The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1913-03-22
IMPORTANT INVENTION.
Luke Vickers of this County AS
sists Hopkins Professor to
Invent Camera.

A camera that sees almost ALL
around the horizon-that, making
allowances for little poetic ny
perbole, is what DR.. Robert H.Wood,
professor of experimental physics
at the Johns Hopkins University, has
contrived.
There never was another camera
like it, and inasmuch as it has no
commercial value, on DR.. Woods
own confession, there will probably
never be another. What it can
ectually do is to photograph at one
exposure 100 degrees of the space
surrounding it, or, more concretely,
if placed flush against one wall of
room, it will photograph all four
corners.
DR.. Wood and one of his pupils,
Luke Vickers, a member of the class
of 1916, have been making expert
ments with the singular continuance.
DR.. Wood conceived the idea some
years ago and made smaller
model than the one he now uses,
and took some pictures with it.
He called it the "fish-eye camera"
because it is supposed to reproduce
on the plate exactly the image
that the peculiar lens of the fish's
eye projects upon the retina OF that
creatures visual organ.
The cameras of the widest scope
in commercial use make pictures of
only 90 degrees. That means that
they record only little more than
a quarter of what is around them.
By taking advantage of the refract-
ing quality of water, DR.. Woods
camera captures a view of one-haf
of its surroundings. 1t is an I'M
canny thing. 1t sees lot more
than the human eye can see, al
belt in a strange and somewhat dis
torted way.
Water refracts a ray of light
passing through it. That fact has
been observed by most everyone.
A coin in the bottom of a water
filled vessel appears back of where
it really it, because the light re-
Elected from it to the eye is re-
fracted or 'lent" when passing from
the water to the air.
DR.. Woods camera is a metal
box, watertight. On the bottom of
it he lays an ordinary Photographic
plate. Then he fills it with water
and shuts down the lid. The lid
is solid save in the center, where
a piece of plate glass is fastened In.
The glass has no essential function;
it is not lens. 1t is, in fact, all
covered with tinfoil, save a pin holss
in the center. That pin hole IS the
"lens.'
When the pin hole is uncovered
the plate records it's surroundings,
or half of them. The rays from
objects on a line with the front of
a camera when they reach the pin
hole and pass into the water are
IGlIdCISu, 81 ludI luStOdu VI OSAh6
lost on the side of the camera, as
is the case with an ordinary PIN.
hole camera, they are all gathered
on the plate, which thus reproduces
everything in front of the camera
and ON both sides of 1t back as far:
as line coincident with its 'front.'.
Unfortunately, the refraction
shows on the plate in a way that
makes the whole world have sort
of convex appearance. 1t is that
illusion of convexity that spoils
the marketableness of the camera.
But it does some wonderful
things. Placed on the ground, pin
hole up, it takes a picture of cir
Gle of men standing around it, feet
and all. Pointed across the street,
it takes not only the house oppo-
site, but the houses both ways as
far as the horizon, the curb immes
diately in front Of it and thee sky
| overhead.
Commercially, it is practically
valueless, this "fish-eye camera. -
BALTIC. News of March Is.