CAMERA NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1058, 1 February 1913, Page 4

CAMERA NOTES.

[By “Focus.”]

The cinematograph may be considered a triumph of modern pho tographic and mechanical skill combined, and apart from the precision in cpnstruciou of both cinema, camera and projecting machine, the introduction _of motion pictures into all civilised countries of this world has brought with it an interesting and popular method of acquiring some knowledge of distant countries, of the world's mcst wonderful feats of engineering, or some extraordinary phenomena as revealed by science through the microscope while we may be far removed from the actual locality of its occurrence or the country in which it is contained.

Cinematography is the modern adaption of photography in its most advanced form, and it has incidentally been the means of introducing novel methods of portraiture for commercial purposes, which otherwise would have appeared impossible or not been thought of at all. In the matter of natural colour photography, it seems a little surprising that it should practically remain for a young science like kinematography to show the way •to success in this long-sought matter to the much older science, and although in this part of the globe we may not be acquainted with “kinemacolour” or aulochrome photography, nevertheless these processes are now established on a,sound and practical basis. In support of this, it may be pointed out that Mr Charles Urban is now producing in England his latest and greatest achievement in kinemacolour—a pictorial record of the construction of that wonderful new waterway from the Occident to the Orient, the Panama Canal. Since the American engineers, in May. 1904, entered into possession of the canal zone, once a veritable pest-hole, no less than thirty-thousand workers have been continuously employed in a hazardous enterprise against which nature herself has lought, and has exacted a death-tool of no less than 24 per thousand per year. Graphically and forcefully the films lay bare these wonders — showing the mighty steam shovels, each of which scoops three tons of stone from the giant ditch at every assault, the drilling, dynamiting and dredging of the cut, the hydraulic attacks by which mountain sides are swept away, the gigantic stone crushers, cement mixers, and a multiplicity of novel machinery which man’s ingenuity has brought into being for this titanic undertaking. Surely such a feat of engineering would prove a great subject for motion pictures, and although such an undertaking and locality may not present such a conglomeration of bright colour as to prove a severe kinemaco'our test, still the production of motion pictures of this mammoth contract in the vividness of nature must be looked upon as more than mediocre.