Abstract
PHOTOGRAPHY from the air reached a wonderfull degree of excellence during the war, as is demonstrated by the pictures that have been published and shown at various exhibitions; but for obvious reasons the instruments used for this work have only quite recently been made public. The experts who have compared the various lenses suitable assure us that those made by English opticians were found to be not only equal to those of Zeiss and Goerz, but markedly superior to them. With regard to cameras, the editor of the British Journal of Photography has had an opportunity of seeing the whole range of cameras used by the Royal Air Force, and describes them in an article in his journal of March 21. Within a few months of the beginning of the war the value of aerial photographs began to be recognised, and specially made cameras were first used early in 1915. The first camera was of a very primitive type, and fitted with a Mackenzie-Wishart adapter for 5 × 4 plates. Early in 1916 a magazine-changing arrangement was used with the plates in metal sheaths, the foremost—that is, the lowest—plate being pushed sideways after exposure into the receiver by a horizontally moving metal plate. So far the cameras were of wood, but in 1917 a metal camera was introduced, and the changing done by pulling a cord instead of pushing a metal plate.
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Aerial Photography . Nature 103, 115 (1919). https://doi.org/10.1038/103115a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/103115a0