Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/633

 in order that it may be carried easily and used at a moment's notice, and when a stand is impracticable; and that, picture for picture, an ordinary camera, fitted with a quick shutter, will, with its various adjustments, produce better instantaneous results.

No man understanding the use of an ordinary camera would undertake a "snap" picture of a group under trees, or in anything but the best light—he would give a proper "time" exposure; and if a picture of this sort is to be taken in a hand camera, it must have a "time" exposure too—wherein is seen a disadvantage of the hand camera, by reason that it cannot be held perfectly still for many seconds together, and must, in such a case, be rested upon some stationary object.

The sensitiveness of the plate is now a matter almost invariably out of the operator's hands, and in that of the plate manufacturer, for at the present time there are few, even among professionals, who coat their own plates, except for very special or experimental purposes. It has, however, to be borne in mind that the joys of instantaneous work are modified by the fact that the more rapid a plate may be to receive the picture, the slower it becomes in development, the more care and skill must be exercised in all the operations, and the greater discomfort and trouble taken in the dark room, with much less than the ordinary light.

The shutter, too, is a matter for the maker. The more ordinary kind of shutter operates in front of the lens, and although admirable pictures are taken with these—they are, in fact, almost the only sort used by amateurs—for specially rapid work, a shutter immediately before the plate in the interior of the camera is more effective. This usually takes the form of a roller blind with a slit of a particular width, which is drawn quickly over the plate, thus exposing only a small part at once, and again covering that part with extreme speed.

Some of the instantaneous photographs which have created the greatest impression