The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: in my smallest stop, and prepared for short exposures.
My instrument was a thing called a Tourograph, which differs from
most other cameras in having the plate-holder on top of the box.
The plates are dropped into a groove below, and then moved into
focus, after which the cap is removed and the exposure made.
I set my instrument for Ampersand Pond, sighted the picture through
the ground glass, and measured the focus. Then I waited for a
quiet moment, dropped the plate, moved it carefully forward to the
proper mark, and went around to take off the cap. I found that I
already had it in my hand, and the plate had been exposed for about
thirty seconds with a sliding focus!
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