The History of Camera

The history of camera can be traced back to the evolution of Camera Obscura. This device can be possibly date back to ancient Chinese and ancient Greeks. This camera used to have a pinhole or a lens to project an image of a scene on to a viewing surface. An Arabian physicist, Ibn al-Haytham created the first pinhole camera and that was Camera Obscura, after he observed how the light travels through a window Shutter. He was the first who realized that smaller holes would create a sharper image.

The photography technology continued to change through many generations. These generations of photography technology can be classified into:

·         Camera Obscubra

·         Daguerreotypes

·         Calotypes

·         Dry Plates

·         Film

·         Digital Cameras

The earlier camera used to be room-sized with some space for one or two people. The preserving techniques to preserve the image burn in the film were not discovered yet. People need to manually trace them. Johann Zahn envisioned the first camera in small size and portable that can be practically used for photography in 1685 though it takes almost 150 years of time for its possible application. In nearly 1816, Nicephore Niepce was the first who successfully captured a photograph of camera image using a very small camera made by him, which used a piece of paper coated with silver chloride. After that, the generation of camera continued to Daguerreotypes, calotypes, and dry plates.

George Eastman pioneered the use of photographic film and started to manufacture a paper film in 1885. His first invented camera named “Kodak” was the first camera to be offered for sale in the market in 1888. Kodak was a simple box camera that had a fixed- focus lens and a single shutter speed. After the end of late 19 century, Eastman added several models including box camera and folding camera. In 1900, he took photography market more ahead with Brownie, which is small and low cost box camera. This introduced the concept of snapshot in the photography market and remained popular until 1960s. Many manufactures started to use 35mm film for a still photography during 1905 to 1913. Oskar Barnack decided to investigate using 35mm film to build a compact camera that would be capable of making high quality image enlargements. He developed a prototype 35mm camera and named it “Ur-Leica” around 1913, though its development was delayed for several years due to World War I. After World War I, Leica commercialized first 35mm camera. It received enough positive feedback, and for that reason, it was put into production and named it Leica I in 1925. In 1934, Kodak came back with Retina I, which introduced the 135 cartridge that were used in modern 35mm camera. 35mm cameras were out from the reach of most of the people and so, rollfilm remained as a choice for mass market. This trend in the market got changed with the introduction of Argus A and Argus C3. The Japanese camera industry began to takeoff with Canon 35mm rangefinder in 1936.

In 1948, Polaroid Model 95, an entirely new type of camera appeared in the market if camera. This was the first viable instant picture camera in the world. The inventor, Edwind Land named it Land Camera. It received relatively high price in the market. In 1952, Asahi Optical Company introduced the first Japanese SLR using 135 film. In 1950s, several other Japanese companies also entered into the SLR Market including Yashica, Canon, and Nikon. In 1960s, Polaroid expanded its products to dozens of models. The Model 20 Swinger of Polaroid camera got huge success in 1965 and remained as one of the top-selling cameras.

Automation:

The first fully automatic camera was Super Kodak Six-20 Pack with automatic exposure feature, which was launched by Kodak Company in 1938. It cost extremely high price during that time i.e., $225 (value of $3782 in present). The Mec 16 SB Subminiature developed in Germany came forward as a first camera to place the light meter behind lens to provide accurate metering. Metering through the lens featured more commonly on SLR than any other cameras. Topco RE Super launched in 1962 was the first SLR camera equipped with TTL system.

Analog Electronic Cameras:

The first handheld electronic camera, Sony Mavica, appeared in 1981. It used to be small and highly portable that can be carried on hand. This electronic analog camera used to record pixels signals continuously without converting it to discrete levels as videotape machines. Moreover, a video movie camera could record signal frames, 25/disk in frame mode and 50/disk in field mode. Casio VS-101 in 1987 was the first electronic analog camera that was marketed to consumers. The Nikon QV-1000C was another electronic analog camera designed as a press camera produced in the same year. However, it was not offered for sale to the general users. It used to record images in grayscale, newspaper print quality was equal to film cameras, and required a video floppy disk to store an image. Silicon film was a proposed digital sensor cartridge for a film camera in 1998 that could allow 35mm camera to capture digital photographs without any modifications. However, it was never released due to improvements in digital camera technology. Silicon Film Company was filed for bankruptcy in 2001.

 Digital Cameras:

Digital camera differs from analog cameras in feature that it does not use film, but it captures photographs and saves on internal storage or memory cards. There is low operating cost in using digital camera in compared to analog cameras. A digital camera also includes wireless communication capabilities like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, which helps to transfer, share, or print photos. Digital cameras are also most commonly found in Smartphones available in the market.