Picture this

Picture thi s pinhole cameras were used for centuries to project images, but they couldn’t take a picture. today, taking snapshots couldn’t be easier.

Did you know? Early daguerreotype sitters had to stay absolutely still for 60 to 90 seconds. No wonder most of them looked so serious!

The invention that puts you in the FRAME

Daguerreotype

The world’s first photographs were taken by Nicéphore Niépce, but they faded quickly. Fellow Frenchman Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre discovered a way of making a permanent image on a silver-coated copper plate. They didn’t take a long time to make, and the images can still be seen today. People rushed to have their portraits immortalized on daguerreotypes, as they were called, in the mid-1800s.

Daguerreotype cameras developed their images on copper plates coated with a thin layer of silver.

The entire camera had to be sent to the Kodak factory to obtain the photos.

Film cameras

Photography was a complicated and time-consuming process before American George Eastman invented roll-film cameras. Eastman invented a flexible film to replace the glass plates that were commonly used to capture images, then, with William Walker, a roll holder for the film. His KodaK camera was the first to have a built-in film-roll holder when it went on sale in 1888, making photography a lot simpler.

Polaroid camera

Three-year-old Jennifer Land asked her father why a photo couldn’t be seen right after it was taken. The question led edwin Land to invent the Polaroid camera in 1947, which worked by using chemicals inside the camera to develop and print the image. For the first time, people could see their photos without having to send the film away to be developed.

The photograph comes out of the front of the camera, as the image is developing.

Celluloid camera film is used by film cameras to record the picture. The film must then be developed to see the picture.

Introduced in 1909, 35mm camera fi lm is still used today .

The screen allows you to see the image before you capture it. It also shows stored pictures.

Digital camera

Digital photography is absolutely instant and doesn’t require film or processing. The Japanese company Sony sold the first commercial filmless camera in 1981. It used a disk drive to store video-camera images, but was otherwise like a normal camera. As technology got better and the cost of the components went down, the first digital cameras began to be sold. It wasn’t long before almost everyone was snaphappy: Digital cameras allow you to take and save as many pictures as you want, printing out only your favorites.