H.H Bennet's shutter.

[kris-bochenek]

<p>While visiting Wisconsin Dells few days ago (my 5th trip there) We went to see the Standing Rock and heard the story of H.H Bennet. The tour guide said that H.H Bennet invented a stop motion shutter to be used on his cameras to capture subjects in motion as seen in his famous photo of his son jumping on to the Standing Rock. What hit me is that back then they used either dry plates or wet plate colodion. It was the emulsion speed that was the problem and not the shutter. If you can't get the exposure within 1/100 of a second because your slow emulsion limits you, what is the shutter going to do for you? I might be missing something in this whole story. Can any of you classic camera gurus enlighten me on this subject? Did Bennet use some kind of super fast emulsion perhaps 100 ISO ?</p>

[Two23]

<p>Don't forget there were some pretty fast lenses, too. The ever popular Petzval was somewhere around f3.5 or faster, and there might have been faster lenses than that.</p>

<p>Kent in SD</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>For what it's worth, here is the Wikipedia article about it, which confirms the story (if not the fact) and also shows the famous picture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._H._Bennett .</p>

[tony_lockerbie]

<p>Thanks for that Kris & JDM, interesting read, I didn't know about H.H.Bennett, very interesting fellow.</p>

[colin carron]

<p>JDM, thanks for the link. It is clear from the work of other photographers of the time that this sort of thing was possible. Perhaps the most well-known is Edweard Muybridge who used photography to investigate animal locomotion in 1877 - 78. In his case he used a series of single shot wet-plate cameras with the shutter releases actuated by threads which the horse or whatever tripped as it moved past.<br /> <br /> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge<br /> <br /> If you look at photographic developments about this time there is quite an emphasis on being able to stop motion, presumably as it was just becoming possible. Fast lenses are advertised as<em> instant-actin</em>g or <em>extra-rapid</em> and the fastest were about f4 - f5.6. These were not all Petzvals. For example Dallmeyer made an Extra-Rapid Rectilinear lens of f5.6 and others were about the same or slightly faster. Clearly there was a pressure on lens makers to make faster lenses to allow shorter exposure times especially for photographing children. These were sometimes about f2 but came with some distortions.<br /> <br /> The 1887 patent Thornton Pickard roller blind shutter had a maximum speed of 1/90 th second though that top speed was only set by the curtain gap and could have been reduced with a little adaptation. It was not long after this that focal plane shutters were made with top speeds of 1/1000th cecond.<br /> <br /> It is not obvious what the typical plate emulsion speeds were at this time. The dru plate came in around 1880 though I have no definitive data on what speeds were available as the ASA / ISO system had not been invented. The impression you get from the equipment at the time is that most exposure times were still a matter of a second or more. The early light meters or actinometers worked by timing how long a piece of exposed photo paper took to darken so were effectively test exposures. Some actinometers had little built-in pendulums to making counting the time easier. So normally not fast.<br /> <br /> But clearly Muybridge and Bennet and many more were able to make short exposure times work. However Muybridge stood out from the others as he was the only one of these pioneers that we know of who had committed murder (and been acquitted).</p>

[colin carron]

<p>As I remember it, and I might be wrong, Muybridge used simple drop shutters, where the shutter was a plate with a hole in it which dropped past the lens. The shutter speed depended on how fast the aperture in the shutter plate dropped past the lens. A faster shutter speed just required a higher drop, but allow for a slight time lag!</p>

[colin carron]

<p>Using the Sunny 16 rule and assuming Bennet is using a lens of f5.6 and a shutter speed of 1/100 second then that would give a plate emulsion ISO speed of about 12. Or if he was using an f4 lens then a plate ISO speed of about 6. Impressive timing though and I wonder how many times junior had to do his death-defying leap?</p>

[Two23]

<p>Rubber bands were sometimes added to the drop shutters to get faster speeds. I think I recall reading about a railroad photographer in the 1870s who did this. My earliest shutter is a Prosch, made around 1888. It's sort of a "mousetrap" looking thing, and shutter speed was determined by tensioning the main spring. Finally, my earliest Brownie is a No. 2 Model A from somwhere around 1904. Shutter speed is something like 1/40s and it has an f16 aperture. That would imply film speed of somewhere between ISO 25 and ISO 50. Also, weren't some photographers using a home brew dry plate in the later 1870s?</p>

<p>Kent in SD</p>

[JDMvW]

<blockquote>

<p>wonder how many times junior had to do his death-defying leap?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>somewhere I saw that junior did it 18 times before he got the one he wanted.</p>

[kris-bochenek]

<p>Nice story indeed. I kind of didn't believe the tour guide all that much since she avoided me after I asked her where the Wisconsin river begins. LOL. I found the rock formations very interesting and places such as The Standing Rock park worth visiting. I only shot one roll on my classic Yashica mat and that was with Delta 3200 at 6400 ISO. For other shots we used not so classic Nikon 1.</p>

[chuck_pere]

<p>Kris, I assume you have visited the H. H. Bennet studio in the Dells. <a href="http://hhbennettstudio.wisconsinhistory.org/">http://hhbennettstudio.wisconsinhistory.org/</a><br>

I'd recommended it for anyone visiting the area. Lots of old brass lenses to see. Nominal entry fee.</p>