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To some enterprising pioneers, the balloon afforded an unexcelled
position for making panoramic photographs. Among others who designed
and built their own aerial panoramic cameras was our unfortunate
friend Triboulet, who, in 1-890, combined ideas and built an automatic
panoramic camera to be carried skyward by a captive balloon (Figure 16).
Following Prof. King’s Boston experience with J. W. Black, more
than a score of air-minded photographers used his many balloons in
unsuccessful efforts to get aerial photographs. It was 30 years
later, in 1890, that the reason for so many failures was determined.
Studying results of these early American experiments, W. N. Jennings,
a Philadelphia photographer, concluded:
"When the light of the sky floods the landscape, the quickest
shutter speed is far too slow for a wide open lens and instan
taneous plate."
Jennings, accordingly, stopped down his lens, used a slower emul
sion and a yellow color screen. In July, 1893, with King as his navi
gator, Jennings obtained some truly remarkable views of Philadelphia
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and its environs. His double-coated,* orthochromatic plates were
small, but even when enlarged to 24 x 36 inches, the prints, as Jennings
pointed out, had all the qualities of a rich steel engraving without
a fuzzy line (Figure 17).
The same year that Jennings was experimenting over Philadelphia,
Hr. C. B. Adams, of Augusta, Georgia, obtained a patent on a "Method