READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 26-38 which are based on Reading Passage 3

on pages 9 and 10.

"The Rollfilm Revolution"

The introduction of the dry plate process brought with it many advantages. Not only was it much

more convenient, so that the photographer no longer needed to prepare his material in advance,

but its much greater sensitivity made possible a new generation of cameras. Instantaneous

exposures had been possible before, but only with some difficulty and with special equipment and

conditions. Now, exposures short enough to permit the camera to the held in the hand were easily

achieved. As well as fitting shutters and viewfinders to their conventional stand cameras,

manufacturers began to construct smaller cameras in tended specifically for hand use.

One of the first designs to be published was Thomas Bolas’ s ’Detective’ camera of 1881.

Externally a plain box, quite unlike the folding bellows camera typical of the period, it could be

used unobtrusively. The name caught on, and for the next decade or so almost all hand cameral

were called ’ Detectives’, Many. of the new designs in the 1880s were for magazine cameras, in

which a number of dry plates could be pre-loaded and changed one after another following

exposure. Although much more convenient than stand cameras, still used by most serious workers,

magazine plate cameras were heavy, and required access to a darkroom for loading and

processing the plates. This was all changed by a young American bank clerk turned photographic

manufacturer, George Eastman, from Rochester, New York.

Eastman had begun to manufacture gelatine dry plates in 1880. being one of the first to do so in

America. He soon looked for ways of simplifying photography, believing that many people were

put off by the complication and messiness. His first step was to develop, wih the camera

manufacturer William H. Walker, a holder for a long roll of paper negative ’film’. This could be

fitted to a standard plate camera and up to forty-eight exposures made before reloading. The

combined weight of the paper roll and the holder was far less than the same number of glass

plates in their ling-tight wooden holders. Although roll-holders had been made as early as the

1850s, none had been very successful be cause of the limitations of the photographic materials

then available. Eastman’s rollable paper film was sensitive and gave negatives of good quality;

the Eastman-Walker roll-holder was a great success.

The next step was to combine the roll-holder with a small hand camera; Eastman’s first design

was patented with an employee, F. M. Cossitt, in 1886. It was not a success. Only fifty Eastman

detective cameras were made, and they were sold as a lot to a dealer in 1887; the cost was too

high and the design too complicated. Eastman set about developing a new model, which was

launched in June 1888. It was a small box, containing a roll of paperbased stripping film

sufficient for 100 circular exposures 6 cm in diameter. Its operation was simple: set the shutter by

pulling a wire string; aim the camera using the V line impression in the camera top; press the

release botton to activate the exposure; and turn a special key to wind to the film. A hundred

exposures had to be made, so it was important to record each picture in the memorandum book

provided, since there was no exposure counter. Eastman gave his camera the invented name

’Kodak’-which was easily pronounceable in most languages. and had two Ks which Eastman felt

was a firm, uncompromising kind of letter.