In flying with a slow plane, or in flying against the wind, the exposure can sometimes be increased to as much as double this length. Diminishing F would similarly extend the allowable exposure, but the ratio of F to A approximates to a constant in actual practice; in other words, a certain resolution and size of image have been found desirable. If flying is forced higher, a longer focus lens is used; if lower flying is possible, a lens of shorter focus. This relationship has, of course, been derived from war-time experience. Probably much of the prospective peace-time mapping work will impose substantially easier requirements as to definition and will thus allow longer exposures.
Fig. 19.—Relative motion of plane and photographic image.
For low oblique views the longest exposure is much less. Taking 45 degrees as a representative angle for the foreground, and 500 meters as a representative height, the value of t becomes 1
600.
These figures will illustrate two important points: they show how severe is the limitation as to exposure, with the consequent heavy demand on lens and sensitive material speed; and they show how important it is to secure a shutter with the maximum light-giving power for a specified length of exposure. This leads to a study of the characteristics as to efficiency of the two common types of shutter, namely, shutters at or between the lens, and focal-plane shutters.
Characteristics of Shutters Located at the Lens.—Of the various shutters located at the lens the most common is the type that is clumsily but descriptively termed the “between-the-lens” shutter. This is composed of thin hard rubber or metal leaves or sectors which overlap and which are pulled open to make the exposure. It may require two operations, one for setting and one for exposing, or it may, as in some makes, set and expose by a single motion. Clock escapements, or some form of frictional resistance, are depended on to control the interval between opening and closing. This shutter is the one almost universally employed on small hand cameras and on all lenses up to about two inches diameter. It gives speeds sometimes marked as high as 1
300 second, although usually not over 1
100 on actual test.
Between-the-lens shutters have been used to some extent on the shorter focus (up to 25 centimeter) aerial cameras, notably in the Italian service. They suffer, however, from two limitations. In the first place we have not yet solved the mechanical problems met with in trying to make the shutter of large size (as for 50 centimeter F/6 lenses) at the same time to give high speeds. In the second place the efficiency of the type is low because a large part of the exposure time is occupied by the opening and closing of the sectors.
If we define the efficiency of a shutter as the ratio of the amount of light it transmits during the exposure to the amount of light it would transmit were it wide open during the whole period, then the efficiency of the ordinary between-the-lens shutter is of the order of 60 per cent. This means 1.6 times the motion of the image for the same photographic action that we should have with a perfect shutter. The accompanying photographic record (Fig. [20]) of the opening and closing process of this type of shutter clearly illustrates its deficiencies.
Fig. 20.—Effective lens opening at equal intervals of time: (a) during focal plane shutter exposure; (b) during between-the-lens shutter exposure.