Focus on Photography
How the Camera Works
The most basic camera is a pinhole camera. It works by letting light in through a small hole into a dark space. The light of the object or image is then focused onto a light sensible paper so that the image stays on the paper. These light sensible materials are silver salts, silver chloride or silver bromine.. Later, more advanced cameras were invented, but the principle is still similar. Light goes through the shutter and through the lens so that the image is focused. Shutter: the shutter is a small hole that lets the light in, acting as the hole in a pinhole camera. It opens and closes when taking a photograph, allowing light to be focused onto the sensor inside the camera.. Lens: Lens are round pieces of transparent material light glass or plastic that can change the direction of light. It is used to focus the image. |
The Camera Obscura
The camera obscura is a camera that uses the principle of the pinhole camera but allows the image to be projected and displayed on a flat surface for people to see. It is basically just any advanced version of the pinhole camera which uses mirrors to project the images onto the surface people want it to. For example, in the image on the left is an image of a camera obscura. You can see that like a pinhole camera, light of the image goes through a small hole, into the camera, then it is reflected by a mirror so that the image is then projected onto the screen on top of the camera. This type of camera is usually used for tracing and drawing realistic images. There are many different inventions of the camera obscura and has been known since 470BC. Although people have already known how to project light using cameras even before christ, the first developed permanent photograph was never created until 1826. This is because people couldn't find a way to keep the photos. For a very long time, people were only able to use cameras for projecting light, but not taking real, permanent photographs. Only until later when people began to discover light sensitive materials like silver and bitumen, permanent photographs could be created. |
Important People in the Development of Photography
Nicephore Neipce: The first successful permanent photograph was made by Niepce in 1826 at France.. He had used a plate coated with bitumen/asphalt to capture this image. It took him eight hours to capture this photograph. George Eastman: One of the very important people that has made a huge influence to photography was George Eastman. Although Eastman may not be one of the first inventors of the camera, he was the founder of Kodak, and was the first to commercialize cameras. His invention of a smaller camera which is cheap and convenient provides the opportunity for more people be able to have a camera and take photographs. |