The Evolution Of Cameras: Counting The Models

Cameras have evolved from the camera obscura through many generations of photographic technology – from daguerreotypes to digital cameras and camera phones. The first permanent photograph of a camera image was made in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce using a sliding wooden box camera. The first digital camera was likely the Fuji DS-1P of 1988, which recorded images on a 2MB memory card. The first commercial camera phone was the Kyocera Visual Phone VP-210, released in Japan in May 1999. In 2019, it was reported that one billion surveillance cameras would be deployed globally by 2021, with more than half of those in China.

The first camera

The camera obscura was used for viewing solar eclipses without damaging one's eyes and later as a drawing aid. By the late 17th century, portable versions of the camera obscura were being used as drawing tools.

In 1685, German author Johann Zahn proposed a design for what would become the handheld reflex camera. However, it was not until 1816 that the first camera was realised by French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. This simple camera used paper coated with silver chloride to produce a negative image (dark where it should be light).

While these images were not permanent, Niépce's later experiments with "Bitumen of Judea" produced the first permanent photographs, some of which still exist today. Referred to as "heliography", this process involved creating images on pewter plates coated with bitumen. The oldest surviving photograph, created around 1826, is on display at the University of Texas at Austin.

The first photograph

The world's first photograph was taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce sometime between 1822 and 1827. The photograph, titled 'View from the Window at Le Gras', was taken from an upper-story window of Niépce's country house in Le Gras, France. It depicts the outbuildings, trees, and landscape as seen from that upstairs window.

Niépce captured the scene with a camera obscura projected onto a pewter plate thinly coated with bitumen of Judea, a naturally occurring asphalt. The bitumen hardened in the brightly lit areas but remained soluble in the dimly lit areas, and could be washed away with a mixture of oil of lavender and white petroleum. The process, which Niépce called 'heliography', required a long exposure time, with estimates ranging from eight hours to several days.

Niépce's pioneering work laid the foundation for further achievements in photography and visual culture. After his death in 1833, his partner Louis Daguerre continued to refine the photographic process, introducing the daguerreotype in 1839, which reduced exposure times and produced clearer, more detailed images.

The first camera obscura

The first mention of the basic concept of a pinhole camera is attributed to Mozi (also known as Mo-Ti), the founder of Mohism, in the 5th century BCE. He observed the way that light created images on the walls of a dark room when it entered through a pinhole, and called the room a "collecting place" or "locked treasure room".

The Greek philosopher Aristotle also understood the optical principle of the camera obscura, observing the sun during a partial solar eclipse through the gaps between leaves and holes in a sieve. He wrote about this in the 4th century BCE.

In the 11th century, the Arab physicist Alhazen (also known as Ibn al-Haytham) studied the reverse image formed by a tiny hole and indicated the rectilinear propagation of light. He is the first known person to suggest using a screen to project an image from one side of a hole onto a surface on the other side.

In the 13th century, English philosopher Roger Bacon described the use of a pinhole camera as a way to safely observe solar eclipses.

In the 15th century, Leonardo da Vinci gave two clear descriptions of the camera obscura in his notebooks. He also discussed the device in his Codex Atlanticus, a twelve-volume bound set of his drawings and writings.

The term "camera obscura" was first used by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in 1604.

The first mass-market camera

The Kodak Brownie was preceded by several important innovations in the history of camera technology. In the early 1500s, Ibn al-Haytham used a pinhole camera to view a solar eclipse, and the camera obscura concept was presented by Aristotle in the 4th century BC and in the Chinese text Mozi. In 1839, the first publicly available photographic process was introduced by Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, who used polished sheets of silver-plated copper, a long exposure, and chemical treatment to produce a vague image. This led to the creation of the first photographic camera, a daguerreotype camera developed by Alphonse Giroux in 1839.

In the 1880s, George Eastman pioneered the switch from expensive metal and glass film to a more affordable paper-based process, which made photography much more accessible to the general public. He released the first film camera, the Kodak, in 1888. This camera was a box camera with a fixed-focus lens and was preloaded with a 100-exposure film. Once the film was used up, the camera would be sent back to the company to be developed and reloaded.

The next significant innovation in camera technology was the introduction of 35mm film. The first 35mm camera was invented by Jules Richard Homeos in 1913, but it was the Leica I, launched in 1925, that popularised this format. By 1959, 35mm roll film had become the standard, and Nikon released the F model targeting professional photographers.

The first digital camera

Sasson's camera was a prototype and was never commercialised. The first digital camera to be sold in the US was the 1990 Dycam Model 1, also marketed as the Logitech Fotoman. The first true digital camera that actually worked was built in 1981 by the University of Calgary Canada ASI Science Team, who built the Fairchild All-Sky camera to photograph auroras in the sky.

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