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The

of the  CAMERA

WHAT is a 

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A camera is a device that records/stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura (Latin for “dark chamber”), an early mechanism for projecting images. The modern camera evolved from the camera obscura.

Cameras may work with the light of the visible spectrum or with other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. A camera generally consists of an enclosed hollow with an opening (aperture) at one end for light to enter, and a recording or viewing surface for capturing the light at the other end. A majority of cameras have a lens positioned in front of the camera’s opening to gather the incoming light and focus all or part of the image on the recording surface. Most 20th century cameras used photographic film as a recording surface, while modern ones use an electronic camera sensor. The diameter of the aperture is often controlled by a diaphragm mechanism, but some cameras have a fixed-size aperture.

The still camera takes one photo each time the user presses the shutter button. A typical movie camera continuously takes 24 film frames per second as long as the user holds down the shutter button, or until the shutter button is pressed a second time. From its inception, the camera has been instrumental in the recording of still images from then-present surroundings, and further modifications led to the development of motion picture sequences in the late 19th century. Cameras and the exhibition of camera-captured images are widely used in both professional and consumer settings in the 21st century for both mass and interpersonal communication purposes.

A camera is a device that records/stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura (Latin for “dark chamber”), an early mechanism for projecting images. The modern camera evolved from the camera obscura.

Cameras may work with the light of the visible spectrum or with other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. A camera generally consists of an enclosed hollow with an opening (aperture) at one end for light to enter, and a recording or viewing surface for capturing the light at the other end. A majority of cameras have a lens positioned in front of the camera’s opening to gather the incoming light and focus all or part of the image on the recording surface. Most 20th century cameras used photographic film as a recording surface, while modern ones use an electronic camera sensor. The diameter of the aperture is often controlled by a diaphragm mechanism, but some cameras have a fixed-size aperture.

The still camera takes one photo each time the user presses the shutter button. A typical movie camera continuously takes 24 film frames per second as long as the user holds down the shutter button, or until the shutter button is pressed a second time. From its inception, the camera has been instrumental in the recording of still images from then-present surroundings, and further modifications led to the development of motion picture sequences in the late 19th century. Cameras and the exhibition of camera-captured images are widely used in both professional and consumer settings in the 21st century for both mass and interpersonal communication purposes.

In short, A camera is anything that can record/store images. 

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and They come… 

…in all shapes and sizes. 

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It all started with one though… 

CAMERA OBSCURA TIME: (11th century – ) 

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CAMERA OBSCURA How it worked: 

TIME: (11th century – ) 

CAMERA OBSCURA The light from an 

object (A) passes 

through a pinhole, 

which shows up in the 

camera obscura’s 

other side as an 

inverted  image (B).

How it worked: TIME: (11th century – ) 

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It’s more of a projector than a camera actually. 

Since it can’t really store the image.  

It just projects it. 

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SO… 

The very first 

TRUE CAMERA 

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is the 

Daguerreotype TIME: (1830s+) 

But first came the first permanent photograph

Joseph Niépce took this photo in in Paris 1827. The exposure took 8 hours. It was created with a process involving a metal plate and a chemical process that basically creates an image in a natural asphalt.

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And so the 

Daguerreotype TIME: (1830s+) 

Which uses a chemical emulsion on a copper plate to capture the light from the image. 

The only problem is: 

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Which uses a chemical emulsion on a copper plate to capture the light from the image. 

The only problem is:  It takes up to 

15 minutes  to fully capture the image. of EXPOSURE

Makes you feel sorry for these guys: 

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Makes you feel sorry for these guys: 

Notice the frowns on their faces. 

Louis Deguerre, 1839, Boulevard_du_Temple. This was a 10 minute exposure and the first exposure with a person in it.

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so  EMULSION PLATES were INVENTED. 

TIME: (1850s+) 

Good thing EMULSION PLATES were INVENTED. 

TIME: (1850s+) 

which only take 2‐3 seconds 

of exposure time.

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Good thing EMULSION PLATES were INVENTED. 

TIME: (1850s+) 

Note:  This image is hand colored. Color film doesn’t come along for a while yet. 

They had to be made 

on the spot  though, 

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So DRY PLATES were born. TIME: (1850s+) 

So DRY PLATES were born. TIME: (1850s+) 

which can be stored for future use. 

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These cameras were 

BIG. And looked like the monster 

tripods from the War of the Worlds movie. 

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The world needed 

portable cameras TIME: (1880s+) 

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Hi, I’m George Eastman. 

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You should 

thank me. 

I created flexible roll films. 

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Which made 

portable cameras possible. 

HELL YEAH! 

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35mm Film TIME: (1913+) 

Became THE  

STANDARD for cameras and is still being used NOW.  

The 

Ur-leica

The FIRST 35mm film camera 

TIME: (1914) 

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Leica

This camera is still considered to be one of the best 35 mm film cameras. Leica lenses are considered to be the best glass in the industry TIME: (to the present!) 

Over 30 years later… 

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POLAROID CAMERAS were born. 

TIME: (1948) 

which created… 

INSTANT IMAGES 

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and the undying HAB

IT of crowding around 

the camera to see how the shot lo

oked like. 

Photos didn’t really 

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Photos didn’t really come out

Photos didn’t really come out EXACTLY

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Photos didn’t really come out EXACTLY like what you’d see 

Photos didn’t really come out EXACTLY

in the viewfinder though. like what you’d see 

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What happened to my picture??? 

SO… 

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SLR CAMERAS TIME: (1948) 

were created. 

SLR CAMERAS TIME: (1948) 

were created. 

which were the 

WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) 

FIRST 

CAMERAS 

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Everything was going well for our photographers,  

UNTIL… 

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TIME: (1991)

Which have greatly

CHANGED the way cameras work.

Cameras can now be found

EVERYWHERE

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The First Digital Camera Texas Instruments designed a filmless analog camera in 1972 but it was never built.

The first still images were created by Eugene Lally of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The purpose was to provide onboard navigation information to astronauts.

The first prototype digital camera was created in 1975 by Steven Sasson, an engineer at Eastman Kodak. It used the then-new solid-state CCD image sensor chips developed by Fairchild Semiconductor in 1973.

It weighted 8 pounds and it recorded black and white images to a cassette tape. It had .01 megapixel resolution and took 23 seconds to expose. Thatʼs 23 seconds to produce an image smaller than a postage stamp!

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True Digital Cameras • The first digital cameras were marketed to the public in 1988. Fuji and Kodak both had versions of digital cameras that were based on film cameras, had a resolution of 1.3 megapixels, and cost $13,000

•  Over the next 10 years there would be more camera companies that would join in creating digital cameras and digital media.

•  The compact flash card was created in 1996 by Kodak

• Resolutions jumped from the 1.3 in 1988 to 2.75 in 1999 to 6 megapixels in 2003, and currently we sit at 16 and more megapixels.

Live-preview digital cameras

The term digital still camera (DSC) most commonly refers to the class of live-preview digital cameras, cameras that use an electronic screen as the principal means of framing and previewing before taking the photograph.

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Compact Digital Cameras

‐ Compact cameras are designed to be small and portable and are par3cularly suitable for casual and "snapshot" use, thus are also called “point and shoot camera” 

‐ The smallest, generally less than 20 mm thick, are described as subcompacts or "ultra‐compacts“. 

‐ Compacts o@en have macro capability and zoom lenses but the zoom range is usually less than for bridge and DSLR cameras.

Bridge cameras

‐ Bridge or SLR‐like cameras are higher‐end digital cameras that physically and ergonomically resemble DLSR’s and share with them some advanced features, but share with compacts the use of a fixed lens and a small sensor. 

The distinguishing characteristics are that bridge cameras lack the mirror and reflex system of DSLRs, have so far been always produced with only one single sealed (non-interchangeable) lens. The overall performance tends to be slower than a true digital SLR, but they are capable of very good image quality while being more compact and lighter than DSLRs.

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Micro Four thirds cameras

 ‐First unveiled by Panasonic in 2008, these cameras are digital single lens reflex‐like. Unlike tradi3onal SLRs and DSLRs, they have no reflex mirrors and op3cal viewfinders. Micro Four Thirds cameras have large sensors like a DSLR and take interchangeable lenses. They are smaller and thinner than most DSLRs. Moderate to high priced. 

Micro Four thirds cameras

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Digital (SLR) Single - Lens Reflex Camera

A digital single-lens reflex camera (digital SLR or DSLR) is a digital camera that operates on the same optical and mechanical principles as a modern electronic autofocus 35mm film single-lens reflex camera. The key difference is that the film is replaced with a CCD or CMOS image sensor plus accompanying electronics, thus creating images digitally in-camera, without the need to first chemically develop a latent image on film.

SLR Cross section

The cross-section (side-view) of the optical components of a typical SLR camera shows how the light passes through the lens assembly (1), is reflected by the mirror (2) and is projected on the matte focusing screen (5). Via a condensing lens (6) and internal reflections in the roof pentaprism (7) the image appears in the eyepiece (8). When an image is taken, the mirror moves in the direction of the arrow, the focal plane shutter (3) opens, and the image is projected onto the film or sensor (4) in exactly the same manner as on the focusing screen.

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Inside a Digital Camera

Lens openings

sensor

lcd screen

Sensors and resolution

The resolution of a digital camera is often limited by the camera sensor that turns light into discrete signals.

This process replaces the job of film in traditional photography.

The sensor is essentially our digital film.

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Sensor ‐ is a device that converts an op3cal image to an electric signal, replacing the job of film in tradi3onal photography. 

‐ The sensor is made up of millions of "buckets" that essen3ally count the number of photons that strike the sensor. This means that the brighter the image at a given point on the sensor, the larger the value that is ready for that pixel.  

‐ The number of resul3ng pixels in the image determines its "pixel count“. 

Why RGB? Firmware in the camera, interprets the raw data from the sensor to obtain a full color image.

The RGB color model is used to capture light the way that our eyes see it. This model requires three intensity values for each pixel: one each for the red, green, and blue.

A single sensor element cannot simultaneously record these three intensities, and so a color filter array (CFA) must be used to selectively filter a particular color for each pixel.

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Charge-Coupled Device (CCD)

A silicon semiconductor by which digital cameras capture their images. A CCD is an analog device. When light strikes the chip it is held as a small electrical charge in each photo sensor. The charges are converted to voltage one pixel at a time as they are read from the chip. Additional circuitry in the camera converts the voltage into digital information.

Sensors

Foveon Sensor

Sensors

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Foveon Sensor It uses a matrix of photo‐sites, each of which consists of three vertically stacked photo detectors. Each of the three stacked photo detectors responds to different wavelengths of light (Red/Green/Blue) 

This type of sensor is actually exposed to the light 3 separate times during an exposure to capture all the colors. 

Sensors

Array Sensor

Sensors

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Array Sensor (Bayerʼs Sensor)   It uses an array for arranging RGB color filters on a square grid of photosensors. The Array allows for a single sensor exposure rather than the 3 of the Feovon.

  The filter pattern is 50% green, 25% red and 25% blue, hence is also called RGBG or GRGB.

 Most of our cameras have this type of sensor, but visit your camera manual to learn more about your cameraʼs sensor

Sensors

A pixel (short for picture element) is the smallest single component of an image. Sensors take image information and store it in pixels.

Sensors and resolution

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Each pixel has typically three or four dimensions of variability such as Red, Green and Blue.

  The more pixels used to represent an image, the closer the result can resemble the original of an image.

Sensors and resolution

  The number of pixels per inch (ppi) in an image is called the resolution.   Image resolution describes the detail an image holds.

Sensors and resolution

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Pixel counts can be expressed as a:   single number (e.g. 8 Megapixel digital camera).

  pair of numbers (e.g., 640 x 480 VGA display monitor), and therefore has a total number of 640 × 480 = 307,200 pixels or 0.3 Megapixels.

Sensors and resolution

Megapixel A megapixel is 1 million pixels, and is a term used not only for the number of pixels in an image, but also to express the number of image sensor elements of digital cameras.

Sensors and resolution

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Image Resolution FACTORS THAT IMPACT A SENSOR’S RESOLUTION: 

 Sensor size  Lens quality  Organiza3on of pixels 

The 2 most important things to understand •Your camera is taking photographs in RGB mode

• Megapixels = millions of pixels, the more megapixels your camera has, the better the resolution and the larger the image it can produce

To successfully make an 8x10 image, your camera must have 6.5 megapixels

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File Formats  The Joint Photography Experts Group standard (JPEG) ‐ is the most common file format                             for storing image data.   Raw Image ‐ is the unprocessed set of pixel data directly from the camera’s sensor. 

          They are o@en saved in formats proprietary to each manufacturer, such as                            NEF for Nikon, CRW or CR2 for Canon, and MRW for Minolta.              DNG format ‐  a royalty free raw image format which has been adopted by                            at least 10 camera manufacturers. 

 Video formats include:   AVI  DV  MPEG  MOV  WMV  ASF  MP4 

EXIF ‐ data that provides metadata about the picture. It may include aperture, exposure Ame, focal length, date and Ame taken, and locaAon. You will see this informa3on in Adobe Bridge. 

File Formats For our class, three are three very important formats for you to use and consider.

1. Use your raw format or largest JPG in your camera You will want to treat what you take as a negative so

that you have a saved original to come back to

2. Images that you work on are saved as .psd (Photoshop documents) and hold all the work you did on your image

3. Create a flat JPG from your Photoshop document to print from. (decreased file size results in faster printing)

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Memory Cards

Memory Cards *The kind of memory card depends on the kind of camera that you have!

CompactFlash cards Flash and microdrive storage types. Used typically in higher end professional cameras. They are muchlarger than most cards, and have an extremely quick data time. Adapters exist to allow using SD cards in a CompactFlash device.

MemoryStick A proprietary flash memory type manufactured by Sony.

SD/MMC A flash memory card in a small form factor that is gradually supplanting CompactFlash.

MiniSD and MicroSD cards Smaller versions of the SD card used in camera phones and other devices.

XD-Picture Card Developed by Fuji and Olympus in 2002, a format smaller than an SD card.

These are just general categories. There are more than 55 types of memory cards.

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Memory Card Readers

Memory card readers can be specific to individual types of cards or can read many many types.

Belkin, Targus, and Sandisk are just a few companies that make these devices.

Memory cards can be read from the camera itself, but it is often better to have a card reader. Using a card reader is better for the mechanics of your camera and can bring card issues to user attention sooner.

Batteries *The kind of battery depends on the kind of camera that you have!

The best would be to get the rechargeable type that matches your camera

Or buy high end lithium batteries designed for digital technology

* Realize that battery life length is often effected by temperature. The warmer the weather while using your camera the shorter the life length of your batteries. Keep your batteries and your camera in a cooler place for battery life and safety of electronics!

*Moral of the story? Always have extras or your charger with you on a shoot!

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Printers Just because it says photosmart doesnʼt mean it is!

Things to look for:

Maximum photo print size *some printers (especially all in ones) max out size-wise at 4x6 *a fast speed of photo print DOESNʼT make it GOOD

Number of inks *You want a printer that at least separates black, yellow, magenta and cyan *the more inks the higher the quality of print

**AND Good papers that match your printer will make better prints in the end!