Although history tells us that the basic concept of a camera has been around since the 5th century B.C., it stayed just a theory for over two thousand years. The science of capturing images that could be stored began in 1830s when a Frenchman named Joseph Nicophore Niepce fitted a pewter plate coated with bitumen in a box and exposed it to light. The image that formed on the pewter plate was the first photograph.

Niepce soon teamed up with Louis Daguerre to improve the process. Daguerre developed a silver coated copper plate that, when exposed to iodine vapor before it was exposed to light, captured an image. These were the first true photographs although they had the drawback of needing anything up to 15 minutes of exposed to be able to record the image. Still, this process, or the Daguerreotype as it was called, made photography popular.

In the 1850s, Daguerreotypes were replaced by the less expensive emulsion plates. Since most photography at that time was portraiture, the 3 seconds exposure the emulsion plate needed, as compared to the Daguerreotype’s 15 minutes, made it extremely popular. This process consisted of using a glass plate and a tin plate along with an emulsion method called the Collodion Process. Because of their high light sensitivity, these plates had to be developed almost immediately. It was during this period that lens began to be mounted on bellows for better focusing.

The next development in photography took place in the 1870 with the introduction of the dry plate process. This involved the use of dry gelatin plates that could be made and stored rather than prepared at the time the picture was to be taken, as had been the case with emulsion plates. The ability to store and carry plates, like a bulky form of film, gave photographers much more flexibility and emulsion plate disappeared. Since the dry plates were smaller, camera sizes could be reduced. As the quality of the dry plates improved and exposure times came down, mechanical shutters were developed and came into widespread use.

The camera as we know it today was invented in the 1880s by George Eastman who created the flexible film roll. With no plates to change and a film roll that could hold multiple images in an inexpensive box with a fixed lens, photography became cheap enough for everyone. Photography was no longer limited to professionals but became the common man’s hobby.

In the 1950’s the SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera with interchangeable lens that allowed for high quality images and creative photography was introduced. This became the technology of choice for the next 30 years for professional photographers as well as serious hobbyists.

The digital camera which could store an image electronically was invented in the 1990s and soon all but replaced film cameras. Using the SLR optical technology, these cameras could be connected to computers, the images downloaded and improved or changed or can have special effects added using special software and then printed out. This allowed creative photography to be in everyone’s reach.

The digital camera is still evolving, so its too soon to predict what the next great leap in photography will be.

• My First Camera (0)