An 18th-century artist utilizing a camera obscura for image tracing
The camera obscura (from the Latin for 'dark room') is a natural optical phenomenon and precursor of the photographic camera. It projects an inverted image (flipped left to right and upside down) of a scene from the other side of a screen or wall through a small aperture onto a surface opposite the opening. The earliest documented explanation of this principle comes from Chinese philosopher Mozi (c.470– c.391BC), who correctly argued that the inversion of the camera obscura image is a result of light traveling in straight lines from its source.
From around 1550, lenses were used in the openings of walls or closed window shutters in dark rooms to project images, aiding in drawing. By the late 17th century, portable camera obscura devices in tents and boxes had come into use as drawing tools.
The images produced by these early cameras could only be preserved by manually tracing them, as no photographic processes had been invented yet. The first cameras were large enough to accommodate one or more people, and over time they evolved into increasingly compact models. By the time of Niépce, portable box camera obscurae suitable for photography were widely available. Johann Zahn envisioned the first camera small and portable enough for practical photography in 1685, but it took nearly 150 years for such an application to become possible.
With a pinhole camera, light enters a dark box through a small hole, and projects an inverted image on the wall opposite the hole.
Ibn al-Haytham (c.965–1040), an Arab physicist also known as Alhazen, made significant contributions to the understanding of the camera obscura, conducting experiments with light in a darkened room with a small opening.[2] He is often credited with the invention of the pinhole camera.[3][4] He also provided the first correct analysis of the camera obscura,[5] offering the first geometrical and quantitative descriptions of the phenomenon,[6] and was the first to utilize a screen in a dark room for image projection from a hole in the surface.[7] He was the first to understand the relationship between the focal point and the pinhole,[8] and was the pioneer of early afterimage experiments.
The work of Ibn al-Haytham on optics, circulated through Latin translations, played a significant role in inspiring notable individuals such as Witelo, John Peckham, Roger Bacon, Leonardo da Vinci, René Descartes, and Johannes Kepler.[2] The Camera Obscura was used as a drawing aid since at least around 1550. By the late 17th century, portable versions of the device housed in tents and boxes became commonly used for drawing purposes.[9]
Early photographic camera (18th–19th centuries)
Before the development of the photography camera, it had been known for hundreds of years that some substances, such as silver salts, darkened when exposed to sunlight.[10]:4 In a series of experiments, published in 1727, the German scientist Johann Heinrich Schulze demonstrated that the darkening of the salts was due to light alone, and not influenced by heat or exposure to air.[11]:7The Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele showed in 1777 that silver chloride was especially susceptible to darkening from light exposure, and that once darkened, it becomes insoluble in an ammonia solution.[11] The first person to use this chemistry to create images was Thomas Wedgwood.[10] To create images, Wedgwood placed items, such as leaves and insect wings, on ceramic pots coated with silver nitrate, and exposed the set-up to light. These images weren't permanent, however, as Wedgwood didn't employ a fixing mechanism. He ultimately failed at his goal of using the process to create fixed images created by a camera obscura.[11]:8
The first permanent photograph of a camera image was made in 1826 by Nicéphore Niépce using a sliding wooden box camera made by Charles and Vincent Chevalier in Paris.[11]:9–11 Niépce had been experimenting with ways to fix the images of a camera obscura since 1816. The photograph Niépce succeeded in creating shows the view from his window. It was made using an 8-hour exposure on pewter coated with bitumen.[11]:9 Niépce called his process "heliography".[10]:5 Niépce corresponded with the inventor Louis Daguerre, and the pair entered into a partnership to improve the heliographic process. Niépce had experimented further with other chemicals, to improve contrast in his heliographs. Daguerre contributed an improved camera obscura design, but the partnership ended when Niépce died in 1833.[11]:10 Daguerre succeeded in developing a high-contrast and extremely sharp image by exposing on a plate coated with silver iodide, and exposing this plate again to mercury vapor.[10]:6 By 1837, he was able to fix the images with a common salt solution. He called this process Daguerreotype, and tried unsuccessfully for a couple of years to commercialize it. Eventually, with help of the scientist and politician François Arago, the French government acquired Daguerre's process for public release. In exchange, pensions were provided to Daguerre as well as Niépce's son, Isidore.[11]:11
In the 1830s, the English scientist William Henry Fox Talbot independently invented a process to capture camera images using silver salts.[12]:15 Although dismayed that Daguerre had beaten him to the announcement of photography, he submitted a pamphlet to the Royal Institution entitled Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing on 31 Jan 1839, which was the first published description of photography. Within two years, Talbot developed a two-step process for creating photographs on paper, which he called calotypes. The calotype process was the first to utilize negative printing, which reverses all values in the reproduction process – black shows up as white and vice versa.[10]:21 Negative printing allows, in principle, an unlimited number of positive prints to be made from the original negative.[12]:16 The Calotype process also introduced the ability for a printmaker to alter the resulting image through retouching of the negative.[12]:67Calotypes were never as popular or widespread as daguerreotypes,[10]:22 owing mainly to the fact that the latter produced sharper details.[13]:370 However, because daguerreotypes only produce a direct positive print, no duplicates can be made. It is the two-step negative/positive process that formed the basis for modern photography.[11]:15
The Giroux daguerreotype camera made by Maison Susse Frères in 1839, with a lens by Charles Chevalier, the first to be commercially produced
The first photographic camera developed for commercial manufacture was a daguerreotype camera, built by Alphonse Giroux in 1839. Giroux signed a contract with Daguerre and Isidore Niépce to produce the cameras in France,[10]:8–9 with each device and accessories costing 400 francs.[14]:38 The camera was a double-box design, with a landscape lens fitted to the outer box, and a holder for a ground glass focusing screen and image plate on the inner box. By sliding the inner box, objects at various distances could be brought to as sharp a focus as desired. After a satisfactory image had been focused on the screen, the screen was replaced with a sensitized plate. A knurled wheel controlled a copper flap in front of the lens, which functioned as a shutter. The early daguerreotype cameras required long exposure times, which in 1839 could be from 5 to 30 minutes.[10][14]:39
After the introduction of the Giroux daguerreotype camera, other manufacturers quickly produced improved variations. Charles Chevalier, who had earlier provided Niépce with lenses, created in 1841 a double-box camera using a half-sized plate for imaging. Chevalier's camera had a hinged bed, allowing for half of the bed to fold onto the back of the nested box. In addition to having increased portability, the camera had a faster lens, bringing exposure times down to 3 minutes, and a prism at the front of the lens, which allowed the image to be laterally correct.[15]:6 Another French design emerged in 1841, created by Marc Antoine Gaudin. The Nouvel Appareil Gaudin camera had a metal disc with three differently-sized holes mounted on the front of the lens. Rotating to a different hole effectively provided variable f-stops, allowing different amounts of light into the camera.[16]:28 Instead of using nested boxes to focus, the Gaudin camera used nested brass tubes.[15]:7 In Germany, Peter Friedrich Voigtländer designed an all-metal camera with a conical shape that produced circular pictures of about 3 inches in diameter. The distinguishing characteristic of the Voigtländer camera was its use of a lens designed by Joseph Petzval.[12]:34 The f/3.5Petzval lens was nearly 30 times faster than any other lens of the period, and was the first to be made specifically for portraiture. Its design was the most widely used for portraits until Carl Zeiss introduced the anastigmat lens in 1889.[11]:19
Within a decade of being introduced in America, 3 general forms of camera were in popular use: the American- or chamfered-box camera, the Robert's-type camera or "Boston box", and the Lewis-type camera. The American-box camera had beveled edges at the front and rear, and an opening in the rear where the formed image could be viewed on ground glass. The top of the camera had hinged doors for placing photographic plates. Inside there was one available slot for distant objects, and another slot in the back for close-ups. The lens was focused either by sliding or with a rack and pinion mechanism. The Robert's-type cameras were similar to the American-box, except for having a knob-fronted worm gear on the front of the camera, which moved the back box for focusing. Many Robert's-type cameras allowed focusing directly on the lens mount. The third popular daguerreotype camera in America was the Lewis-type, introduced in 1851, which utilized a bellows for focusing. The main body of the Lewis-type camera was mounted on the front box, but the rear section was slotted into the bed for easy sliding. Once focused, a set screw was tightened to hold the rear section in place.[16]:26–27 Having the bellows in the middle of the body facilitated making a second, in-camera copy of the original image.[15]:17
Daguerreotype cameras formed images on silvered copper plates and images were only able to develop with mercury vapor.[17] The earliest daguerreotype cameras required several minutes to half an hour to expose images on the plates. By 1840, exposure times were reduced to just a few seconds owing to improvements in the chemical preparation and development processes, and to advances in lens design.[18]:38 American daguerreotypists introduced manufactured plates in mass production, and plate sizes became internationally standardized: whole plate (6.5 × 8.5 inches), three-quarter plate (5.5×7 1/8 inches), half plate (4.5 × 5.5 inches), quarter plate (3.25 × 4.25 inches), sixth plate (2.75 × 3.25 inches), and ninth plate (2 × 2.5 inches).[12]:33–34 Plates were often cut to fit cases and jewelry with circular and oval shapes. Larger plates were produced, with sizes such as 9 × 13 inches ("double-whole" plate), or 13.5 × 16.5 inches (Southworth & Hawes' plate).[16]:25
The collodion wet plate process that gradually replaced the daguerreotype during the 1850s required photographers to coat and sensitize thin glass or iron plates shortly before use and expose them in the camera while still wet. Early wet plate cameras were very simple and little different from Daguerreotype cameras, but more sophisticated designs eventually appeared. The Dubroni of 1864 allowed the sensitizing and developing of the plates to be carried out inside the camera itself rather than in a separate darkroom. Other cameras were fitted with multiple lenses for photographing several small portraits on a single larger plate, useful when making cartes de visite. It was during the wet plate era that the use of bellows for focusing became widespread, making the bulkier and less easily adjusted nested box design obsolete.
For many years, exposure times were long enough that the photographer simply removed the lens cap, counted off the number of seconds (or minutes) estimated to be required by the lighting conditions, then replaced the cap. As more sensitive photographic materials became available, cameras began to incorporate mechanical shutter mechanisms that allowed very short and accurately timed exposures to be made.
The use of photographic film was pioneered by George Eastman, who started manufacturing paper film in 1885 before switching to celluloid in 1889. His first camera, which he called the "Kodak", was first offered for sale in 1888. It was a very simple box camera with a fixed-focus lens and single shutter speed, which along with its relatively low price appealed to the average consumer. The Kodak came pre-loaded with enough film for 100 exposures and needed to be sent back to the factory for processing and reloading when the roll was finished. By the end of the 19th century Eastman had expanded his lineup to several models including both box and folding cameras.
Films also made possible capture of motion (cinematography) establishing the movie industry by the end of the 19th century.
Early fixed images
The first partially successful photograph of a camera image was made in approximately 1816 by Nicéphore Niépce,[19][20] using a very small camera of his own making and a piece of paper coated with silver chloride, which darkened where it was exposed to light. No means of removing the remaining unaffected silver chloride was known to Niépce, so the photograph was not permanent, eventually becoming entirely darkened by the overall exposure to light necessary for viewing it. In the mid-1820s, Niépce used a wooden box camera made by Parisian opticians Charles and Vincent Chevalier, to experiment with photography on surfaces thinly coated with Bitumen of Judea.[21] The bitumen slowly hardened in the brightest areas of the image. The unhardened bitumen was then dissolved away. One of those photographs has survived.
Daguerreotypes and calotypes
After Niépce's death in 1833, his partner Louis Daguerre continued to experiment and by 1837 had created the first practical photographic process, which he named the daguerreotype and publicly unveiled in 1839.[22] Daguerre treated a silver-plated sheet of copper with iodine vapor to give it a coating of light-sensitive silver iodide. After exposure in the camera, the image was developed by mercury vapor and fixed with a strong solution of ordinary salt (sodium chloride). Henry Fox Talbot perfected a different process, the calotype, in 1840. As commercialized, both processes used very simple cameras consisting of two nested boxes. The rear box had a removable ground glass screen and could slide in and out to adjust the focus. After focusing, the ground glass was replaced with a light-tight holder containing the sensitized plate or paper and the lens was capped. Then the photographer opened the front cover of the holder, uncapped the lens, and counted off as many minutes as the lighting conditions seemed to require before replacing the cap and closing the holder. Despite this mechanical simplicity, high-quality achromatic lenses were standard.[23]
Late 19th-century studio camera
Dry plates
Collodion dry plates had been available since 1857, thanks to the work of Désiré van Monckhoven, but it was not until the invention of the gelatin dry plate in 1871 by Richard Leach Maddox that the wet plate process could be rivaled in quality and speed. The 1878 discovery that heat-ripening a gelatin emulsion greatly increased its sensitivity finally made so-called "instantaneous" snapshot exposures practical. For the first time, a tripod or other support was no longer an absolute necessity. With daylight and a fast plate or film, a small camera could be hand-held while taking the picture. The ranks of amateur photographers swelled and informal "candid" portraits became popular. There was a proliferation of camera designs, from single- and twin-lens reflexes to large and bulky field cameras, simple box cameras, and even "detective cameras" disguised as pocket watches, hats, or other objects.
The short exposure times that made candid photography possible also necessitated another innovation, the mechanical shutter. The very first shutters were separate accessories, though built-in shutters were common by the end of the 19th century.[23]
The use of photographic film was pioneered by George Eastman, who started manufacturing paper film in 1885 before switching to celluloid in 1888–1889. His first camera, which he called the "Kodak", was first offered for sale in 1888. It was a very simple box camera with a fixed-focus lens and single shutter speed, which along with its relatively low price appealed to the average consumer. The Kodak came pre-loaded with enough film for 100 exposures and needed to be sent back to the factory for processing and reloading when the roll was finished. By the end of the 19th century Eastman had expanded his lineup to several models including both box and folding cameras.
In 1900, Eastman took mass-market photography one step further with the Brownie, a simple and very inexpensive box camera that introduced the concept of the snapshot. The Brownie was extremely popular and various models remained on sale until the 1960s.
Film also allowed the movie camera to develop from an expensive toy to a practical commercial tool.
Despite the advances in low-cost photography made possible by Eastman, plate cameras still offered higher-quality prints and remained popular well into the 20th century. To compete with rollfilm cameras, which offered a larger number of exposures per loading, many inexpensive plate cameras from this era were equipped with magazines to hold several plates at once. Special backs for plate cameras allowing them to use film packs or rollfilm were also available, as were backs that enabled rollfilm cameras to use plates.
Except for a few special types such as Schmidt cameras, most professional astrographs continued to use plates until the end of the 20th century when electronic photography replaced them.
A number of manufacturers started to use 35mm film for still photography between 1905 and 1913. The first 35mm cameras available to the public, and reaching significant numbers in sales were the Tourist Multiple, in 1913, and the Simplex, in 1914. [citation needed]
Oskar Barnack, who was in charge of research and development at Leitz, decided to investigate using 35mm cine film for still cameras while attempting to build a compact camera capable of making high-quality enlargements. He built his prototype 35mm camera (Ur-Leica) around 1913, though further development was delayed for several years by World War I. It wasn't until after World War I that Leica commercialized their first 35mm cameras. Leitz test-marketed the design between 1923 and 1924, receiving enough positive feedback that the camera was put into production as the Leica I (for Leitz camera) in 1925. The Leica's immediate popularity spawned several of competitors, most notably the Contax (introduced in 1932), and cemented the position of 35mm as the format of choice for high-end compact cameras.
Kodak got into the market with the Retina I in 1934, which introduced the 135 cartridge used in all modern 35mm cameras. Although the Retina was comparatively inexpensive, 35mm cameras were still out of reach for most people and rollfilm remained the format of choice for mass-market cameras. This changed in 1936 with the introduction of the inexpensive Argus A and to an even greater extent in 1939 with the arrival of the immensely popular Argus C3. Although the cheapest cameras still used rollfilm, 35mm film had come to dominate the market by the time the C3 was discontinued in 1966.
The fledgling Japanese camera industry began to take off in 1936 with the Canon 35mm rangefinder, an improved version of the 1933 Kwanon prototype. Japanese cameras would begin to become popular in the West after Korean War veterans and soldiers stationed in Japan brought them back to the United States and elsewhere.
ContaxS of 1949–, the second pentaprismSLR The first SLR with a fixed pentaprism was the RectaflexAsahiflex IIb, 1954Nikon F of 1959– the first Japanese system camera
The first practical reflex camera was the Franke & HeideckeRolleiflexmedium formatTLR of 1928. Though both single- and twin-lens reflex cameras had been available for decades, they were too bulky to achieve much popularity. The Rolleiflex, however, was sufficiently compact to achieve widespread popularity and the medium-format TLR design became popular for both high- and low-end cameras.
A similar revolution in SLR design began in 1933 with the introduction of the IhageeExakta, a compact SLR which used 127 rollfilm. This was followed three years later by the first Western SLR to use 135 film (otherwise known as 35mm film), the Kine Exakta (World's first true 35mm SLR was Soviet"Sport" camera, marketed several months before Kine Exakta, though "Sport" used its own film cartridge). The 35mm SLR design gained immediate popularity and there was an explosion of new models and innovative features after World War II. There were also a few 35mm TLRs, the best-known of which was the Contaflex of 1935, but for the most part these met with little success.
The first major post-war SLR innovation was the eye-level viewfinder, which first appeared on the Hungarian Duflex in 1947 and was refined in 1948 with the Contax S, the first camera to use a pentaprism. Prior to this, all SLRs were equipped with waist-level focusing screens. The Duflex was also the first SLR with an instant-return mirror, which prevented the viewfinder from being blacked out after each exposure. This same time period also saw the introduction of the Hasselblad 1600F, which set the standard for medium format SLRs for decades.
In 1952 the Asahi Optical Company (which later became well known for its Pentax cameras) introduced the first Japanese SLR using 135 film, the Asahiflex. Several other Japanese camera makers also entered the SLR market in the 1950s, including Canon, Yashica, and Nikon. Nikon's entry, the Nikon F, had a full line of interchangeable components and accessories and is generally regarded as the first Japanese system camera. It was the F, along with the earlier S series of rangefinder cameras, that helped establish Nikon's reputation as a maker of professional-quality equipment and one of the world's best known brands.
Instant cameras
Polaroid Model 430, 1971
While conventional cameras were becoming more refined and sophisticated, an entirely new type of camera appeared on the market in 1949. This was the Polaroid Model 95, the world's first viable instant-picture camera. Known as a Land Camera after its inventor, of 1965, was a huge success and remains one of the top-selling cameras of all time.
Automation
The first camera to feature automatic exposure was the seleniumlight meter-equipped, fully automatic Super Kodak Six-20 pack of 1938, but its extremely high price (for the time) of $225 (equivalent to $4,870in 2023)[24] kept it from achieving any degree of success. By the 1960s, however, low-cost electronic components were commonplace and cameras equipped with light meters and automatic exposure systems became increasingly widespread.
The next technological advance came in 1960, when the German Mec 16 SBsubminiature became the first camera to place the light meter behind the lens for more accurate metering. However, through-the-lens metering ultimately became a feature more commonly found on SLRs than other types of camera; the first SLR equipped with a TTL system was the Topcon RE Super of 1962.
Digital cameras differ from their analog predecessors primarily in that they do not use film, but capture and save photographs on digital memory cards or internal storage instead. Their low operating costs have relegated chemical cameras to niche markets. Digital cameras now include wireless communication capabilities (for example Wi-Fi or Bluetooth) to transfer, print, or share photos, and are commonly found on mobile phones.
The first semiconductor image sensor was the CCD, invented by Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith at Bell Labs in 1969.[25] While researching MOS technology, they realized that an electric charge was the analogy of the magnetic bubble and that it could be stored on a tiny MOS capacitor. As it was fairly straightforward to fabricate a series of MOS capacitors in a row, they connected a suitable voltage to them so that the charge could be stepped along from one to the next.[26] The CCD is a semiconductor circuit that was later used in the first digital video cameras for television broadcasting.[27]
The concept of digitizing images on scanners, and the concept of digitizing video signals, predate the concept of making still pictures by digitizing signals from an array of discrete sensor elements. Early spy satellites used the extremely complex and expensive method of de-orbit and airborne retrieval of film canisters. Technology was pushed to skip these steps through the use of in-satellite developing and electronic scanning of the film for direct transmission to the ground. The amount of film was still a major limitation, and this was overcome and greatly simplified by the push to develop an electronic image capturing array that could be used instead of film. The first electronic imaging satellite was the KH-11 launched by the NRO in late 1976. It had a charge-coupled device (CCD) array with a resolution of 800 x 800 pixels (0.64 megapixels).[32] At Philips Labs in New York, Edward Stupp, Pieter Cath and Zsolt Szilagyi filed for a patent on "All Solid State Radiation Imagers" on 6 September 1968 and constructed a flat-screen target for receiving and storing an optical image on a matrix composed of an array of photodiodes connected to a capacitor to form an array of two terminal devices connected in rows and columns. Their US patent was granted on 10 November 1970.[33] Texas Instruments engineer Willis Adcock designed a filmless camera that was not digital and applied for a patent in 1972, but it is not known whether it was ever built.[34]
The first recorded attempt at building a self-contained digital camera was in 1975 by Steven Sasson, an engineer at Eastman Kodak.[37][38] It used the then-new solid-state CCD image sensor chips developed by Fairchild Semiconductor in 1973.[39] The camera weighed 8 pounds (3.6kg), recorded black-and-white images to a compact cassette tape, had a resolution of 0.01megapixels (10,000 pixels), and took 23 seconds to capture its first image in December 1975. The prototype camera was a technical exercise, not intended for production.
Handheld electronic cameras, in the sense of a device meant to be carried and used as a handheld film camera, appeared in 1981 with the demonstration of the Sony Mavica (Magnetic Video Camera). This is not to be confused with the later cameras by Sony that also bore the Mavica name. This was an analog camera, in that it recorded pixel signals continuously, as videotape machines did, without converting them to discrete levels; it recorded television-like signals to a 2×2inch "video floppy".[40] In essence, it was a video movie camera that recorded single frames, 50 per disk in field mode, and 25 per disk in frame mode. The image quality was considered equal to that of then-current televisions.
Canon RC-701, 1986
Analog electronic cameras do not appear to have reached the market until 1986 with the Canon RC-701. Canon demonstrated a prototype of this model at the 1984 Summer Olympics, printing the images in the Yomiuri Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper. In the United States, the first publication to use these cameras for real reportage was USA Today, in its coverage of World Series baseball. Several factors held back the widespread adoption of analog cameras; the cost (upwards of $20,000, equivalent to $56,000in 2023[24]), poor image quality compared to film, and the lack of quality affordable printers. Capturing and printing an image originally required access to equipment such as a frame grabber, which was beyond the reach of the average consumer. The "video floppy" disks later had several reader devices available for viewing on a screen but were never standardized as a computer drive.
The early adopters tended to be in the news media, where the cost was negated by the utility and the ability to transmit images by telephone lines. The poor image quality was offset by the low resolution of newspaper graphics. This capability to transmit images without a satellite link was useful during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and the first Gulf War in 1991.
US government agencies also took a strong interest in the still video concept, notably the US Navy for use as a real-time air-to-sea surveillance system.
The first analog electronic camera marketed to consumers may have been the Casio VS-101 in 1987. A notable analog camera produced the same year was the Nikon QV-1000C, designed as a press camera and not offered for sale to general users, which sold only a few hundred units. It recorded images in greyscale, and the quality in newspaper print was equal to film cameras. In appearance it closely resembled a modern digital single-lens reflex camera. Images were stored on video floppy disks.
Silicon Film, a proposed digital sensor cartridge for film cameras that would allow 35mm cameras to take digital photographs without modification was announced in late 1998. Silicon Film was to work as a roll of 35mm film, with a 1.3 megapixel sensor behind the lens and a battery and storage unit fitting in the film holder in the camera. The product, which was never released, became increasingly obsolete due to improvements in digital camera technology and affordability. Silicon Films' parent company filed for bankruptcy in 2001.[41]
Early true digital cameras
Minolta RD-175, the first portable digital SLR camera, introduced by Minolta in 1995.Nikon D1, 1999
By the late 1970s, the technology required to produce truly commercial digital cameras existed. The first true portable digital camera that recorded images as a computerized file was likely the Fuji DS-1P of 1988, which recorded to a 2MB SRAM (static RAM) memory card that used a battery to keep the data in memory. This camera was never marketed to the public.
The first digital camera of any kind ever sold commercially was possibly the MegaVision Tessera in 1987[42] though there is not extensive documentation of its sale known. The first portable digital camera that was actually marketed commercially was sold in December 1989 in Japan, the DS-X by Fuji[43] The first commercially available portable digital camera in the United States was the Dycam Model1, first shipped in November 1990.[44] It was originally a commercial failure because it was black-and-white, low in resolution, and cost nearly $1,000 (equivalent to $2,300in 2023[24]).[45] It later saw modest success when it was re-sold as the Logitech Fotoman in 1992. It used a CCD image sensor, stored pictures digitally, and connected directly to a computer for download.[46][47][48]
Nikon was interested in digital photography since the mid-1980s. In July 1986, while presenting to Photokina, Nikon introduced an operational prototype of the first SLR-type digital camera (Still Video Camera), manufactured by Panasonic.[49] The Nikon SVC was built around a sensor 2/3 " charge-coupled device of 300,000 pixels. Storage media, a magnetic floppy inside the camera, allows recording 25 or 50 B&W images, depending on the definition.[50]
In 1991, Kodak brought to market the Kodak DCS (Kodak Digital Camera System), the beginning of a long line of professional Kodak DCS SLR cameras that were based in part on film bodies, often Nikons. The Kodak DCS was the first commercially available Digital SLR (DSLR) It used a 1.3megapixel sensor, had a bulky external digital storage system and was priced at $13,000 (equivalent to $29,000in 2023[24]). At the arrival of the Kodak DCS-200, the Kodak DCS was dubbed Kodak DCS-100.
The move to digital formats was helped by the formation of the first JPEG and MPEG standards in 1988, which allowed image and video files to be compressed for storage. The first consumer camera with a liquid crystal display on the back was the Casio QV-10 developed by a team led by Hiroyuki Suetaka in 1995. The first camera to use CompactFlash was the Kodak DC-25 in 1996.[51] The first camera that offered the ability to record video clips may have been the Ricoh RDC-1 in 1995.
In 1995 Minolta introduced the RD-175, which was based on the Minolta 500si SLR with a splitter and three independent CCDs. This combination delivered 1.75M pixels. The benefit of using an SLR base was the ability to use any existing Minolta AF mount lens. 1999 saw the introduction of the Nikon D1, a 2.74megapixel camera that was the first digital SLR developed entirely from the ground up by a major manufacturer, and at a cost of under $6,000 (equivalent to $12,000in 2023[24]) at introduction was affordable by professional photographers and high-end consumers. This camera also used Nikon F-mount lenses, which meant film photographers could use many of the same lenses they already owned.
Digital camera sales continued to flourish, driven by technology advances. The digital market segmented into different categories, Compact Digital Still Cameras, Bridge Cameras, Mirrorless Compacts and Digital SLRs.
Since 2003, digital cameras have outsold film cameras[52] and Kodak announced in January 2004 that they would no longer sell Kodak-branded film cameras in the developed world[53] – and in 2012 filed for bankruptcy after struggling to adapt to the changing industry.[54]
One of the major technology advances was the development of CMOS sensors, which helped drive sensor costs low enough to enable the widespread adoption of camera phones. Smartphones now routinely include high resolution digital cameras.
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed in many fields of science, manufacturing, and business, as well as its more direct uses for art, film and video production, recreational purposes, hobby, and mass communication. A person who captures or takes photographs is called a photographer.
A single-lens reflex camera (SLR) is a camera that typically uses a mirror and prism system that permits the photographer to view through the lens and see exactly what will be captured. With twin lens reflex and rangefinder cameras, the viewed image could be significantly different from the final image. When the shutter button is pressed on most SLRs, the mirror flips out of the light path, allowing light to pass through to the light receptor and the image to be captured.
A camera is an instrument used to capture and store images and videos, either digitally via an electronic image sensor, or chemically via a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. As a pivotal technology in the fields of photography and videography, cameras have played a significant role in the progression of visual arts, media, entertainment, surveillance, and scientific research. The invention of the camera dates back to the 19th century and has since evolved with advancements in technology, leading to a vast array of types and models in the 21st century.
A digital camera, also called a digicam, is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film or film stock. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices like smartphones with the same or more capabilities and features of dedicated cameras. High-end, high-definition dedicated cameras are still commonly used by professionals and those who desire to take higher-quality photographs.
The following list comprises significant milestones in the development of photography technology.
Daguerreotype was the first publicly available photographic process, widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process.
Astrophotography, also known as astronomical imaging, is the photography or imaging of astronomical objects, celestial events, or areas of the night sky. The first photograph of an astronomical object was taken in 1840, but it was not until the late 19th century that advances in technology allowed for detailed stellar photography. Besides being able to record the details of extended objects such as the Moon, Sun, and planets, modern astrophotography has the ability to image objects outside of the visible spectrum of the human eye such as dim stars, nebulae, and galaxies. This is accomplished through long time exposure as both film and digital cameras can accumulate and sum photons over long periods of time or using specialized optical filters which limit the photons to a certain wavelength.
135 film, more popularly referred to as 35 mm film or 35 mm, is a format of photographic film with a film gauge of 35 mm (1.4 in) loaded into a standardized type of magazine for use in 135 film cameras.
Advanced Photo System (APS) is a film format for consumer still photography first marketed in 1996 and discontinued in 2011. It was sold by various manufacturers under several brand names, including Eastman Kodak (Advantix), FujiFilm (Nexia), Agfa (Futura) and Konica (Centuria). Development was led by Kodak starting in the mid-1980s.
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre was a French scientist, artist and photographer, recognized for his invention of the eponymous daguerreotype process of photography. He became known as one of the fathers of photography. Though he is most famous for his contributions to photography, he was also an accomplished painter, scenic designer, and a developer of the diorama theatre.
A digital single-lens reflex camera is a digital camera that combines the optics and mechanisms of a single-lens reflex camera with a solid-state image sensor and digitally records the images from the sensor.
The science of photography is the use of chemistry and physics in all aspects of photography. This applies to the camera, its lenses, physical operation of the camera, electronic camera internals, and the process of developing film in order to take and develop pictures properly.
The Kodak Professional DCS Pro SLR/n is a 13.5 megapixel full-frame 35mm digital SLR produced as a collaboration between Nikon Corporation and Eastman Kodak. It was an improved version of the Kodak Professional DCS Pro 14n series, and was based on a modified Nikon N80 film SLR and thus compatible with almost all Nikon F mount lenses. The camera was announced in early 2004 and became available to purchase mid-year. A monochrome variant named Kodak Professional DCS Pro SLR/n m of the camera existed as well.
Heliography is an early photographic process, based on the hardening of bitumen in sunlight. It was invented by Nicéphore Niépce around 1822. Niépce used the process to make the earliest known surviving photograph from nature, View from the Window at Le Gras, and the first realisation of photoresist as means to reproduce artworks through inventions of photolithography and photogravure.
The history of photography began with the discovery of two critical principles: The first is camera obscura image projection; the second is the discovery that some substances are visibly altered by exposure to light. There are no artifacts or descriptions that indicate any attempt to capture images with light sensitive materials prior to the 18th century.
The Nikon D1 is a digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR) that was made by Nikon Corporation introduced on June 15, 1999. It features a 2.7-megapixel image sensor, 4.5-frames-per-second continuous shooting, and accepts the full range of Nikon F-mount lenses. The camera body strongly resembles the F5 and has the same general layout of controls, allowing users of Nikon film SLR cameras to quickly become proficient in using the camera. Autofocus speed on the D1 series bodies is extremely fast, even with "screw-driven" AF lenses.
A full-frame DSLR is a digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR) with a 35 mm image sensor format. Historically, 35 mm was one of the standard film formats, alongside larger ones, such as medium format and large format. The full-frame DSLR is in contrast to full-frame mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras, and DSLR and mirrorless cameras with smaller sensors, much smaller than a full 35 mm frame. Many digital cameras, both compact and SLR models, use a smaller-than-35 mm frame as it is easier and cheaper to manufacture imaging sensors at a smaller size. Historically, the earliest digital SLR models, such as the Nikon NASA F4 or Kodak DCS 100, also used a smaller sensor.
Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image is stored as a computer file ready for further digital processing, viewing, electronic publishing, or digital printing. It is a form of digital imaging based on gathering visible light.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to photography:
The Nikon D3 is a 12.0-megapixel professional-grade full frame (35 mm) digital single lens reflex camera (DSLR) announced by the Nikon Corporation on 23 August 2007 along with the Nikon D300 DX format camera. It was Nikon's first full-frame DSLR. The D3, along with the Nikon D3X, was a flagship model in Nikon's line of DSLRs, superseding the D2Hs and D2Xs. It was replaced by the D3S as Nikon's flagship DSLR. The D3, D3X, D3S, D4, D4s, D5, D6, D700, D800, D800Е and Df are the only Nikon FX format DSLRs manufactured in Japan. The D3S was replaced by the D4 in 2012.
↑ Belbachir, Ahmed Nabil (2010). Smart Cameras. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN978-1-4419-0953-4. The invention of the camera can be traced back to the 10th century when the Arab scientist Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham alias Alhacen provided the first clear description and correct analysis of the (human) vision process. Although the effects of single light passing through the pinhole have already been described by the Chinese Mozi (Lat. Micius) (5th century B), the Greek Aristotle (4th centuryBC), and the Arab
↑ Plott, John C. (1984). Global History of Philosophy: The Period of scholasticism (part one). Motilal Banarsidass Publ. p.460. ISBN978-0-89581-678-8. According to Nazir Ahmed if only Ibn-Haitham's fellow-workers and students had been as alert as he, they might even have invented the art of photography since al-Haytham's experiments with convex and concave mirrors and his invention of the "pinhole camera" whereby the inverted image of a candle-flame is projected were among his many successes in experimentation. One might likewise almost claim that he had anticipated much that the nineteenth century Fechner did in experimentation with after-images.
↑ Wade, Nicholas J.; Finger, Stanley (2001), "The eye as an optical instrument: from camera obscura to Helmholtz's perspective", Perception, 30 (10): 1157–1177, doi:10.1068/p3210, PMID11721819, S2CID8185797, The principles of the camera obscura first began to be correctly analysed in the eleventh century, when they were outlined by Ibn al-Haytham.
↑ Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilization in China, vol. IV, part 1: Physics and Physical Technology(PDF). p.98. Archived from the original(PDF) on 3 July 2017. Retrieved 5 September 2016. Alhazen used the camera obscura particularly for observing solar eclipses, as indeed Aristotle is said to have done, and it seems that, like Shen Kua, he had predecessors in its study, since he did not claim it as any new finding of his own. But his treatment of it was competently geometrical and quantitative for the first time.
↑ "Who Invented Camera Obscura?". Photography History Facts. All these scientists experimented with a small hole and light but none of them suggested that a screen is used so an image from one side of a hole on the surface could be projected at the screen on the other. First, one to do so was Alhazen (also known as Ibn al-Haytham) in 11th century.
↑ Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilization in China, vol. IV, part 1: Physics and Physical Technology(PDF). p.99. Archived from the original(PDF) on 3 July 2017. Retrieved 5 September 2016. The genius of Shen Kua's insight into the relation of focal point and pinhole can better be appreciated when we read in Singer that this was first understood in Europe by Leonardo da Vinci (+ 1452 to + 1519), almost five hundred years later. A diagram showing the relation occurs in the Codice Atlantico, Leonardo thought that the lens of the eye reversed the pinhole effect, so that the image did not appear inverted on the retina; though in fact, it does. Actually, the analogy of focal-point and pin-point must have been understood by Ibn al-Haitham, who died just about the time when Shen Ku was born.
↑ Steadman, P. (2002). Vermeer's camera: uncovering the truth behind the masterpieces. Oxford University Press, USA.
1 2 Frizot, Michel (January 1998). "Light machines: On the threshold of invention". In Michel Frizot (ed.). A New History of Photography. Koln, Germany: Konemann. ISBN978-3-8290-1328-4.
1 2 3 Gustavson, Todd (1 November 2011). 500 Cameras: 170 Years of Photographic Innovation. Toronto, Ontario: Sterling. ISBN978-1-4027-8086-8.
1 2 3 Spira, S. F.; Lothrop, Easton S. Jr.; Spira, Jonathan B. (2001). The History of Photography as Seen Through the Spira Collection. New York: Aperture. ISBN978-0-89381-953-8.
↑ Starl, Timm (January 1998). "A New World of Pictures: The Daguerreotype". In Michel Frizot (ed.). A New History of Photography. Koln, Germany: Konemann. ISBN978-3-8290-1328-4.
↑ Newhall, Beaumont (1982). The History of Photography. New York, New York: The Museum of Modern Art. p.13. ISBN0-87070-381-1. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, of exposure to light. Although the only example of his camera work that remains today appears to have been made in 1826, his letters leave no doubt that he had succeeded in fixing the camera's image a decade earlier.
↑ Inc, InfoWorld Media Group (12 August 1991). "InfoWorld". InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. – via Google Books.{{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
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