Photography techniques

Homework

1727The discovery that silver nitrate changes

Johann Heinrich Schulz discovered that a substance called silver nitrate would change colour when exposed to light. This paved the way for the first pictures to be taken and processed.

1814The camera obscura is developed

Joseph Niepce developed the camera obscura and took the first photo with it. It wasn't ideal, though, because it took 8 hours of light exposure to make a picture, and the picture faded with time.

1837The Daguerreotype was invented

Louis Daguerre invented a new way to take pictures. It only needed 30 minutes of light exposure, and the image didn't fade with time.

1841Making multiple copies possible

William Henry Talbot developed the Calotype process. This made it possible to make multiple copies of the same picture.

1851Taking pictures gets easier

With the new Collodion process, cameras only needed a few seconds of light exposure to make a picture.

1871Film is made easier to handle

Up until this time pictures had to be developed immediately after being taken. Richard Leach Maddox invented the gelatin dry plate silver bromide process, which made it possible to take a picture and develop it later.

1888• The box camera is mechanically simple, the most common form is a cardboard or

plastic box with a lens in one end and film at the other. The lenses are often single element designs meniscus fixed focus lens, or in better quality box cameras a doublet lens with minimal (if any) possible adjustments to the aperture or shutter speeds