ALL ABOUT CAMERAS

A Bit of History

Cameras have changed a lot in the past 400 years. “Camera” means “chamber”, and in fact the first cameras really were chambers. Artists used the camera obscura, or pinhole camera, to project an upside-down image of a brightly-lit scene onto a canvas. The artist could then trace the outlines of the scene.

The next step is to remove the artist. Was there a way to make the image permanent? If you’ve read about photographic film, then you know about the first efforts to permanently record images made by light. Inventors such as Joseph Niépce, Jacques Daguerre, and William Fox Talbot all made advances in recording images, and each of these advances changed the form and function of the camera

Cameras really started to change the world with the introduction of the “Brownie” camera in 1900. With the Brownie, photography was no longer just for professional photographers; the average family could now own a camera. Snapshots, spontaneous, and un-posed images started to record everyday life. This miniature camera was inexpensive and easy to use, and versions of the Brownie were still being sold into the 1960s.

Digital cameras are beginning to change photography at least as much as the Brownie did over a hundred years ago. With digital photography,

i) can pictures be taken at will

ii) downloaded to a computer

iii) sent all over the world with just a few clicks of the mouse.

How It Works

Every camera is essentially a lightproof box, with some method of letting in just a small amount of light at just the right time. Once the light is in the box, it forms an image (like in the camera obscura), causes a chemical reaction on photographic film (like in the Brownie camera), or energizes a photocell (like in a digital camera). To find out how the light gets in to do its thing, let’s imagine what happens when you snap a picture, maybe of a dolphin playing in the surf. (You can see right away that a camera obscura wouldn’t do you much good for this kind of picture!)

CAMERAS

Cameras have changed a lot in the past 400 years. “Camera” means “chamber”, and in fact the first cameras really were chambers. Artists used the camera obscura, or pinhole camera, to project an upside-down image of a brightly-lit scene onto a canvas. The artist could then trace the outlines of the scene. The next step is to remove the artist. Was there a way to make the image permanent? If you’ve read about photographic film, then you know about the first efforts to permanently record images made by light. Inventors such as Joseph Niépce, Jacques Daguerre, and William Fox Talbot all made advances in recording images, and each of these advances changed the form and function of the camera.

Cameras really started to change the world with the introduction of the “Brownie” camera in 1900. With the Brownie, photography was no longer just for professional photographers; the average family could now own a camera. Snapshots, spontaneous, and un-posed images started to record everyday life. This miniature camera was inexpensive and easy to use, and versions of the Brownie were still being sold into the 1960s. Digital cameras are beginning to change photography at least as much as the Brownie did over a hundred years ago. With digital photography, not only can pictures be taken at will, but they can be downloaded to a computer and sent all over the world with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Every camera is essentially a lightproof box, with some method of letting in just a small amount of light at just the right time. Once the light is in the box, it forms an image (like in the camera obscura), causes a chemical reaction on photographic film (like in the Brownie camera), or energizes a photocell (like in a digital camera). To find out how the light gets in to do its thing, let’s imagine what happens when you snap a picture, maybe of a dolphin playing in the surf. (You can see right away that a camera obscura wouldn’t do you much good for this kind of picture!)