Set of 6 Waterhouse stops.
Category
Photographic technology
Date
1858 - 1900
Materials
Metal
Measurements
84 x 62 x 1 mm
Order this imageCollection
Fox Talbot Museum, Wiltshire
NT 1525165.1
Summary
Set of 6 Waterhouse stops or diaphragms. These are thin piece of metal (the diaphragm) is drilled with a hole (the aperture); a set of these with varying hole sizes makes up a set of Waterhouse stops, corresponding to what today we call f-stops or f-numbers. This set comprises f4, f6, f8, f11, f16 and f22. Photographic lens makers provided slots in lens barrels for the insertion of the chosen stop to control the entry of light into the camera. This apparatus was invented by the pioneering 19th-century photographer John Waterhouse of Halifax in 1858. It has also been reported to have been independently invented by Mr. H. R. Smyth, and described by Waterhouse as early as 1856. The innovation was quickly put to use due to its convenience: "Aperture openings were at first controlled by unscrewing the lens and inserting stops of the appropriate size between the lens components, though after 1858 photographers used the more convenient Waterhouse stops which eliminated unscrewing the components. (No BFI no.)
Provenance
Part of the Fenton Collection. A gift from British Film Institute in 2017. From 1986-1999, part of BFI collection for the Museum of the Moving Image. BFI purchased collection in 1986 from James Fenton's Museum of Photography, Port Erin, Isle of Man 1976-1986