually replaced Daguerreotypes and the like, and these storage cases faded into history.

Note to officers: a Board Meeting will be held on May 21, 1998 at 6 PM at Don & Bob's on Monroe Avenue.