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THE AUSTRALIAN PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNAL

July 20, 1896.

good negatives or negatives of attractive or interesting subjects has no advantage over the man who has not the good fortune to possess such, and any accidental preference which some of the voters might exhibit for certain subjects is not allowed to interfere with the result.

Leaving the choice of plate to the maker of the slide is also another good point, as the experienced slide maker will naturally select that plate which he understands best, or if he is conversant with several makes he will choose the one which his judgment tells him will best suit that particular negative.

The second novelty is the showing of two slides on the same screen at the same moment; by thus exhibiting them, the judges are enabled to obtain a clear grasp of things, and are in the best position to weigh the merits and defects of the respective slides one against the other, the discs being absolutely the same size and the illumination as nearly equal in the two lanterns as it was possible for those in charge to keep it. (We were informed some time ago that the projection lenses in the lanterns of the association are Dallmeyer’s Lantern Lenses, which were specially paired to the order of the society.)

The device of changing the slides in the lanterns previous to the taking of the vote has also much to recommend it, as both slides are then seen under practically identical conditions.

If, instead of allowing the judging to be performed by the whole of the members of the society, a small jury of recognised experts in the making and criticising of transparencies had been appointed, we think that there would have been no question as to the value of the slide which came off victorious, but when the votes of the general body of members are taken, this result is by no means guaranteed— as it is extremely unlikely that every member present would be qualified to adjudicate upon a matter of this sort, and as the members are sure to vote one way or the other there is every opening left for an improper decisison with regard to some of the slides—especially when deciding upon the respective merits of two which happen to very nearly equal. We do not—indeed cannot—assume that this was the

case in this particular competition, but that the chance of such errors of judgment occurring does exist can not for a moment be denied.

Another thing deserving of notice is the small size of the discs employed ; though these are quite large enough for the testing of slides in this manner, the light can be made very intense when concentrated in such a small area, and this would give a slide which would be far too dense to look well under ordinary conditions, an unfair advantage over one which had been prepared with the usual conditions in view,—the discs were only five feet diameter, now in accordance with the well-known rule, that if a given consumption of gas per hour and a given pressure afforded a light which would give desirable results when a ten feet disc was used, the same amount of light would illuminate a five feet disc with exactly four times the intensity, thus it will be easily comprehended that a very heavy slide would possibly look just correct, whereas one which had been prepared for normal illumination would be swamped.

No doubt this detail was not lost sight of by those in charge of the lanterns, but still the temptation to obtain as fine a light as possible is always very great, and it would possibly be found surprisingly difficult to resist.

These two matters appear to us to be the only elements of weakness in the scheme, though the manner of judging favored on this occasion obviously possesses one great advantage in that it leaves no room for fault finding on the part of the vanquished, as every man has a voice in the placing of his own work.

Considering the competition, as a whole, we think that it is a step in the right direction, and that the imitiation of this system in Australia is a further illustration of the energy of the leaders of this Association, and, taken in conjunction with the valuable papers contributed by some of them to the recent Congress, a proof of the work which they are doing for scientific photography. We anticipate that this method of deciding competitions will be introduced into more of our photographic societies.

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