WWI Cameras?

[Aaron D.]

My grandfather was in a Canadian unit in which one of his comrades kept his camera despite the order to turn them in. His photos are now in the PEI archive. I'll try to dig them up-actual battle scenes!

[Julio1fer]

I posted some time ago a series of images taken in 1913-1917 by an old friend of my fathers (the Luis Alba series). Alba used a Kodak Autographic 3A or a very similar model, with 122 rollfilm. In one of the envelopes that Alba received from the lab with his negs and prints, there was this advertising of magnesium capsules. They were lighted with a match:



The text in Spanish says, more or less:

"You can make beautiful pictures at night with all ease. Just release the shutter and light with a match a magnesium capsule worth 0.20 pesos. This is the most practical method for photographing children.

Make a test and you will be convinced that this is even easier than taking pictures by daylight...REQUEST ADDITIONAL INFORMATION"

Just my 2c. I can attest to this being authentic period information.

[ImageMaker]

Sounds almost identical to the Kodak Flash Cartridges mentioned in passing in the instructions for the flash paper.  Much faster burn, about like flash powder in a prepackaged form (exposure time probably around 1/10 to 1/4 second).

[Peter Evans]

Even if the director is a stickler for authenticity, most in the audience won't have a clue about genuine flash of those days. (Depending on their average age, most may not have even encountered a flashbulb.) Putting aside realism as too fiddly and too dangerous, I think if you succeed in the quest for mere verisimilitude you're likely to make the audience think that a (stage) bomb has gone off.

[Don Day]

Peter, we're all with you. The fertile mind just can't give up a good challenge, though. This has been an interesting romp through Dan's dilemma!

[connealy]

We probably didn't add a lot of production value to the play, but it was a nice excuse to think about some early photo technology.  I had never before really considered the specifics of the relationship between photographic and firearms technologies early in the century.
 . . Particularly in regard to artificial lighting, it seems there was a considerable contribution from firearms knowledge, both in regard to pyrotechnic chemistry and the devices used to ignite, contain and direct rapid burning substances.  Caplock and even matchlock gun components are certainly suggested by some of the photographic lighting devices.
 . . I wonder how many people still remember the once common phrase, "flash in the pan"?  It seems likely to me that it was in the mind of people who designed the early photographic flash equipment.  The phrase was used to describe events which had a dramatic appearance, but less than expected practical outcomes.  The origin was in the use of flintlock firearms where a spring-loaded flint blade struck a steel plate to cause sparks, igniting a small charge which directed a flame to the main charge behind the weapon's projectile.  Sometimes, the powder in the pan would ignite with a bang, some smoke and a flash, but the main charge would not go off.

[ImageMaker]

I wonder how many people still remember the once common phrase, "flash in the pan"?  It seems likely to me that it was in the mind of people who designed the early photographic flash equipment.  The phrase was used to describe events which had a dramatic appearance, but less than expected practical outcomes.  The origin was in the use of flintlock firearms where a spring-loaded flint blade struck a steel plate to cause sparks, igniting a small charge which directed a flame to the main charge behind the weapon's projectile.  Sometimes, the powder in the pan would ignite with a bang, some smoke and a flash, but the main charge would not go off.

Heh.  Yep, and it was *usually* indicative of one a small number of errors: either the main charge powder was bad (many/most shooters used a separately stored, finer-grained powder to prime the pan, and that powder was often in a more airtight flask than the main charge powder -- doubly true if paper cartridges were in use), the vent was clogged (poor maintenance, though it also happened with distressing frequency if one needed to make a number of repeated shots without an opportunity for thorough cleaning, as in a military battle -- especially if, in the heat of the moment, one forgot to pick the vent as part of the process), a paper cartridge used to load the weapon was blocking the vent (again, failure to pick the vent before priming), or worst of all, one had, in all the excitement, loaded either no powder or in the wrong order, powder over the ball (fairly easy to do with loose ammunition).

In all cases, a "flash in the pan" boiled down to user error making what should have been a big deal into just a little bit of a thing...

[rentavet]

If you're really lucky at reenactments you can see the effect of the flash illuminating the guy's face.  



here's a link to the larger size http://farm1.static.flickr.com/120/294648711_0d7d85a12c_o.jpg

[ImageMaker]

And modern shooters think they have problems with flinching.  Imagine *knowing*, as you pull the trigger, there was going to be that big flame and smoke show going off two inches from your right eye.  I can't figure how anyone managed to shoot a flintlock with both eyes open...

[joho35mm]

From what I've read, infantrymen in the Napoleonic (and earlier) eras were trained to look to the side, away from the gun, if the wind was coming in their direction, so as not to have the acrid smoke and flaming bits from the flash blind them permanently. So much for 'aiming'. Well, smoothbore muskets weren't known for their accuracy anyway (hence their use in massed volley fire), so it wouldn't have mattered much in the way of precision.

[Rick Oleson]

Not only did you have to hold still with the flash in front of your face, but there is a delay between that and the time the gun actually fires (almost as bad as using a digital camera :)= - so you had to hold REALLY steady while you waited through the whole ftooBANG.

and if you think it was tough holding a rifle (they weren't all smoothbore muskets, some were very accurate rifles) on target through all that, you ought to try it with a pistol!

[ImageMaker]

Well, the delay certainly makes it harder to hit with a pistol, but at least the pan isn't right by your face when it goes off.  I'd almost forgotten that delay -- "lock time" is nothing compared to waiting for a spark from the pan to get through the vent, then the deflagration inside the barrel to build up enough pressure to go from whoooosh to BOOOM.  It's no wonder the conversion from flint to percussion was almost instantaneous (as these things go -- all over in ten years or so, even the existing base of flintlocks mostly converted in fifteen), compared to (for instance) the century-long competition between revolvers and semi-auto pistols...

Makes the stuff Nathaniel Bumpo, aka Hawkeye, was fictionally credited with in James Fennimore Cooper's Leatherstocking series (wing-shooting a thrown potato, for instance, in pre-Revolutionary days) all the more amazing...