The Journey of Cameras

Now a day’s everyone of us capture lovely moments of our lives, indiscriminately with smartphone camera. Have you ever thought about the journey of cameras and how they reached your smartphone? Here is the fascinating story of camera form ‘camera obscura to the smartphone camera’.

1. Camera Obscura in 300 B.C.

Obscura

The camera obscura is the first device which started the evolution of camera. This device is actually a dark room with a pin hole on the one side to enter light and produce an image inside the room. The image appeared upside down but it cannot be captured, you have to draw the image.

2. Daguerreotype in 1836

Daguerreotype

The Daguerreotype was the first successful photographic process. Louis Daguerre invented this camera in 1836 with the help of his partner Joseph Nicéphore Niépce.

Previously in the camera obscura, artists would manually trace the reflected image but in the Daguerreotype camera he used a copper plate with sliver coat to capture images.

3. Twin Lens Reflex Camera

Twin Lens Reflex

Twin Lens Reflex or Double lens cameras were first developed around 1870. This type of cameras has two objective lenses of same focal length. The first lens is for the photographic view by which photographer view the image and another one for focusing the image.

4. Dry plate in 1871

Dry Plate

With the invention of dry plate, it has improved the quality of images and the photographic exposure time was shortened. This new process simplified the work of photographers and helped them to take more photos. Dry plates are improved type of photographic plates invented by Dr. Richard Maddox in 1871.

5. Celluloid film in 1889

Celluloid film

With the development of celluloid film for still photography, it became possible and easy to directly capture objects in motion in real time.

George Eastman Kodak introduced a camera called Brownie in February 1990 using the celluloid film. This camera was so popular that people were using this camera till 1960.

6. Single Lens Reflex Camera in 1933

Single Lens Reflex Camera

In 1933 Exakta introduced the first single lens reflex camera using 127 mm roll film and in 1936 with 35 mm roll film.  The single lens reflex (SLR) cameras typically use mirrors and prism system allowing the photographer to view through the lens and see exactly what will be captured. This SLR technology became the main character in cameras and framed a whole new path of evolution.

7. Polaroid Instant Camera in 1948

Polaroid Instant Camera

An American scientist Edwin Land invented the first Polaroid instant camera called as Land camera in 1948. These instant cameras are capable to generate a developed film images in just 1 minute. This new invention changed the whole perception of camera industry.

8. Digital Cameras in 1988

Digital Cameras

In 1988 Fujifilm introduced the world’s first digital camera ‘DS-1P’ and it was the beginning of the new digital era. These digital cameras can shoot continuously and store them on a digital media. Today we can see a wide variety of digital cameras from compact point and shoot digital cameras to high-end digital SLRs.

9. Mobile Phone with Camera in 2000

Mobile Phone With Camera

J-Phone is the first to implement camera in Phone successfully. J-Phone is a Japanese mobile company which introduced camera mobile in 2000 and within two years half of the Japanese were using camera mobiles. In 2003 many companies started manufacturing camera phones and in 2005 Nokia become world’s most sold camera phone brand.

10.  Smartphones

Smartphones

Today the smartphones are making buzz in the camera world, you can find one or the other capturing photos without any limits using smartphones. These smartphone cameras are capable of capturing 1080p HD video and take 8 MP photos. Nokia N8 was the first smartphone featuring 12 MP Autofocus camera with Carl Zeiss optics lens.