COPYING STAND (Pr., Pied-table, Chevalet de reproduction ; Ger., Reproduciren-Stativ, Kopier-Stativ) An arrangement for keeping the camera and copy parallel when reproducing plans, drawings, photographic prints, etc. It usually consists of an upright copyboard or easel running on parallel rails, and capable of being damped in any position. The camera may also be mounted to run on the rails, but is often stationary. Illus tration A shows an ordinary copying stand.
In process work, the copying stands used are the products of considerable ingenuity, the occasion for which was the necessity of avoiding any want of sharpness through vibration. One ation, tilting stands are sometimes employed in order to get the best light possible on the original.
A curious form of copying apparatus used for copying large paintings in the open air is the revolving camera stand, which can be turned according to the direction of the sun's rays.
The vertical copying stand C is often used for copying from books, or from small natural objects which can be best arranged on a horizontal board. Levy's copying stand D and E combines not only the vertical, but also the tilting and horizontal forms. With these vertical stands a prism or mirror box must be used in conjunction with the lens.
of the earliest and most usual methods for attain ing this object was to suspend the copying base on ropes which depend from the ceiling ; but the ropes get hardened by constant tension and in time fail to neutralise the vibration. One way of overcoming this drawback was to insert spiral springs between the ends of the ropes and the suspension hooks ; and another was to suspend the base from a beam swinging like a scale beam.
The above methods are now considered clumsy and obsolete, and the usual form of apparatus now employed is the spring stand B. The base is swung on spiral springs P attached to a rigid stand. Where no vibration is anticipated, rails may be laid on the floor and the camera and copyboard placed on separate stands, with wheels running directly on the rails, or the copy board may be fixed to the wall whilst the camera is on a running carriage. This system is largely used in Government offices for map reproduction.
Another plan often employed for large work is to have rails laid both inside and outside the dark-room, the copyboard being on -a carriage outside, and a plate-holder being mounted on a carriage inside, whilst the lens is fixed in an opening made in the wall of the dark-room ; in this way the dark-room itself becomes the camera. Where daylight is used for illumin
For producing reversed negatives, whiclx invariably have to be made for photo-mechanical processes, the camera stands must be provided with a turntable so as to place the camera side to the copyboard, the image being then reflected by mirror or prism, as shown in the vertical stand C. On the Continent, copying stands have been made for such reversal work with the copyboard and the camera carriage both placed across the stand at an angle of 45 degrees, but, of course, still parallel to one another and provided with reversing prism as before. In this way some floor space is saved with large cameras.
For copying transparencies a " transparency attachment " is usually connected up to the camera and stand ; it is a simple light-tight conical bellows with provision for inserting the transparency. Rotary copyboards and rotary transparency holders are often employed in copying, especially in colour work, to place the negative at different angles from the vertical or the term " colourable imitation." In other words, a copy need not be an exact copy. It is sufficient to be able to show in the case of the infringement of a copyright that the original photograph has been copied by a mechanical or hand method.
The period of protection granted by the Act is for the term of the natural life of the author and seven years after his death. It has no relation to the life of the owner of the copyright except in the case where he is also the author. Usually, there is no room for doubt as to who is actually the author, but in the case of a photo graphic firm, where the finished photograph passes through a number of hands, it has been held that the author is the person who effectively is as near as he can be the cause of the picture which is produced—that is, the person who horizontal line. For correcting distortion a transparency holder with universal movement may be employed.