Brief Scenes

How was the camera invented?

When, and how was it made.

The most important tool of photography is the camera itself. Basically, a camera is a lighttight box with a lens on one side and light-sensitive film on the other. Improvements in camera technology over the years have given photographers more control over the quality of their photographs.

Today’s cameras all derive from the 16th-century camera obscura. The earliest form of this device was a darkened room with a tiny hole in one wall. Light entered the room through this hole and projected an upside-down image of the subject onto the opposite wall. Over the course of three centuries the camera obscura evolved into a handheld box with a lens replacing the pinhole and an angled mirror at the back. The mirror reflected an image onto a ground-glass viewing screen on the top of the box. Long before film was invented artists used this device to help them draw more accurately. They placed thin paper onto the viewing screen and could easily trace the reflected image.

The inventors of photography in the early 19th century adapted the camera obscura by adding a device for holding sensitized plates in the back of the box. This kind of camera, with some improvements, was used throughout the 19th century. One notable enhancement for the box, pleated leather sides called bellows, allowed the photographer to easily adjust the distance between the lens and the plane of focus. Professional photographers still use a similar camera today, a large-format camera known as the view camera.

In the 1880s the invention of more sensitive emulsions and better lenses led to the development of lens shutters, devices that could limit the time of exposure to a fraction of a second. At first the shutter was simply a blind dropped in front of the lens by the force of gravity, or by a spring. Later designs featured a set of blades just behind the optical lens. In 1888 George Eastman introduced the first Kodak camera, which used a cylindrical shutter that the photographer turned by pulling a string on the front of the camera. The Kodak was one of the earliest handheld cameras. It made photography available to amateurs for the first time and created a snapshot craze at the turn of the 20th century.

In 1925 the Leitz Company in Germany introduced the Leica, one of the first cameras to use 35-millimeter film, a small-sized film initially designed for motion pictures. Because of its compactness and economy, the Leica and other 35-millimeter cameras became popular with both amateur and professional photographers. All but the earliest Leicas used a focal-plane shutter, located just in front of the film. Because it blocks light from the film even when the lens is removed, the focal-plane shutter allows photographers to switch lenses safely in the middle of a film roll.

Box Cameras

The Eastman Kodak Company introduced one of the first box cameras in 1888, and the simplicity of this easy-to-use design has assured its popularity ever since. Box cameras consist of a rigid box or body; a fixed, simple lens; a viewfinder window, through which the photographer looks to frame the scene; and a shutter with one or possibly two speeds. On most box cameras, the lens is set to an aperture and focus that produce reasonably sharp pictures of a subject at least 2 m (about 6 ft) away, when the camera is used outdoors in the sun. But because these settings are not adjustable, the photographer can do little to control the results.

The modern-day equivalents of the old Kodak box cameras are the disposable cameras now sold at drugstores and tourist shops. These cardboard-covered, plastic cameras come loaded with 35-millimeter color print film. After taking a roll of pictures, the user turns over the entire camera to a processing lab for development. Manufacturers now reuse or recycle many of the parts inside these cameras. Single-use cameras are also available in several advanced models—offering built-in flash, a waterproof body, or the ability to show panoramic views in extra-wide prints.

View Cameras

View cameras are larger and heavier than most amateur cameras but allow for maximum precision in focus, aperture, and framing. They use large-format films, which are able to capture far greater detail than 35-millimeter films. The body configuration of the view camera, unlike that of most general-purpose cameras, is extremely adjustable. It has two independently moveable elements that ride on a track: The front element holds the lens and shutter, the rear holds a ground-glass panel, and the space in between is enclosed in an expandable leather bellows. The photographer frames and focuses the scene that appears in the glass panel at the back, then inserts a film holder in front of the glass, and takes the picture. The gap in time between framing and exposure makes the view camera useless for action shots, but it is ideal for carefully arranged studio shots, landscapes, or architectural photography. The photographer can shift, tilt, raise, or swing the front and rear elements separately, allowing for great variation in perspective and focus.

Rangefinder Cameras

Rangefinder cameras were the first cameras to have an optical viewfinder—that is, a separate, window-like lens through which the photographer sees and frames the subject. The viewfinder is paired with an adjacent window called a rangefinder. To focus the camera, the photographer adjusts a ring or collar until the two views appear as one, at which point the camera has set the focus to precisely match the distance of the subject. Since the viewfinder window does not show the scene through the lens, but only one that closely approximates it, rangefinder cameras can be inaccurate for framing close-up shots.

Rangefinder cameras were once very popular with amateur photographers, but today’s point-and-shoot cameras have largely replaced them. Nevertheless, the modern rangefinder camera works well under certain circumstances, and some professionals still use it. Rangefinders are available in two formats, for use with either 35-millimeter film or the larger format 6-centimeter film. Unlike point-and-shoot cameras, modern rangefinders feature lenses that can be removed from the camera body so that photographers can choose a lens specifically suited to the subject.

Point-and-Shoot Cameras

The most popular camera type today is the point-and-shoot camera. It has a number of automatic features that make it practically foolproof to operate while producing pictures of high quality. Point-and-shoot cameras feature battery-operated electronic systems that may include automatic controls for exposure, focusing, flash, film winding, and film rewinding. They are available with a fixed single-focal-length lens or a zoom lens; the lenses cannot be removed from the body. The cameras work with all types of 35-millimeter film; some also use a newer film type called Advanced Photo System (APS). (For more information, see the Recent Developments: APS section of this article.)

Single-Lens-Reflex Cameras

With the single-lens-reflex (SLR) camera, the photographer uses a single lens for both viewing the scene and taking the picture. Light comes through the lens onto a mirror, which then reflects it through a five-sided prism into the viewfinder. The mirror is hinged; at the moment the photographer snaps the picture, a spring automatically pulls the mirror out of the path between lens and film. Because of this system, the image recorded on the film is almost exactly what the photographer sees in the viewfinder, a great advantage in many picture-taking situations.

Most SLRs are precision electronic instruments equipped with fast focal-plane shutters, precise automatic exposure systems, and built-in flash controls. Increasingly, camera manufacturers are producing SLRs with automatic focusing, an innovation originally reserved for less sophisticated cameras.

Amazing Demonstration of the virtual camera invented for AVATAR