Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/730

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A Daylight Developing -Tank

An ingenious apparatus which enables the photog- rapher to develop his photographic plates in daylight

��/% LL outdoors is the vast laboratory r\ of the camera enthusiast when he is taking pictures; but when he de- velops them he has to confine himself to a stuffy, insanitary darkroom and there work as best he can with acids, despite the dex'eloping tanks on the market.

Had Colonel Roose\-cIt a suitable and convenient means for developing on native soil his pic- tures of the Rixer of Doubt they might have been saved. As it was, a large and valu- able collection of photographic plates was lost when the supply- boat carrying them was cap- sized. The plates were recovered but immersion had ruined them.

Misfortune of a somewhat similar nature attended the exploration party headed by Carl Akcley, the hunter and natur- alist, on one of his trips into Darkest Africa. The climate of Africa is particu- larly severe on photographic materials. Mr. Akeley had taken a large number of animal and native pictures but he was woun<li-d b\- a charging elephant. Wiien he arrived at the first place wlicre

���The daylight developing tank ready to receive its first plate. At the top is shown the transfer- ringhopper with the plate-holder held securely in place by the lock-bar. The tank proper consists of a handle and a quadrant with twelve points representing the twelve interior com- partments for plates; a handle on a slide to open the admitting slot just long enough for the plate to pass through; a funnel through which the developer is jwDured, and a waste-valve drainage

��he could ha\'e his plates developed (he had intended to reach this place fully sixteen months earlier) lie discovered that his pictures were worthless.

To provide the photographer with an apparatus which will make it possible for him to de\'elop his plates as soon as he desires, and to enable him, at the same time, to work independ- ently of the dark- room, Raymond A. Woodman, of Mitchell, South Dakota, has in- vented a develop- ing tank by means of which plates may be loaded as well as developed in daylight.

In brief, the apparatus con- sists of a transfer- ring-hopper whii'h is nothing more than a receptacle for transferring the plates to the dc- \eloping tank; a lock-bar which locks the plate- holder of t li e camera securely to the hopper; a 1 o c k i n g - d o g , \\hich, when re- leased, enables the hopper to enter the tank with the plate, and a handle and (ju ad rant with twelve points representing the twi'Ke compart- ments for plates in the tank. When using

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