Doncaster Scientific Society

Conversazione (Doncaster Chronicle 3 March 1899)

On Wednesday night a conversazione was held in the Mansion House, by kind permission of the mayor (Councillor Birkinshaw), under the auspices of the Scientific Society. Nearly 200 members and friends were present, and Mr. Walter Robers presided.

The evening was occupied with a lecture by Mr. F. O. Bynoe, the popular lecturer on “The Camera and the Wheel.” The lecture was profusely illustrated with limelight pictures, diagrams, and mechanical slides. The lantern being successfully manipulated by Mr. Bellerby.

In the course of an interesting lecture, Mr. Bynoe said there were no  two pastimes that associated themselves better together than ‘cycling and photography’ and the advantages of the combination were evident from its daily increasing popularity. A cyclist would find that the possession of a hand camera would greatly increase the pleasure of a spin for it would provide him, and his friends, with lasting mementoes of pleasant times. It would make him more observant of objects and conditions around him, and it gave him a greater interest in the fast sailing yacht, the passing cloud, the animal world, the country scene, and the many sides of human nature to be found in our crowded streets and elsewhere. He would be well repaid for the trouble of carrying his camera and he would find it useful to him, also at seasons when cycling was impossible.

The photographer would find that the purchase of a cycle would enable him to get to places that otherwise he would be unable to reach, because they had to remember that there was such a thing as terminus to the railway and some of the prettiest spots were to be found far away from the locomotive steam whistle.

Mr. Bynoe explained by means of diagrams thrown on the screen, the optical principles involved in his production of a picture. One or two special points were illustrated by means of mechanical slides, specially prepared for the purpose, which it has taken many years to get. A lantern slide was shown on the screen made from a negative of a film in 1893, and lent to the Calcutta Exhibition, and returned in 1894, and exposed in 1898. The result showed that the keeping qualities of photographic films are equal to those of glass plates. Another point was that from films which are packed with straw boards between them seem to keep better than other films as the straw board is a protector to the sensitive surface.

At the close of a most instructive lecture, a vote of thanks was accorded to Mr. Bynoe on the proposition of the chairman, seconded by Mr. Styles.