The History of Photography

1. The History of Photography

2. The Beginning: The Prophecy • There is one amazing, quite uncanny prediction made by a man called de la Roche (1729- 1774) in a work called Giphantie. • In this imaginary tale, it was possible to capture images from nature, on a canvas which had been coated with a sticky substance. This surface, so the tale goes, would not only provide a mirror image on the sticky canvas, but would remain on it. After it had been dried in the dark the image would remain permanent. • The author would not have known how prophetic this tale would be, only a few decades after his death.

3. Where does the word "Photography”come from? • "Photography" is derived from the Greek words photos ("light") and graphein ("to draw") • The word was first used by the scientist Sir John F.W. Herschel in 1839. • It is a method of recording images by the action of light, or related radiation, on a sensitive material.

4. Camera Obscura • The camera obscura (Latin for 'dark room') is an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen. • It is used in drawing and for entertainment, and was one of the inventions that led to photography. • The device consists of a box or room with a hole in one side. • Light from an external scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface inside where it is reproduced, upside-down, but with color and perspective preserved. • The image can be projected onto paper, and can then be traced to produce a highly accurate representation.

5. Pinhole Camera • Alhazen (Ibn Al-Haytham), a great authority on optics in the Middle Ages who lived around 1000AD, invented the first pinhole camera, (also called the Camera Obscura} and was able to explain why the images were upside down. • The first casual reference to the optic laws that made pinhole cameras possible, was observed and noted by Aristotle around 330 BC, who questioned why the sun could make a circular image when it shined through a square hole. • A pinhole camera is a very simple camera with no lens and a single very small aperture. Simply explained, it is a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through this single point and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box. • Cameras using small apertures, and the human eye in bright light both act like a pinhole camera. • The smaller the hole, the sharper the image, but the dimmer the projected image.. • A pinhole camera's shutter is usually manually operated because of the lengthy exposure times, and consists of a flap of some light-proof material to cover and uncover the pinhole. Typical exposures range from 5 seconds to hours and sometimes days.

6. Sun pictures - Cyanotype • 1800’s : Thomas Wedgwood, a potter makes a major contribution to the world of photography by creating "sun pictures". Wedgwood placed opaque objects on leather treated with silver nitrate. • Exposing the paper, with the object on top, to natural light, then preserving the image in the dark room, essentially became the birth of photography as we know it today.

7. Photogram • Photogram - A photographic print made by placing an arrangement of objects on photosensitive paper exposed to light to yield an image of ghostly silhouettes floating in a void of darkened space. The first photogram was probably made around 1802.

8. The Daguerreotype • In 1837 Louis Daguerre developed the Daguerreotype • The image is a direct positive made in the camera on a silvered copper plate. • The surface of a daguerreotype is like a mirror, with the image made directly on the silvered surface; it is very fragile and can be rubbed off with a finger, and the finished plate has to be angled so as to reflect some dark surface in order to view the image properly. • Depending on the angle viewed, and the color of the surface reflected into it, the image can change from a positive to a negative.

9. Carte – de –visite • 1854: AdolpheDisderidevelops carte-de-visite photography in Paris, leading to worldwide boom in portrait studios for the next decade. • The carte de visite is a photograph measuring 2.125 × 3.5 inches mounted on a card sized 2.5 × 4 inches. • Each photograph was the size of a visiting card, and — in large part due to Napoleon III's visit to Disdéri's studio — such photograph cards became enormously popular and were traded among friends and visitors. • The immense popularity of these card photographs led to the publication and collection of photographs of prominent persons. • Card mania spread throughout Europe and then quickly to America. • Albums for the collection and display of cards became a common fixture in Victorian parlors

10. Stereograms • The stereogram was discovered by Charles Wheatstone in 1838. • He found an explanation of binocular vision which led him to construct a stereoscope based on a combination of prisms and mirrors to allow a person to see 3D images from two 2D pictures. • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. invented an improved form of stereoscope in 1861, which had no mirrors and was inexpensive to produce.

11. The first Kodak camera • George Eastman Invents the Kodak Camera in 1888 • Introduces Rolled Photographic Film • Containing a 20-foot roll of paper • This 20-foot roll could take 100 2.5-inch diameter circular pictures.

12. Fuji • 1934: Fuji Photo Film founded. • 1938: Fuji is making cameras and lenses in addition to film.

13. Polaroid – Colour Film • The first polaroid camera was sold to the public in November, 1948. • 1963: First color instant film developed by Polaroid • Polaroid photography was invented by Edwin Land. Land was the American inventor and physicist whose one-step process for developing and printing photographs created a revolution in photography - instant photography. • Edwin Land founded the Polaroid Corporation to manufacturer his new camera.

14. Kodak Disc Camera • In 1982-1990 Kodak introduced the Disc cameras. In one way or another, these Disc cameras formed the basis for digital imaging as they are not entirely considered as conventional film-based cameras. • This particular camera was not very successful because of the quality of the final photo.

15. The Arrival of Digital Cameras • 1988-The first true digital camera that recorded images as a computerized file was the FujiDS-1P • It contained a 400 kilopixel CCD and saved photographs to removable Toshiba SRAM cards. • CCD or Charge-Coupled Device-is an analog electronic device that can be used as the image sensor in place of film in an electronic camera or optical devices like microscopes or telescopes. CCDs are also used in digital and film cameras as parts of some autofocus and light metering systems

16. 1990-The first commercially available digital camera was the DycamModel 1; it also sold as the Logitech Fotoman. • It used a CCD image sensor, stored pictures digitally, and connected directly to a computer for download

17. 1985:Minolta releases the Minolta Maxxum 7000 the first 35mm This camera as well as all Minolota AF SLR's to follow incorporated both the autofocus sensor and the drive motor in the camera body. • 1991: Kodak DCS-100, first digital SLR, a modified Nikon F3

18. 2000: Camera phone introduced in Japan by Sharp/J-Phone • 2001: Polaroid goes bankrupt • 2004: Kodak ceases production of film cameras • 2005: Canon EOS 5D, first consumer-priced full-frame digital SLR, priced at $3000

19. Digital Camera’s of Today