History of the Camera
The camera actually goes back a little further than the actually use of photography. The very first cameras were called the Camera Obscura and these were photographic cameras that date way back to the ancient Chinese and the ancient Greeks. These cameras used a pinhole or what they called a lens to see an image of the scene outside but it was upside down when it was onto a viewing platform. One of the most well known cases of a camera being used is in 1544 by a mathematician and instrument maker Reiners Gemma Frisius, he used a camera to look at a solar eclipse and published a diagram of his method in the journal De Radio Astronimica et Geometrico.
These cameras were used to see images not save them. The very early designs of the camera were actually room sized with very little space for one person more less two. As time and technology were passing by, the cameras were made more compact and more portable. In 1685, Johann Zahn built the first small and portable photography camera though 150 years would pass before the application was made a reality. The very first photograph was taken around 1817 by Nicéphore Niépce and he used something of his own invention, these photos were not yet permanent and they would fade over time.
In 1827, he created the very first permanent photograph using an invention of a sliding wooden box camera made by brothers Charles and Vincent Chevalier in France. The photo was able to become permanent using a pewter plate with bitumen and exposing the plate to the light. The real success story of the camera was in 1885 when a man named George Eastman paved the way for photographic film. His very first camera was called the Kodak and it went up for sale in 1888. This was the very first single box camera with a fixed focus lens plus a single speed shutter. The camera was affordably priced even for back then and sales too off.
The camera came preloaded with 100-exposure film and when the film was done, you would send the film to the company for processing. In 1900, George Eastman came up with idea of what was called Brownie; this was a very simple and cheap box camera that used the idea of the snapshot. The Brownie was so popular that sales increased all the way until 1960. Today Kodak is one of the biggest names in the camera industry.
Today technology has allowed inventors to take the Brownie and go a few steps further; in 1925 the very first 35mm camera was being sold. The very first TLR and SLR cameras were made in 1928 and 1933. So many different ways to take pictures and today we find that film is almost obsolete and digital cameras over the past 10 years have taken over as the most popular camera out there, the camera is one of the most innovative inventions of all time. So much so that even today all of our cell phones have cameras.
The Camera
- History of the Camera
- Digital Single Lens Reflex Cameras
- Advantage of the SLR Camera
- Photographic Lens Types: Working with Quality Tools