Who Invented The Panoramic Camera

IN seeking spheres for this column, one would perhaps not immediately think of looking among a drove of celebrated cameras. Even if 1 were to exercise then, examples of spheres would not be very easy to discover: granted, cameras lenses are candidates in theory, but almost are in fact complex combinations of lenses of different shapes, convex, concave, and asymmetrical, often in achromatic pairs. Notwithstanding, the Museum's drove of cameras and accessories contains one very notable exception to this rule: a perfectly spherical photographic lens made in the early 1860s to the design of Thomas Sutton.

Sutton'south lens was a novel solution to the problem of taking panoramic pictures. Most conventional cameras accept an angle of view of almost 40 to 55°. This is of course quite adequate for most subjects merely non for taking photographs of big groups of people or of large buildings, when a wide-angle view is required.

Panoramic photographs go dorsum to the very beginning of photography in the early on 1840s. The photographic pioneer Westward. H. Fox Talbot made panoramas past gluing together several photographs taken with his camera by rotating it carefully on its tripod mountain. Later, when cameras using roll picture show became the vogue, special tripod heads were manufactured for producing panoramic vistas past exactly the same means.

This technique, however, only works for totally static views. Where at that place is the possibility that the subject area might walk out of the frame, less ponderous techniques were required. Two that became almost immediately popular were the use of cameras with rotating or swivelling lenses and fixed backs, and rotating cameras with moving plates or with moving film.

While the Museum's collection does non contain any cameras with moving movie, several rotating-lens cameras are represented, most made by Kodak at the plough of the century. Kodak manufactured a number of models of camera with moving lenses in big quantities up to the late twenties. All are essentially big box cameras in which a clockwork-driven lens moves in a 142° arc. They used roll film, which had to be secured in a curve at the dorsum of the box to ensure that the unabridged scene was in focus.

A third technique for creating panoramic photographs is by using a wide-angle lens. Because of its demands on the technology of lens design and manufacture, this was the about challenging. The lens in the Museum's collection is a specimen of the earliest panoramic wide-angle lens ever produced, patented by Sutton on the 28th September, 1859. It consists of two drinking glass hemispheres in brass mounts, 80 mm in diameter. At the heart is a hollow cavity, 36 mm in diameter, which would have been filled with water. Very few such lenses have survived.

Thomas Sutton (1819-1875) graduated twenty-7th Wrangler at Cambridge University in 1846. The following twelvemonth he moved to Bailiwick of jersey where he opened a well-known photographic studio under the patronage of Prince Albert. In 1856 he founded the magazine Photographic Notes. Apart from his liquid lens, Sutton invented the first reflex camera in 1861 and also worked on the development of dry out photographic plates, an innovation often associated with Richard Leach Maddox. He returned to England in 1874 and died at Pwllheli in Wales in the following twelvemonth.

For his panoramic lens, Sutton was initially inspired by i of the 'snowstorm' souvenirs pop with the Victorian tourist. With one brought habitation from Paris, he observed how images were projected onto the curved glass surface by light passing through the water-filled sphere. This led to his discovery that a sphere of drinking glass filled with water could be made into a wide-angle lens.

In society to make information technology more suited to photography, Sutton introduced into the centre of his lens a butterfly-shaped diaphragm to equalize the exposure over the whole angular field. The field of view could be upwardly to 120°, but was reduced somewhat to cutting down on distortion caused past spherical and chromatic aberrations.

The London camera maker, Frederick Cox, began the manufacture of Sutton's lens and a camera for use with it in January 1860. By November Cox was advertisement the camera as being bachelor in four sizes, of which the most expensive, using curved photographic plates of 6 × 15 inches, price £26. Still, the manufacture of the water-filled lenses gave Cox many difficulties and he sold very few cameras, perhaps not more than half a dozen.

In January 1861 Sutton appear that the manufacture of his lens would exist taken over by Thomas Ross, one of the earliest members of the Regal Photographic Society, operating at that fourth dimension from the Featherstone Buildings in Loftier Holborn. Ross had his first panoramic camera ready by the starting time of May 1861, with a considerably improved lens.

Ross purchased Sutton's lens patent from him in August and past November was advertizing the camera in a full of iii different sizes. He was evidently proud of his achievement, choosing to draw the camera in a lecture to the Imperial Photographic Society on the 3rd December, but his sales may non have been much amend than Cox's. The London firm of Bland & Co later on advertised the camera and kit, but they ceased business organization in 1864, when their entire stock of photographic material and optical and meteorological instruments was taken over by Negretti and Zambra.

The panoramic camera in the Museum'southward collection is signed 'Sutton's Patent Panoramic Lens, made by T. ROSS, London. N1 234'. Apart from its curved dorsum, with curved focusing screen, plate holder and drinking glass plate, it is essentially just a conventional mahogany box camera, 250 × 270 × 210 mm in size. This was the smallest in Ross's range and sold for £22.

The lens is fitted with a central stop of f12 and the shutter is of a very elementary construction, consisting of a mahogany flap that hinges in front of the lens. Focusing is by means of a spiral situated at the back, and in that location are spirit levels to ensure that the camera is horizontal. The kit supplied past Ross included a tripod and carrying case, curved sensitizing baths and twelve glass plates. Panoramic prints on paper were made from the glass negatives by using a curved printing frame.

One of Ross'due south kickoff customers was Camille Silvy, aristocrat, diplomat and keen amateur photographer turned professional. While on diplomatic service in London in 1859, Silvy bought a grand house in Porchester Terrace which he turned into a stylish portrait studio, becoming 1 of the most sought-later on club photographers. Cecil Beaton gave him the title the 'Gainsborough of commercial photographers' and high club vied to exist amidst his sitters.

Silvy was noted for his use of innovative techniques, non just in portrait work but in landscape photography. Ane technique that he exploited was to combine different negatives for the sky and the basis in the creation of creative scenes. Panoramic photography was therefore a natural choice for him to experiment with.

Although fiddling is currently known about the piece of work Silvy undertook, he must accept viewed it as having some promise, since in 1867 he patented a whorl film holder for the Ross camera, an instance of which is preserved in the collections of the National Museum of Scientific discipline and Manufacture. By using roll motion picture he would have been able to circumvent many of the issues inherent in curved drinking glass plates and thus open up fully the creative possibilities that Sutton's panoramic lens had to offer.

Due west. D. H.

Source: http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/about/sphaera/sphaera-issue-no-8/sphere-no-8-thomas-sutton-panoramic-camera-lens/

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