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The First Cameras
The basics of photography has been around since about the 5th Century. It wasn't until the 11th Century, a scientist from Iraq developed something called the camera obscurer. Then the art was born. -
The First Permanent Images
This is the first recorded image that did not fade quickly. It was created by a person called Joseph Nicéphore Niépce.
Niépce's success led to a number of other experiments and photography progressed very rapidly. -
The first photograph
Joseph Nicephore Niepce developed a photographic image with a camera obsura. -
Chemicals and techniques used in the first permanent image
They are:
- Daguerreotype:
- Emulsion Plates.
Two common types of emulsion plates:
- Ambrotype: used a glass plate instead of the copper plate of the daguerreotypes.
- Tintype: used a tin plate. These plates were much more sensitive to light, they had to be developed quickly. -
Dry Plates
They could be stored rather than made as needed. This allowed photographers much more freedom in taking photographs. Cameras were also able to be smaller and could be hand-held. As exposure times decreased, the first camera with a mechanical shutter was developed. -
Kodak
It was created by George Eastman. He created a flexible roll film that did not require the constant changing of solid plates. This allowed him to develop a self-contained box camera that held 100 film exposures. The camera had a small single lens with no focusing adjustment. It was the first ever camera that the average person could afford. -
Flashlight Powder
Blitzlichtpulver or flashlight powder It was invented in Germany by Adolf Miethe and Johannes Gaedicke. -
The Horrors of War
Around this time, Henri-Cartier Bresson and other photographers started to use small 35mm cameras to capture photos of life as it appeared, instead of a staged portrait. When World War 2 started in 1939, photographers began to use this style. -
Color Phtographs
In the early 1940s, commercially viable color films (except Kodachrome) were brought to the market. These films used the modern technology of dye-coupled colors in which a chemical process connects the three dye layers together to create an apparent color image. -
When did photography become popular?
Although methods for developing color photos were available as early as 1861, they did not become widely available until the 1940s or 1950s, and even so, until the 1960s most photographs were taken in black and white. -
Instant Images
Polaroid created model 95. Model 95 is a secret chemical process to develop film inside the camera in less than a minute. -
Period: to
The Digital Age
Many manufacturers worked on cameras that stored images electronically. The first of these were point-and-shoot cameras that used digital media instead of film. By 1991, Kodak had produced the first digital camera that was advanced enough to be used successfully by professionals.