The Camera Essay Research Paper The most

The Camera Essay, Research Paper The most important thing to photography is light. The camera is a precise instrument for capturing light. The word camera in Latin means room. The name camera comes from the first invention towards capturing the world on film, the camera obscura or dark room. This invention came about in the 14th century and was used by such artists as Da Vinci and Michelangelo to more accurately draw their subjects onto paper. The invention of this box, made way for more advancements in cameras and photography. There are five essential items in cameras that make photography possible. They are exposure, refraction, plane of focus, angle of view and aperture. Exposure is the amount of time a camera lets film be exposed to light. Refraction is the bending of

light through the lens(es) of a camera. Plane of focus is the area where light reforms an image in the film. Angle of view is the angle created on a lens when you take the two most outer points you can see through a lens and diverge them to the exact center of the lens. The angle created will be the angle at which the camera can take pictures at. Aperture is the amount of light a lens allows into the camera. The camera obscura, as mentioned previously, was a large box or even a whole room. There would be a small hole in one side, where light could enter. It would be pitch black inside the box except for where the light shined though the hole. An artist would sit inside the box while the subject would sit between the hole and the light source. As light would travel through the

hole, the hole would act as a lens. The artist could then trace the subject with greater accuracy than if done freehand. This also helped perspective come more easily to the artist. There are two individuals that made it possible for photography and cameras to advance forward as much as they have today. One was Joseph Nicephore Niepce. Niepce is credited with making the first successful photograph in 1826. Niepce was experimenting with the new form of print making called lithography. While doing this, he discovered that a material called bitumen reacted to light, and he could make exact duplicates of lithographs. Using this light sensitive material called bitumen, he coated a plate of either glass of pewter with this material and placed it in the back of a camera obscura and

exposed it to light. He now had a template for the printing of duplicate lithographs. Niepce was anxious to share his findings with someone else. That someone else was a theatrical designer and owner of a theater in Paris named, Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre in 1829. He was the other individual responsible for the camera and photography. Daguerre had also been experimenting with the camera obscura to help produce images, but had little to no luck, until Daguerre and Niepce got together. Daguerre s most important discovery came only two years after Niepce s death in 1835. Daguerre s discovery was that of another light sensitive material more sensitive than bitumen. This was silver iodine. The problem with this was that the compound darkened over a period of time. This was

eventually solved by washing the plate coated in this compound with warm water and table salt. On January 7th, 1839, this process in developing pictures on plates became known to the public as the daguerreotype through the French Academy of Sciences. Daguerre was given a lifetime pension by the French Government in exchange of the rights to the invention and full public disclosure of the process. The Daguerreotype was to be a gift to the world, from France with love. One last invention came forth from England by a man named Henry Fox Talbot. He used a solution called silver chloride to make pictures. This was different from the daguerreotype in that it used a positive-negative process similar to the process used today. This was perfected in the 1840 s. Talbot used paper at first