Science & Technology: Camera Technology: History and its Development

Camera Technology: History and its Development

If you like photography, maybe you use a camera every day. Whether it's to take pictures of everyday events, sights, or special moments such as weddings. However, did you know the development of the camera? The history of the camera can be traced further back than the introduction of photography. Cameras evolved from camera obscura, and continue to change through many generations of photographic technology, including daguerreotype, calotype, Dry Plates, films, and even digital cameras.

1. Camera Obscura

Camera obscura is the first camera in the history of photography. Obscura comes from Latin which means "dark room". This camera is shaped like a box with dark or impermeable space in it. The camera obscura can reflect light through two convex lenses, which then place the image on the film / paper at the focal point on the camera lens. The oldest record that addresses this principle is the description put forward by the philosopher Han Chinese Mozi (470 to 391 BC). Mozi confirmed that the camera obscura image was reversed because the light moved in a straight line from the source.

Alhazen - Camera Obscura

In the 11th century Arab physicist Ibn Al-Haytham (or also known by another name Alhazen) wrote very influential books on optics, including experiments with light through small holes in dark rooms. This camera was developed with the concept small holes in dark boxes that are illuminated by light can produce images. That was the starting point for all camera technology.

Illustration of the Camera Obscura Principle

Image of an artist using an 18th-century camera obscura

Before being popularized by Alhazen, in the era before Christ it was recorded that this concept had been discovered by a philosopher named Mozi in the era before Christ.

Joseph Nicphore Niépce was the first person to produce photographs using a camera in 1816. He produced his first photo using a very small camera of his own and using a piece of paper coated with silver chloride. Although at that time he could not produce a permanent photo, then in the mid-1820s, Niépce experimented again using a camera obscura focused on the tin plate 16.2 cm x 20.2 cm (6.4 in × 8.0) coated thin with judea asphalt, ie naturally formed light asphalt. Joseph Nicphore Niépce was the first person to produce photographs using a camera in 1816. He produced his first photo using a very small camera of his own and using a piece of paper coated with silver chloride. Although at that time he could not produce a permanent photo, then in the mid-1820s, Niépce experimented again using a camera obscura focused on the tin plate 16.2 cm x 20.2 cm (6.4 in × 8.0) coated thin with judea asphalt, ie naturally formed light asphalt.

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce Plate - View From The Window At Le Gras

The first photo by Joseph Nicéphore Niéce - View From The Window At Le Gras

Camera obscura that is not practical has developed. In the 1660s, British scientist Robert Boyle and his assistant Robert Hook discovered a portable obscura camera. This camera is a form of modification of the camera obscura so that the shape is more compact.

Portable Obscure Camera

Alhazen's book was also studied by western scientists like Joseph Kepler. This scientist finally managed to enlarge the projection of the image produced by the camera by adding a negative lens behind the positive lens. Boyle's robot then managed to make a small camera without cables in 1665.

the first camera that was very practical to use in the field of photography was invented by Johann Zahn, in 1685. The principle of this Zahn camera model was using additional slides as a tool to focus objects. The Zahn system is able to provide additional sensitive plates in front of the camera lens before taking pictures.

2. Kemera Daguerreotypes and Calotypes

Nearly 900 years after the discovery of the camera Obscura, in 1837 French Joseph Joseph Niepce discovered the concept of practical photography, which he later named as the Daguerreotypes and published in 1839. Daguerre used silver-plated copper sheets with iodine vapor to provide a light sensitive silver iodide layer . After exposure to the camera, the image was developed by mercury vapor and repaired with sodium chloride solution.

Camera Daguerreotypes

In a small box with a light hole, by adding copper and silver plates added to iodine vapor, this generation of cameras is more sensitive to light.

Boulevard du Temple by Daguerre

After exposure to the camera, the image is then formed through mercury vapor and sodium chloride solution. Niepce collaborated with his partner Louis Daguerre in the discovery of this camera, hence the name of the camera was named after the inventor.

Henry Fox Talbot perfected a different process namely calotype in 1840 and was commercialized. He developed a very simple camera consisting of two nesting boxes. The back box has a ground glass screen that can be removed and can enter and exit to adjust focus. After focusing, the ground glass is replaced with a light-proof handle containing sensitive plates or paper and a closed lens. Then the photographer opens the cover on the holder, opens the lens cap, and counts as many minutes as desired which is adjusted to the lighting conditions before replacing the lid and closing the seat. Despite this mechanical simplicity, high-quality achromatic lenses have become the standard.

Calotype C 1850 camera

3. Collidion Dry Plate

Collodion dry plate was used by people since 1857, this one camera was the work of Desire van Monckhoven. Fourteen years later, this dry plate camera was modified by Richard Leach Maddox who succeeded in creating wet plates whose quality and speed of shooting were better.

Camera Dry Plate Collodion

Colliidion's camera journey continued until in 1878 gelatin emulsion was found which was able to increase the sensitivity of the camera, so that the camera could take pictures spontaneously.

These are times when a tripod and other camera aids are not needed to take pictures. for the first time, the camera can be made quite small the weight is not too big to hold hands, or even hidden. There is a proliferation of various designs, from single reflexes and dual lenses to large cameras and handheld cameras.

4. Kodak and Film Cameras

Photographers born in the 90s must have known a camera that uses film rolls in it which can then be printed into a photo. Actually the film camera development had started a century before, namely since 1885 by George Eastman who started camera film production, which later developed again into celluloid in 1888-1889.

Kodak 1888 camera

Kodak 1910 camera

He named the film's camera as Kodak, which then began to be introduced to the wider community since 1888. More sophisticated than before, it only consisted of one focus lens and one shutter speed.

Until finally at the end of the 19th century Eastman had succeeded in making various film camera models, including box-shaped cameras and folding cameras. Although this Kodak camera succeeded in making photography not too expensive for many people, plate cameras were still widely used by people at that time because of the better quality. To compete with the camera roll, this era plate camera is equipped with a magazine to hold several plates at once.

5. Compact and Canon cameras

The history of the camera continued with the presence of a compact camera which was examined by Oskar Barnack at Leitz. Barnack uses 35 mm film to make a camera that can produce magnified images with very good quality. Finally, in 1913 the Ur-Leica prototype was formed, a 35 mm camera which was later delayed due to the first world war.

After several developmental features, the Ur-Leica camera went on sale widely in 1923. Since then, consumer camera users have been very satisfied and welcomed this one camera innovation.

35 mm Leica I camera, 1925

From here, then came the rival camera maker Ur-Leica, a Canon camera whose company was based in Japan. Canon also made cameras with 35 mm cine films, which then competed with Ur-Leica. Cameras made in the land of the rising sun later became very popular after the end of the Korean war which made many Japanese veterans bring these cameras to the United States. Of course, until now Canon continues to innovate to produce a variety of other sophisticated cameras, so that even now the business is still running fertile.

6. TLR and SLR

TLR stands for twin-lens reflex, while SLR is an acronym for single-lens reflexes. The TLR camera was started by Franke & Heidecke Rolleiflex in 1928, while SLR cameras as further developments began production since 1933, which first used 127 film rolls.

Contax S SLR camera

In particular, TLR cameras are equipped with two objective focal lenses of the same length. One lens is useful for the purpose of taking pictures, while the other lens is useful for capturing shadows that have entered the first lens. While on SLR cameras, there is only one lens that has been combined with a digital image sensor.

The SLR camera was popularized by the company Asahi Optical, which first launched a 35mm SLR camera called Asahiflex. In the 1950s, many SLR cameras were on the market, including Canon, Yashica, and Nikon.

1949 SLR cameras

While conventional cameras are becoming more sophisticated, a completely new type of camera appeared on the market in 1948. This is the Polaroid Model 95, the world's first instant-picture camera. Known as the Land Camera after its owner by Edwin Land. Model 95 uses a patented chemical process to produce positive prints that have been completed from negatives exposed in less than one minute. Land cameras are quite popular even though the prices are relatively high and the Polaroid range has expanded to dozens of models in the 1960s. The first Polaroid camera aimed at the popular market, the Model 20 Swinger of 1965, was a huge success and remains one of the best-selling cameras of all time.

J66 Polaroid Model, 1961

Polaroid Model 20 Swinger

The first camera that carries automatic exposure equipped with a light-meter selenium is the Super Kodak Six-20 pack in 1938, but the price is very high at around $ 225 at that time (equivalent to $ 3912 for now). In the 1960s, low-cost electronic components were commonplace and cameras equipped with light meters and automatic exposure systems became increasingly widespread.

MEC-16 SB 16mm subminiature camera

Subsequent technological advancements came in the 1960s, when Mec 16 SB German subminiature became the first camera to place a light meter behind the lens for more accurate measurements. However, measurements through lenses eventually became a more common feature found on SLRs than other types of cameras. The first SLR equipped with the TTL system was Topcon RE Super in 1962.

7. Analog camera

The history of subsequent photographic cameras arrived in 1981 when the manufacture of analog cameras began, which the shooting technique was still able to use celluloid film (cliché / negative film). The first time making this analog camera was Sony Mavica.

Sony Mavica camera

At the 1984 Olympics, the first time an analog camera produced by Canon was used to photograph the Yomiuri Shinbun, whose results were later published in Japanese newspapers.

But along the way, analog cameras are less enthusiastic about the community because the cost of their use is very expensive, and the image quality is not good when compared to other cameras. Analog camera applications are currently widely used for CCTV cameras.

8. Digital Cameras

The history of the development of digital cameras is inseparable from the development of video tape recorders (VTR), which is a technology of recording images on television. In 1951, for the first time, Bing Crosby Laboratory made an initial version of VTR. The tool serves to take pictures from a television camera, then convert the image into an electrical impulse (digital) and store it into magnetic tape.

Then in 1956, Charles P. Ginsburg and Ampex Corporation perfected VTR by launching the VR1000 version and commonly used by the television industry. So from there, between video cameras and digital cameras have similarities in the use of CCD (Charged Couple Device) to adjust the color and intensity of light. Since then, the era of digital cameras has started and developed rapidly.

"Separation" of digital cameras with video cameras occurred in 1981, where Sony introduced their first commercial electronic camera called Mavica. The workings of the first digital camera are images recorded onto a mini disc and then inserted into a video reader that is connected to a color monitor or television. Although Mavica cannot yet be called a digital camera, it is actually a modification of a video camera that takes photos spontaneously.

Meanwhile, since the mid-1970s, Kodak Company has had several discoveries about solid-state or clarity for image sensors, namely changing light to digital images for use at the professional and household consumer level.

Continued in 1986, Kodak for the first time in the world introduced megapixel sensors. This sensor is capable of recording 1.4 million pixels which can produce 5x7 inches of good quality digital print photos at that time. A year later (1987), Kodak also released seven (7) other products for recording, storing, manipulating, electronic transmission, as well as for printing images or objects. The digital camera was first developed by Fuji in 1988, which uses a 16MB memory card for save data taken photos. Furthermore, digital cameras began to be introduced to the wider community since 1989 by Fuji. In 1991, the marketing of a 1.3 megapixel resolution Kodak DCS-100 digital camera began.

Kodak DCS 100 camera

The digital camera photo format began to switch to JPEG and MPEG which did not take much space on data storage. In 1995, digital cameras with liquid crystals on the back of the lens began to be developed by Hiroyuki Suetaka with the Casio QV-10 camera name.

Minolta RD-175

In 1995 Minolta introduced the RD-175, which was based on Minolta 500si, SLR with independent CCD splitters and three. This combination produces 1.75 million pixels.

DSLR cameras began to be discovered in 1999 beginning with the launch of Nikon D1 which managed to reduce production costs to just the price. This type of camera is capable of producing excellent images and high resolution.

Nikon D1 camera

Until now, DSLR cameras are still widely used by photographers with a variety of removable lenses. In addition, in general the price of DSLR cameras is not as expensive as it used to be.

Digital camera sales continue to grow, driven by rapid technological advancements. The digital camera market is segmented into various categories, Compact Still Digital Cameras, Bridge Cameras, Mirrorless Compacts and DSLRs.

Canon CMOS sensor

One of the most important advances in digital camera technology is the development of CMOS sensors, which help drive sensor production costs that are low enough to be able to be applied as cellphone or smartphone cameras.

Such is the development of photographic cameras from time to time. Hopefully this camera history adds to your knowledge in the world of photography.

Reference:

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Sabtu, 09 Februari 2019

Camera Technology: History and its Development

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