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From Earliest Times |
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It may
seem strange but cameras existed long before photography. It had
been observed as far back as the fifth century BC that an image
of the outside scene was formed by sunlight shining through a
small hole into a darkened room. The phrase Camera Obscura means
"Darkened Room". |
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From 16th Century |
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Camera
Obscura was improved by utilising a simple lens. |
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1666 |
Isaac
Newton |
Demonstrated that
light is the source of colour. He used a prism to split
sunlight into its constituent colours and another to recombine
them to make white light. |
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1725 |
Johann
Schulze |
Discovered the
darkening of silver salts by the action of light. |
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1758 |
Dolland |
Developed the Achromatic telescope lens, this improved the
camera obscura image. |
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| 1801 |
Thomas Young |
Suggested that the retina at
the back of the eye contains three types of colour sensitive
receptor, one sensitive to blue light, one to green and one to
red. The brain interprets various combinations of these colours
to form any other colour in the visible spectrum. |
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1802 |
Wedgwood |
Produced silhouettes of opaque objects by contact printing them
on silver nitrate coated paper however the images were unfixed
and faded in daylight. |
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1826 |
J.
Nicephore Niepce |
Produced the first permanent image (Heliograph) using a camera
obscura and white bitumen it required 8 hours to expose. |
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1829 |
Daguerre |
Started partnership with Niepce. |
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1834 |
Fox
Talbot |
Experiments using Silver chloride coated paper to yield
"negatives" of silhouettes. |
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| 1835 |
Fox Talbot |
Using his small "mousetrap"
cameras he photographs the inside of his library window at
Lacock Abbey, creating the first negative. |
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1837 |
Daguerre |
Following experiments on his own he evolved a workable process
(Daguerreotype). Silver iodide coated copper plate was exposed
and developed by mercury to give a single direct positive. He
removed the remaining silver iodide with a warm solution of
cooking salt, they took 30 minutes to develop. |
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1839 |
Daguerre |
Daguerreotype process released for general use in return for
state pensions given to Daguerre and Isidore Niepce. Patented in
England. On August 19th 1839 Argo announced details. |
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1839 |
Fox
Talbot |
Hurriedly prepared and presented papers at the Royal Institution
and the Royal Society. Unlike the Daguerre process the image is
recorded as a "negative" and had to be printed via a similar
process to produce the final "positive". Many positive prints
can be made from a single negative. |
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1839 |
Sir John Herschel |
Suggests fixing Talbot's images in sodium thiosulphate and
coined the terms "photography",
"negative" and "positive". |
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1840 |
Fox
Talbot |
Following suggestions he improved his process, using silver
iodide and developing in gallic acid. The use of paper negatives
meant that the images were not as detailed as Dagurreotypes. |
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1841 |
Fox
Talbot |
Patented "calotype" (later "Talbotype") a negative / positive
process with 5 minutes exposure time. |
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1841 |
Petzval |
Mathematically calculated compound lens of f/3.6 effectively
reduces Daguerreotype exposure to 1 minute. |
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1844 |
Fox
Talbot |
Publishes "Pencil of Nature" the first book with photographic
illustrations, glued in calotypes . |
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1847 |
Niepce
De St. Victor |
Discovers the use of albumen to bind silver salts on glass base.
Albumen process requires 10 minutes exposure. Talbot patents
process in England. |
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1850 |
Blanquart-Evrard |
Proposes use of Albumen for printing paper. Albumen paper was
never patented and was popularly used for 40 years. |
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1851 |
Scott
Archer |
Proposes "Collodion" process. Collodion (a solution of
nitrocellulose in a mixture of ethyl alcohol and ethyl ether)
forms a binder for silver iodide on glass. Exposure and
processing is performed immediately after coating plate. Scott
Archer did not patent the process and died in poverty. Two
versions of this process were "Ambrotype" and "Tintype" .
Exposure was about 10 seconds . The Collodion process greatly
expanded photography and brought everyone into contact with its
results. |
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1861 |
James
Clerk Maxwell |
Demonstrated the formation of colours by combining three light
sources of red, green and blue. All other colours, including
white, are a mixture of these primary colours. The colours
combine by an
additive process. |
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| 1868 |
Louis Ducos du
Hauron |
Published a book suggesting how
a range of colour photographic methods might work, but they
could not yet be put into practice. |
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1871 |
Dr.
Richard Leach Maddox |
Writing in the ‘British Journal Of Photography’ he suggested
gelatin, derived from a protein found in animal bones, as a
collodion substitute. Gelatin "Emulsions" and "Dry Plates" were
marketed by various manufacturing companies from 1878, and
gelatin is still used today. Exposure times of 1/25th second
could be achieved. |
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1887 |
Hannibal Goodwin |
New
York clergyman filled patent for roll film with a flexible
plastic base |
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1888 |
George
Eastman |
Produced the first simplified camera system for the general
public,
The Kodak Number 1, and the first mass Developing and
Processing service. |
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1889 |
George
Eastman |
Produced the first transparent roll film (nitrocellulose) |
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1889 |
Thomas
Edition |
Slit
the 2 3/4 inch Kodak roll film down the middle making it 1 3/8
inch (35mm) and put transport perforations down each side - to
become the international standard for motion picture film. |
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| 1890 |
Hurter & Driffield |
Devised the first independent
system to give emulsions speed numbers, this essentially led to
the current ISO numbers on film boxes today. |
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| 1890's |
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The first
halftone photographic reproductions appeared in daily
papers, although it took another ten years before the process
was fully adopted. Halftones were created by using a camera
containing a ruled glass screen with a grid pattern to break up
the image into tiny dots of different sizes. |
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1904 |
Dr. H.
Vogel |
Research lead to
panchromatic film using sensitising dyes. This type of film
is sensitive to all visible colours. |
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1904 |
Augusta and
Louis Lumiere |
Patented "Autochrome" the first
additive colour screen film material. |
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| 1912 |
Siegrist and
Fischer |
The two German chemists
invented the action of
colour coupling , so dyes required for colour film
processing could be created by combining appropriate developer
oxidation products with colour former chemicals. However the
process was not reliable enough to start film production. |
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1924 |
Oscar
Barnack |
An employer of E. Leitz designed a camera for use with a
microscope using motion picture film, this became the first
precision 35mm camera. It was called the
Leica derived from Leitz camera.
The capabilities of the Leica made
a new form of photojournalism possible, as typified by the
Magnum photographic agency. |
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1935 |
Kodak |
Mannes
and Godowsky helped develop
Kodachrome for home movies, the following year it was
introduced in 35mm format. |
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1936 |
Agfa |
This German company was the first to sell a film,
Agfacolor, with the colour formers
in the film. Towards the end of the second World War their
closely guarded secrets were "liberated". |
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| 1940s |
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Large factory size laboratories
took over film processing from individual chemists. However
chemists still continued to sell films. |
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| 1947 |
Magnum |
Magnum,
arguably the most famous photographic agency in the world, was
founded in 1947 by
Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour and
Robert Capa. The agency developed a style of photojournalism
that was largely based upon the capability of the
Leica 35 mm camera. Magnum is still an exclusive club of
illustrious photographers with membership limited to thirty six. |
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| 1947 |
Dr. Edwin Land |
Invented an "instant" picture
process, first called Polaroid Land. The special camera
sandwiched the exposed negative with a receiving positive paper
and spread the processing chemicals between the two, after
processing these were peeled apart. |
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| 1963 |
Dr. Edwin Land |
His Polaroid Corporation's
research team invented the first instant colour picture
material. |
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| 1976 |
Canon |
AE-1 the first 35mm camera with built in microprocessor is
introduced |
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| 1980s |
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A system called DX coding was
introduced for 35mm films. The cassettes have an auto-sensing
code printed on them which enable certain cameras to
automatically set the film speed, this information can also be
used by processing laboratories. |
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| 1984 |
Canon |
Demonstrated the first
digital still camera. |
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| 1985 |
Minolta |
The
Minolta 7000 auto-focus 35mm SLR camera was introduced |
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| 1990 |
Microsoft |
Windows 3.1 is released |
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| 1990 |
Adobe |
Adobe Photoshop
1.0 image manipulation program is introduced for Apple Macintosh
computers |
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| 1992 |
Tim Berners-Lee |
Develops the software and
protocol for the World Wide Web (WWW) |
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| 1993 |
Adobe |
Adobe Photoshop is made
available for MS-Windows computers. |
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| 1993 |
NCSA |
Release the first World Wide
Web browser. |
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| 1994 |
Netscape |
Launch their WWW browser called
Navigator. |
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| 1996 |
APS |
Advanced Photo System
(APS) is introduced. APS uses a cassette which holds 24 mm
wide film on a base which has a magnetic data strip as well as
fine grained emulsion. When the film is being developed
automatic handling mechanisms locate the correct frames and
determines the required print format from the data strip. After
processing the film is rewound into the cassette and a digitally
mastered index print of all the frames is created as a reference
for reordering. |
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| 1996 |
Microsoft |
Release their WWW browser
called Internet Explorer. |
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| 1998 |
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The first consumer
megapixel cameras were introduced. |
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| 2000 |
Canon |
Canon introduced the
EOS D30, the first digital
SLR for the consumer market with a
CMOS sensor |
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| 2000 |
Sharp
and J-Phone |
In November 2000
Sharp and J-Phone introduced the first camera-phone in Japan.
The
J-SH04 is a mobile phone with a built in camera, it uses a
110,000-pixel
CMOS image sensor and began the trend for camera-phones.
These cameras play an increasingly significant role in
photography, for example the main news pictures covering the 7
July 2005 London bombings were taken by the general public on
camera-phones and not by professional news crews. However the
use of camera-phones can also be abused leading to invasions of
privacy and other forms of socially unacceptable behaviour. |
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| 2002 |
Contax |
Contax introduced the
NDigital the first
SLR digital camera with a
CCD the same size as a 35 mm frame. |
