subject: Camera Development From Film Era to Digital Age [print this page] Camera Development From Film Era to Digital Age
Currently people use modern high tech and easy-to-use cameras. However, most people know a little bit about the history of camera development. The first camera called "Daguerrotype" was invented in 1839. It was shaped like a big cube with a brass tube in front of it to hold the camera lens and its body was made of wood. Moreover, it had a length of 36 cm therefore it could not be hand held in order to take photographs. There were few people who understood its mechanism and were able to use it.
In 1888, Kodak presented the new model of the camera, Kodak No.1. It was basically cube shape as same as Dagueerrotype but it was considerably small. It was only 16 cm long, 20 cm shorter than Dagueerrotype. In addition, its body was made of metal while Dagueerrotype's body was made of 100% wood. It was small; therefore, people could easily hand held and took photos.
Leica, the most famous German camera and lens producer, developed the third generation of camera, Leica 1, which was the first model of the modern camera nowadays in 1925. It was composed of a camera body, a lens, a shutter, an aperture, a film holder, etc. It was shaped like a rectangle with the length of 14 cm. The camera body was comprised of metal as Kodak No1. However, its mechanism was even more complex than both Daguerrotype and Kodak No1 and it was also a lot lighter than both previous models.
Moving to the digital age, the current cameras are changed to modern, easy-to-use digital cameras. There are a lot of components in a small digital camera such as a high quality zoom lens, a LCD screen, a flash, an internet connection, a USB port, etc. In comparison to middle age camera like Leica, it is slightly smaller and is easy to use than Leica. However, it is not as strong as Leica because its body is made up of plastic but Leica body is made of metal.
In conclusion, over 170 years of development, the camera has been continually developed from the big, wooden, and hard-to-use style to the most modern digital camera which everybody can easily use it. It demonstrates that people are interested continuously in photography over time. Furthermore, with fast development in digital technology, digital cameras will be continuously developed more and more high tech and easy to use cameras.
