Camera
Encyclopedia
A camera is a device that records and 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. The diameter of the aperture is often controlled by a diaphragm
mechanism, but some cameras have a fixed-size aperture. Most 20th century cameras used photographic film
as a recording surface, while the majority of new ones now use an electronic image sensor
.
The still camera takes one photo each time the user presses the shutter button
.
A typical movie camera
continuously takes 24 film frame
s 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.
The forerunner to the photographic camera was the camera obscura
, a Latin name literally meaning a dark room but more generally "...a darkened chamber or box, into which light is admitted through a pinhole (later a convex lens
), forming an image of external objects on a surface of paper or glass, etc., placed at the focus of the lens". In the 6th century, Greek
mathematician and architect Anthemius of Tralles
used a type of camera obscura in his experiments. The camera obscura was described by the Arab
ic scientist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) in his Book of Optics
(1015–1021). Scientist-monk Roger Bacon
also studied the matter. The actual name of camera obscura was applied by mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler
in his Ad Vitellionem paralipomena of 1604. He later added a lens and made the apparatus transportable, in the form of a tent. Irish scientist Robert Boyle
and his assistant Robert Hooke
developed a portable camera obscura in the 1660s.
The first camera obscura that was small enough for practical use as a portable drawing aid was built by Johann Zahn
in 1685. At that time there was no way to preserve the images produced by such cameras except by manually tracing them. However, it had long been known that various substances were bleached or darkened or otherwise changed by exposure to light. Seeing the magical miniature pictures that light temporarily "painted" on the screen of a small camera obscura inspired several experimenters to search for some way of automatically making highly detailed permanent copies of them by means of some such substance.
Early photographic cameras were usually in the form of a pair of nested boxes, the end of one carrying the lens and the end of the other carrying a removable ground glass
focusing screen. By sliding them closer together or farther apart, objects at various distances could be brought to the sharpest focus as desired. After a satisfactory image had been focused on the screen, the lens was covered and the screen was replaced with the light-sensitive material. The lens was then uncovered and the exposure continued for the required time, which for early experimental materials could be several hours or even days. The first permanent photograph
of a camera image was made in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce using a sliding wooden box camera made by Charles and Vincent Chevalier in Paris.
Similar cameras were used for exposing the silver-surfaced copper Daguerreotype
plates, commercially introduced in 1839, which were the first practical photographic medium. The collodion wet plate process
that gradually replaced the Daguerreotype during the 1850s required photographers to coat and sensitize thin glass or iron plates shortly before use and expose them in the camera while still wet. Early wet plate cameras were very simple and little different from Daguerreotype cameras, but more sophisticated designs eventually appeared. The Dubroni of 1864 allowed the sensitizing and developing
of the plates to be carried out inside the camera itself rather than in a separate darkroom
. Other cameras were fitted with multiple lenses for photographing several small portraits on a single larger plate, useful when making cartes de visite
. It was during the wet plate era that the use of bellows
for focusing became widespread, making the bulkier and less easily adjusted nested box design obsolete.
For many years, exposure times were long enough that the photographer simply removed the lens cap, counted off the number of seconds (or minutes) estimated to be required by the lighting conditions, then replaced the cap. As more sensitive photographic materials became available, cameras began to incorporate mechanical shutter mechanisms that allowed very short and accurately timed exposures to be made.
The electronic video camera tube
was invented in the 1920s, starting a line of development that eventually resulted in digital camera
s, which largely supplanted film cameras after the turn of the 21st century.
Traditional cameras capture light onto photographic film
or photographic plate
. Video
and digital camera
s use an electronic image sensor
, usually a charge coupled device (CCD) or a CMOS
sensor to capture images which can be transferred or stored in a memory card
or other storage inside the camera for later playback or processing
.
Cameras that capture many images in sequence are known as movie camera
s or as ciné cameras in Europe
; those designed for single images are still camera
s. However these categories overlap as still cameras are often used to capture moving images in special effects work and many modern cameras can quickly switch between still and motion recording modes. A video camera
is a category of movie camera that captures images electronically (either using analogue or digital technology).
s. Pioneers included Zeiss
and Leitz.
Camera lenses are made in a wide range of focal lengths. They range from extreme wide angle, wide angle
, standard, medium telephoto and telephoto
. Each lens is best suited a certain type of photography. The extreme wide angle may be preferred for architecture
because it has the capacity to capture a wide view of a building. The normal lens, because it often has a wide aperture, is often used for street and documentary photography
. The telephoto lens is useful for sports, and wildlife but it is more susceptible to camera shake.
Due to the optical properties of photographic lens
es, only objects within a limited range of distances from the camera will be reproduced clearly. The process of adjusting this range is known as changing the camera's focus. There are various ways of focusing a camera accurately. The simplest cameras have fixed focus and use a small aperture and wide-angle lens to ensure that everything within a certain range of distance from the lens
, usually around 3 metres (10 ft) to infinity, is in reasonable focus. Fixed focus cameras are usually inexpensive types, such as single-use cameras. The camera can also have a limited focusing range or scale-focus
that is indicated on the camera body. The user will guess or calculate the distance to the subject and adjust the focus accordingly. On some cameras this is indicated by symbols (head-and-shoulders; two people standing upright; one tree; mountains).
Rangefinder camera
s allow the distance to objects to be measured by means of a coupled parallax unit on top of the camera, allowing the focus to be set with accuracy. Single-lens reflex camera
s allow the photographer to determine the focus and composition visually using the objective lens and a moving mirror to project the image onto a ground glass
or plastic micro-prism screen. Twin-lens reflex camera
s use an objective lens and a focusing lens unit (usually identical to the objective lens.) in a parallel body for composition and focusing. View camera
s use a ground glass screen which is removed and replaced by either a photographic plate or a reusable holder containing sheet film
before exposure. Modern cameras often offer autofocus
systems to focus the camera automatically by a variety of methods.
October 2011: Some cameras have post focusing and now available for pre-order, but the price were relatively high. Post focusing means take the pictures first and then focusing later at the Personal Computer
. The camera uses many tiny lenses with different focal length to capture light from every angle of a scene and is called plenoptics technology. The current Plenoptic camera
can serve as has 40,000 lenses working together to grab the optimal picture.
controls the length of time that the light hits the recording surface. Equivalent exposures can be made with a larger aperture and a faster shutter speed or a corresponding smaller aperture and with the shutter speed slowed down.
The Leaf shutter or more precisely the in-lens shutter is a shutter contained within the lens structure, often close to the diaphragm consisting of a number of metal leaves which are maintained under spring tension and which are opened and then closed when the shutter is released. The exposure time is determined by the interval between opening and closing. In this shutter design, the whole film frame is exposed at one time. This makes flash synchronisation much simpler as the flash only needs to fire once the shutter is fully open. Disadvantages of such shutters are their inability to reliably produce very fast shutter speeds ( faster than 1/500th second or so) and the additional cost and weight of having to include a shutter mechanism for every lens.
The focal-plane shutter
operates as close to the film plane as possible and consists of cloth curtains that are pulled across the film plane with a carefully determined gap between the two curtains (typically running horizontally) or consisting of a series of metal plates (typically moving vertically) just in front of the film plan. The focal-plane shutter is primarily associated with the single lens reflex type of cameras, since covering the film rather than blocking light passing through the lens allows the photographer to view through the lens at all times except during the exposure itself. Covering the film also facilitates removing the lens from a loaded camera (many SLRs have interchangeable lenses).
SLR cameras (typically using 120/220 roll film
) use a hybrid solution, since such a large focal-plane shutter would be difficult to make and/or may run slowly. A manually inserted blade known as a dark slide allows the film to be covered when changing lenses or film backs. A blind inside the camera covers the film prior to and after the exposure (but is not designed to be able to give accurately controlled exposure times) and a leaf shutter that is normally open is installed in the lens. To take a picture, the leaf shutter closes, the blind opens, the leaf shutter opens then closes again, and finally the blind closes and the leaf shutter re-opens (the last step may only occur when the shutter is re-cocked).
Using a focal-plane shutter, exposing the whole film plane can take much longer than the exposure time. The exposure time does not depend on the time taken to make the exposure over all, only on the difference between the time a specific point on the film is uncovered and then covered up again. For example an exposure of 1/1000 second may be achieved by the shutter curtains moving across the film plane in 1/50th of a second but with the two curtains only separated by 1/20th of the frame width. In fact in practice the curtains do not run at a constant speed as they would in an ideal design, obtaining an even exposure time depends mainly on being able to make the two curtains accelerate in a similar manner.
When photographing rapidly moving objects, the use of a focal-plane shutter can produce some unexpected effects, since the film closest to the start position of the curtains is exposed earlier than the film closest to the end position. Typically this can result in a moving object leaving a slanting image. The direction of the slant depends on the direction the shutter curtains run in (noting also that as in all cameras the image is inverted and reversed by the lens, i.e. "top-left" is at the bottom right of the sensor as seen by a photographer behind the camera).
Focal-plane shutters are also difficult to synchronise with flash bulbs and electronic flash and it is often only possible to use flash at shutter speeds where the curtain that opens to reveal the film completes its run and the film is fully uncovered, before the second curtain starts to travel and cover it up again. Typically 35mm film SLRs could sync flash at only up to 1/60th second if the camera has horizontal run cloth curtains, and 1/125th if using a vertical run metal shutter.
drove the standardisation process still further so that by the 1950s only a few standard roll films were in use. These included 120 film
providing 8, 12 or 16 exposures, 220 film providing 16 or 24 exposures, 127 film providing 8 exposures (principally in Brownie cameras
) and 35 mm film
providing 12, 20 or 36 exposures – or up to 72 exposures in bulk cassettes for the Leica Camera range.
For cine cameras, 35 mm film was the original film format but 16 mm film
soon followed, produced by cutting 35 mm in two. An early amateur format was 9.5 mm
. Later formats included 8 mm film
and Super 8
.
s and are now termed plate cameras. Light entered a lens mounted on a lens board which was separated from the plate by an extendible bellows. Many of these cameras, had controls to raise or lower the lens and to tilt it forwards or backwards to control perspective. Focussing of these plate cameras was by the use of a ground glass
screen at the point of focus. Because lens design
only allowed rather small aperture lenses, the image on the ground glass screen was faint and most photographers had a dark cloth to cover their heads to allow focussing and composition to be carried out more easily. When focus and composition were satisfactory, the ground glass screen was removed and a sensitised plate put in its place protected by a dark slide
. To make the exposure, the dark slide was carefully slid out and the shutter opened and then closed and the dark slide replaced. In current designs the plate camera is best represented by the view camera
.
, the field camera
and the press camera
. All use large format sheets of film, although there are backs for medium format 120-film available for most systems, and have an extensible bellows with the lens and shutter mounted on a lens plate at the front. These cameras have a wide range of movements allowing very close control of focus and perspective.
model with separate backs, to smaller rangefinder
cameras. There are even compact amateur cameras available in this format.
had larger direct view optical viewfinders together with a curved film path to reduce the impact of deficiencies in the lens.
In the single-lens reflex camera the photographer sees the scene through the camera lens. This avoids the problem of parallax
which occurs when the viewfinder or viewing lens is separated from the taking lens. Single-lens reflex cameras have been made in several formats including 220/120 taking 8, 12 or 16 photographs on a 120 roll and twice that number of a 220 film. These correspond to 6x9, 6x6 and 6x4.5 respectively (all dimensions in cm). Notable manufacturers of large format SLR include Hasselblad
, Mamiya
, Bronica
and Pentax
. However the most common format of SLRs has been 35 mm and subsequently the migration to digital SLRs, using almost identical sized bodies and sometimes using the same lens systems.
Almost all SLR used a front surfaced mirror in the optical path to direct the light from the lens via a viewing screen and pentaprism
to the eyepiece. At the time of exposure the mirror flipped up out of the light path before the shutter opened. Some early cameras experimented other methods of providing through the lens viewing including the use of a semi transparent pellicle
as in the Canon Pellix and others with a small periscope such as in the Corfield
Periflex series.
also provided a reflex head to attach to the viewing screen to allow the camera to be held to the eye when in use. The advantage of a TLR was that it could be easily focussed using the viewing screen and that under most circumstances the view seen in the viewing screen was identical to that recorded on film. At close distances however, parallax errors were encountered and some cameras also included an indicator to show what part of the composition would be excluded.
Some TLR had interchangeable lenses but as these had to be paired lenses they were relatively heavy and did not provide the range of focal lengths that the SLR could support. Although most TLRs used 120 or 220 film some used 127 film.
" (number of frames per second). While viewing, a person's eyes and brain merge the separate pictures
to create the illusion of motion. The first ciné camera was built around 1888 and by 1890 several types were being manufactured. The standard film size for ciné cameras was quickly established as 35mm film and this remains in use to this day. Other professional standard formats include 70 mm film
and 16mm film whilst amateurs film makers used 9.5 mm film
, 8mm film or Standard 8 and Super 8
before the move into digital format.
The size and complexity of ciné cameras varies greatly depending on the uses required of the camera. Some professional equipment is very large and too heavy to be hand held whilst some amateur cameras were designed to be very small and light for single-handed operation. In the last quarter of the 20th century camcorder
s supplanted film motion cameras for amateurs. Professional video camera
s did the same for professional users around the turn of the century.
Camera obscura
The camera obscura is an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen. It is used in drawing and for entertainment, and was one of the inventions that led to photography. The device consists of a box or room with a hole in one side...
(Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
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
Visible spectrum
The visible spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation in this range of wavelengths is called visible light or simply light. A typical human eye will respond to wavelengths from about 390 to 750 nm. In terms of...
or with other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum
Electromagnetic spectrum
The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of all possible frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. The "electromagnetic spectrum" of an object is the characteristic distribution of electromagnetic radiation emitted or absorbed by that particular object....
. A camera generally consists of an enclosed hollow with an opening (aperture
Aperture
In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture of an optical system is the opening that determines the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. The aperture determines how collimated the admitted rays are,...
) at one end for light
Light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that is visible to the human eye, and is responsible for the sense of sight. Visible light has wavelength in a range from about 380 nanometres to about 740 nm, with a frequency range of about 405 THz to 790 THz...
to enter, and a recording or viewing surface for capturing the light at the other end. A majority of cameras have a lens
Photographic lens
A camera lens is an optical lens or assembly of lenses used in conjunction with a camera body and mechanism to make images of objects either on photographic film or on other media capable of storing an image chemically or electronically.While in principle a simple convex lens will suffice, in...
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. The diameter of the aperture is often controlled by a diaphragm
Diaphragm (optics)
In optics, a diaphragm is a thin opaque structure with an opening at its center. The role of the diaphragm is to stop the passage of light, except for the light passing through the aperture...
mechanism, but some cameras have a fixed-size aperture. Most 20th century cameras used photographic film
Photographic film
Photographic film is a sheet of plastic coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive silver halide salts with variable crystal sizes that determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the film...
as a recording surface, while the majority of new ones now use an electronic image sensor
Image sensor
An image sensor is a device that converts an optical image into an electronic signal. It is used mostly in digital cameras and other imaging devices...
.
The still camera takes one photo each time the user presses the shutter button
Shutter button
In photography the shutter-release button is a button found on many cameras, used to take a picture. When pressed, the shutter of the camera is "released", so that it opens to capture a picture, and then closes, allowing an exposure time as determined by the shutter speed setting...
.
A typical movie camera
Movie camera
The movie camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film which was very popular for private use in the last century until its successor, the video camera, replaced it...
continuously takes 24 film frame
Film frame
In filmmaking, video production, animation, and related fields, a film frame or video frame is one of the many still images which compose the complete moving picture...
s 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.
History
Camera obscura
The camera obscura is an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen. It is used in drawing and for entertainment, and was one of the inventions that led to photography. The device consists of a box or room with a hole in one side...
, a Latin name literally meaning a dark room but more generally "...a darkened chamber or box, into which light is admitted through a pinhole (later a convex lens
Lens
-Optics:*Lens , an optical element which converges or diverges light**Lens , a part of the eye**Corrective lens for correction of human vision***Contact lens, placed on the cornea of the eye**Photographic lens, a lens designed for use on a camera...
), forming an image of external objects on a surface of paper or glass, etc., placed at the focus of the lens". In the 6th century, Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
mathematician and architect Anthemius of Tralles
Anthemius of Tralles
Anthemius of Tralles was a Greek professor of Geometry in Constantinople and architect, who collaborated with Isidore of Miletus to build the church of Hagia Sophia by the order of Justinian I. Anthemius came from an educated family, one of five sons of Stephanus of Tralles, a physician...
used a type of camera obscura in his experiments. The camera obscura was described by the Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
ic scientist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) in his Book of Optics
Book of Optics
The Book of Optics ; ; Latin: De Aspectibus or Opticae Thesaurus: Alhazeni Arabis; Italian: Deli Aspecti) is a seven-volume treatise on optics and other fields of study composed by the medieval Muslim scholar Alhazen .-See also:* Science in medieval Islam...
(1015–1021). Scientist-monk Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon, O.F.M. , also known as Doctor Mirabilis , was an English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods...
also studied the matter. The actual name of camera obscura was applied by mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, he is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican...
in his Ad Vitellionem paralipomena of 1604. He later added a lens and made the apparatus transportable, in the form of a tent. Irish scientist Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle FRS was a 17th century natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor, also noted for his writings in theology. He has been variously described as English, Irish, or Anglo-Irish, his father having come to Ireland from England during the time of the English plantations of...
and his assistant Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke FRS was an English natural philosopher, architect and polymath.His adult life comprised three distinct periods: as a scientific inquirer lacking money; achieving great wealth and standing through his reputation for hard work and scrupulous honesty following the great fire of 1666, but...
developed a portable camera obscura in the 1660s.
The first camera obscura that was small enough for practical use as a portable drawing aid was built by Johann Zahn
Johann Zahn
Johann Zahn was the seventeenth-century German author of Oculus Artificialis Teledioptricus Sive Telescopium...
in 1685. At that time there was no way to preserve the images produced by such cameras except by manually tracing them. However, it had long been known that various substances were bleached or darkened or otherwise changed by exposure to light. Seeing the magical miniature pictures that light temporarily "painted" on the screen of a small camera obscura inspired several experimenters to search for some way of automatically making highly detailed permanent copies of them by means of some such substance.
Early photographic cameras were usually in the form of a pair of nested boxes, the end of one carrying the lens and the end of the other carrying a removable ground glass
Ground glass
Ground glass is glass whose surface has been ground to produce a flat but rough finish.Ground glass surfaces have many applications, ranging from mere ornamentation on windows and table glassware to scientific uses in optics and laboratory glassware....
focusing screen. By sliding them closer together or farther apart, objects at various distances could be brought to the sharpest focus as desired. After a satisfactory image had been focused on the screen, the lens was covered and the screen was replaced with the light-sensitive material. The lens was then uncovered and the exposure continued for the required time, which for early experimental materials could be several hours or even days. The first permanent photograph
Photograph
A photograph is an image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of...
of a camera image was made in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce using a sliding wooden box camera made by Charles and Vincent Chevalier in Paris.
Similar cameras were used for exposing the silver-surfaced copper Daguerreotype
Daguerreotype
The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process. The image is a direct positive made in the camera on a silvered copper plate....
plates, commercially introduced in 1839, which were the first practical photographic medium. The collodion wet plate process
Collodion process
The collodion process is an early photographic process. It was introduced in the 1850s and by the end of that decade it had almost entirely replaced the first practical photographic process, the daguerreotype. During the 1880s the collodion process, in turn, was largely replaced by gelatin dry...
that gradually replaced the Daguerreotype during the 1850s required photographers to coat and sensitize thin glass or iron plates shortly before use and expose them in the camera while still wet. Early wet plate cameras were very simple and little different from Daguerreotype cameras, but more sophisticated designs eventually appeared. The Dubroni of 1864 allowed the sensitizing and developing
Photographic processing
Photographic processing is the chemical means by which photographic film and paper is treated after photographic exposure to produce a negative or positive image...
of the plates to be carried out inside the camera itself rather than in a separate darkroom
Darkroom
A darkroom is a room that can be made completely dark to allow the processing of light sensitive photographic materials, including photographic film and photographic paper. Darkrooms have been created and used since the inception of photography in the early 19th century...
. Other cameras were fitted with multiple lenses for photographing several small portraits on a single larger plate, useful when making cartes de visite
Carte de visite
The carte de visite was a type of small photograph which was patented in Paris, France by photographer André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri in 1854, although first used by Louis Dodero...
. It was during the wet plate era that the use of bellows
Bellows (photography)
In photography, a bellows is the pleated expandable part of a camera, usually a large or medium format camera, to allow the lens to be moved with respect to the focal plane for focusing....
for focusing became widespread, making the bulkier and less easily adjusted nested box design obsolete.
For many years, exposure times were long enough that the photographer simply removed the lens cap, counted off the number of seconds (or minutes) estimated to be required by the lighting conditions, then replaced the cap. As more sensitive photographic materials became available, cameras began to incorporate mechanical shutter mechanisms that allowed very short and accurately timed exposures to be made.
The electronic video camera tube
Video camera tube
In older video cameras, before the mid to late 1980s, a video camera tube or pickup tube was used instead of a charge-coupled device for converting an optical image into an electrical signal. Several types were in use from the 1930s to the 1980s...
was invented in the 1920s, starting a line of development that eventually resulted in digital camera
Digital camera
A digital camera is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor. It is the main device used in the field of digital photography...
s, which largely supplanted film cameras after the turn of the 21st century.
Image capture
Photographic film
Photographic film is a sheet of plastic coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive silver halide salts with variable crystal sizes that determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the film...
or photographic plate
Photographic plate
Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a means of photography. A light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was applied to a glass plate. This form of photographic material largely faded from the consumer market in the early years of the 20th century, as more convenient and less fragile...
. Video
Video camera
A video camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition, initially developed by the television industry but now common in other applications as well. The earliest video cameras were those of John Logie Baird, based on the electromechanical Nipkow disk and used by the BBC in...
and digital camera
Digital camera
A digital camera is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor. It is the main device used in the field of digital photography...
s use an electronic image sensor
Image sensor
An image sensor is a device that converts an optical image into an electronic signal. It is used mostly in digital cameras and other imaging devices...
, usually a charge coupled device (CCD) or a CMOS
CMOS
Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor is a technology for constructing integrated circuits. CMOS technology is used in microprocessors, microcontrollers, static RAM, and other digital logic circuits...
sensor to capture images which can be transferred or stored in a memory card
Memory card
A memory card or flash card is an electronic flash memory data storage device used for storing digital information. They are commonly used in many electronic devices, including digital cameras, mobile phones, laptop computers, MP3 players, and video game consoles...
or other storage inside the camera for later playback or processing
Digital image processing
Digital image processing is the use of computer algorithms to perform image processing on digital images. As a subcategory or field of digital signal processing, digital image processing has many advantages over analog image processing...
.
Cameras that capture many images in sequence are known as movie camera
Movie camera
The movie camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film which was very popular for private use in the last century until its successor, the video camera, replaced it...
s or as ciné cameras in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
; those designed for single images are still camera
Still camera
A still camera is a type of camera used to take photographs. Traditional cameras capture light onto photographic film. Digital cameras use electronics, usually a charge coupled device to store digital images in computer memory inside the camera...
s. However these categories overlap as still cameras are often used to capture moving images in special effects work and many modern cameras can quickly switch between still and motion recording modes. A video camera
Video camera
A video camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition, initially developed by the television industry but now common in other applications as well. The earliest video cameras were those of John Logie Baird, based on the electromechanical Nipkow disk and used by the BBC in...
is a category of movie camera that captures images electronically (either using analogue or digital technology).
Lens
The lens of a camera captures the light from the subject and brings it to a focus on the film or detector. The design and manufacture of the lens is critical to the quality of the photograph being taken. The technological revolution in camera design in the 19th century revolutionized optical glass manufacture and lens design with great benefits for modern lens manufacture in a wide range of optical instruments from reading glasses to microscopeMicroscope
A microscope is an instrument used to see objects that are too small for the naked eye. The science of investigating small objects using such an instrument is called microscopy...
s. Pioneers included Zeiss
Carl Zeiss
Carl Zeiss was a German maker of optical instruments commonly known for the company he founded, Carl Zeiss Jena . Zeiss made contributions to lens manufacturing that have aided the modern production of lenses...
and Leitz.
Camera lenses are made in a wide range of focal lengths. They range from extreme wide angle, wide angle
Wide-angle lens
From a design perspective, a wide angle lens is one that projects a substantially larger image circle than would be typical for a standard design lens of the same focal length; this enables either large tilt & shift movements with a view camera, or lenses with wide fields of view.More informally,...
, standard, medium telephoto and telephoto
Telephoto lens
In photography and cinematography, a telephoto lens is a specific type of a long-focus lens in which the physical length of the lens is shorter than the focal length. This is achieved by incorporating a special lens group known as a telephoto group that extends the light path to create a long-focus...
. Each lens is best suited a certain type of photography. The extreme wide angle may be preferred for architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
because it has the capacity to capture a wide view of a building. The normal lens, because it often has a wide aperture, is often used for street and documentary photography
Documentary photography
Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle significant and historical events. It is typically covered in professional photojournalism, but it may also be an amateur, artistic, or academic pursuit...
. The telephoto lens is useful for sports, and wildlife but it is more susceptible to camera shake.
Focus
Photographic lens
A camera lens is an optical lens or assembly of lenses used in conjunction with a camera body and mechanism to make images of objects either on photographic film or on other media capable of storing an image chemically or electronically.While in principle a simple convex lens will suffice, in...
es, only objects within a limited range of distances from the camera will be reproduced clearly. The process of adjusting this range is known as changing the camera's focus. There are various ways of focusing a camera accurately. The simplest cameras have fixed focus and use a small aperture and wide-angle lens to ensure that everything within a certain range of distance from the lens
Photographic lens
A camera lens is an optical lens or assembly of lenses used in conjunction with a camera body and mechanism to make images of objects either on photographic film or on other media capable of storing an image chemically or electronically.While in principle a simple convex lens will suffice, in...
, usually around 3 metres (10 ft) to infinity, is in reasonable focus. Fixed focus cameras are usually inexpensive types, such as single-use cameras. The camera can also have a limited focusing range or scale-focus
Scale-focus
Scale focus, or zone focus, is a type of focusing system used by many inexpensive cameras from the 1940s and 1950s. These cameras have an adjustable focus, but lack a focusing aid such as a rangefinder. It is necessary to determine the distance to the subject and set the focus using a scale printed...
that is indicated on the camera body. The user will guess or calculate the distance to the subject and adjust the focus accordingly. On some cameras this is indicated by symbols (head-and-shoulders; two people standing upright; one tree; mountains).
Rangefinder camera
Rangefinder camera
A rangefinder camera is a camera fitted with a rangefinder: a range-finding focusing mechanism allowing the photographer to measure the subject distance and take photographs that are in sharp focus...
s allow the distance to objects to be measured by means of a coupled parallax unit on top of the camera, allowing the focus to be set with accuracy. Single-lens reflex camera
Single-lens reflex camera
A single-lens reflex camera is a camera that typically uses a semi-automatic moving mirror system that permits the photographer to see exactly what will be captured by the film or digital imaging system, as opposed to pre-SLR cameras where the view through the viewfinder could be significantly...
s allow the photographer to determine the focus and composition visually using the objective lens and a moving mirror to project the image onto a ground glass
Ground glass
Ground glass is glass whose surface has been ground to produce a flat but rough finish.Ground glass surfaces have many applications, ranging from mere ornamentation on windows and table glassware to scientific uses in optics and laboratory glassware....
or plastic micro-prism screen. Twin-lens reflex camera
Twin-lens reflex camera
A twin-lens reflex camera is a type of camera with two objective lenses of the same focal length. One of the lenses is the photographic objective or "taking lens" , while the other is used for the viewfinder system, which is usually viewed from above at waist level...
s use an objective lens and a focusing lens unit (usually identical to the objective lens.) in a parallel body for composition and focusing. View camera
View camera
The view camera is a type of camera first developed in the era of the Daguerreotype and still in use today, though with many refinements. It comprises a flexible bellows which forms a light-tight seal between two adjustable standards, one of which holds a lens, and the other a viewfinder or a...
s use a ground glass screen which is removed and replaced by either a photographic plate or a reusable holder containing sheet film
Sheet film
Sheet film is large format and medium format photographic film supplied on individual sheets of acetate or polyester film base rather than rolls. Sheet film was initially supplied as an alternative to glass plates...
before exposure. Modern cameras often offer autofocus
Autofocus
An autofocus optical system uses a sensor, a control system and a motor to focus fully automatic or on a manually selected point or area. An electronic rangefinder has a display instead of the motor; the adjustment of the optical system has to be done manually until indication...
systems to focus the camera automatically by a variety of methods.
October 2011: Some cameras have post focusing and now available for pre-order, but the price were relatively high. Post focusing means take the pictures first and then focusing later at the Personal Computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
. The camera uses many tiny lenses with different focal length to capture light from every angle of a scene and is called plenoptics technology. The current Plenoptic camera
Plenoptic camera
A light-field camera, also called a plenoptic camera, is a camera that uses a microlens array to capture 4D light field information about a scene...
can serve as has 40,000 lenses working together to grab the optimal picture.
Exposure control
The size of the aperture and the brightness of the scene controls the amount of light that enters the camera during a period of time, and the shutterShutter (photography)
In photography, a shutter is a device that allows light to pass for a determined period of time, for the purpose of exposing photographic film or a light-sensitive electronic sensor to light to capture a permanent image of a scene...
controls the length of time that the light hits the recording surface. Equivalent exposures can be made with a larger aperture and a faster shutter speed or a corresponding smaller aperture and with the shutter speed slowed down.
Shutters
Although a range of different shutter devices have been used during the development of the camera only two types have been widely used and remain in use today.The Leaf shutter or more precisely the in-lens shutter is a shutter contained within the lens structure, often close to the diaphragm consisting of a number of metal leaves which are maintained under spring tension and which are opened and then closed when the shutter is released. The exposure time is determined by the interval between opening and closing. In this shutter design, the whole film frame is exposed at one time. This makes flash synchronisation much simpler as the flash only needs to fire once the shutter is fully open. Disadvantages of such shutters are their inability to reliably produce very fast shutter speeds ( faster than 1/500th second or so) and the additional cost and weight of having to include a shutter mechanism for every lens.
The focal-plane shutter
Focal-plane shutter
In camera design, a focal-plane shutter is a type of photographic shutter that is positioned immediately in front of the focal plane of the camera, that is, right in front of the photographic film or image sensor.-Two-curtain shutters:...
operates as close to the film plane as possible and consists of cloth curtains that are pulled across the film plane with a carefully determined gap between the two curtains (typically running horizontally) or consisting of a series of metal plates (typically moving vertically) just in front of the film plan. The focal-plane shutter is primarily associated with the single lens reflex type of cameras, since covering the film rather than blocking light passing through the lens allows the photographer to view through the lens at all times except during the exposure itself. Covering the film also facilitates removing the lens from a loaded camera (many SLRs have interchangeable lenses).
Complexities
Professional medium formatMedium format
Medium format has traditionally referred to a film format in still photography and the related cameras and equipment that use that film. Generally, the term applies to film and digital cameras that record images on media larger than 24 by 36 mm , but smaller than 4 by 5 inches .In digital...
SLR cameras (typically using 120/220 roll film
120 film
120 is a film format for still photography introduced by Kodak for their Brownie No. 2 in 1901. It was originally intended for amateur photography but was later superseded in this role by 135 film...
) use a hybrid solution, since such a large focal-plane shutter would be difficult to make and/or may run slowly. A manually inserted blade known as a dark slide allows the film to be covered when changing lenses or film backs. A blind inside the camera covers the film prior to and after the exposure (but is not designed to be able to give accurately controlled exposure times) and a leaf shutter that is normally open is installed in the lens. To take a picture, the leaf shutter closes, the blind opens, the leaf shutter opens then closes again, and finally the blind closes and the leaf shutter re-opens (the last step may only occur when the shutter is re-cocked).
Using a focal-plane shutter, exposing the whole film plane can take much longer than the exposure time. The exposure time does not depend on the time taken to make the exposure over all, only on the difference between the time a specific point on the film is uncovered and then covered up again. For example an exposure of 1/1000 second may be achieved by the shutter curtains moving across the film plane in 1/50th of a second but with the two curtains only separated by 1/20th of the frame width. In fact in practice the curtains do not run at a constant speed as they would in an ideal design, obtaining an even exposure time depends mainly on being able to make the two curtains accelerate in a similar manner.
When photographing rapidly moving objects, the use of a focal-plane shutter can produce some unexpected effects, since the film closest to the start position of the curtains is exposed earlier than the film closest to the end position. Typically this can result in a moving object leaving a slanting image. The direction of the slant depends on the direction the shutter curtains run in (noting also that as in all cameras the image is inverted and reversed by the lens, i.e. "top-left" is at the bottom right of the sensor as seen by a photographer behind the camera).
Focal-plane shutters are also difficult to synchronise with flash bulbs and electronic flash and it is often only possible to use flash at shutter speeds where the curtain that opens to reveal the film completes its run and the film is fully uncovered, before the second curtain starts to travel and cover it up again. Typically 35mm film SLRs could sync flash at only up to 1/60th second if the camera has horizontal run cloth curtains, and 1/125th if using a vertical run metal shutter.
Film formats
A wide range of film and plate formats has been used by cameras. In the early history plate sizes were often specific for the make and model of camera although there quickly developed some standardisation for the more popular cameras. The introduction of roll filmRoll film
Rollfilm or roll film is any type of spool-wound photographic film protected from white light exposure by a paper backing, as opposed to film which is protected from exposure and wound forward in a cartridge. Confusingly, roll film was originally often referred to as "cartridge" film because of its...
drove the standardisation process still further so that by the 1950s only a few standard roll films were in use. These included 120 film
120 film
120 is a film format for still photography introduced by Kodak for their Brownie No. 2 in 1901. It was originally intended for amateur photography but was later superseded in this role by 135 film...
providing 8, 12 or 16 exposures, 220 film providing 16 or 24 exposures, 127 film providing 8 exposures (principally in Brownie cameras
Brownie (camera)
Brownie is the name of a long-running and extremely popular series of simple and inexpensive cameras made by Eastman Kodak. The Brownie popularized low-cost photography and introduced the concept of the snapshot. The first Brownie, introduced in February, 1900, was a very basic cardboard box camera...
) and 35 mm film
35 mm film
35 mm film is the film gauge most commonly used for chemical still photography and motion pictures. The name of the gauge refers to the width of the photographic film, which consists of strips 35 millimeters in width...
providing 12, 20 or 36 exposures – or up to 72 exposures in bulk cassettes for the Leica Camera range.
For cine cameras, 35 mm film was the original film format but 16 mm film
16 mm film
16 mm film refers to a popular, economical gauge of film used for motion pictures and non-theatrical film making. 16 mm refers to the width of the film...
soon followed, produced by cutting 35 mm in two. An early amateur format was 9.5 mm
9.5 mm film
9.5 mm film is an amateur film format introduced by Pathé Frères in 1922 as part of the Pathé Baby amateur film system. It was conceived initially as an inexpensive format to provide copies of commercially-made films to home users, although a simple camera was released shortly afterwards.It...
. Later formats included 8 mm film
8 mm film
8 mm film is a motion picture film format in which the filmstrip is eight millimeters wide. It exists in two main versions: the original standard 8mm film, also known as regular 8 mm or Double 8 mm, and Super 8...
and Super 8
Super 8 mm film
Super 8 mm film is a motion picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement of the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format....
.
Camera accessories
Accessories for cameras are mainly for care, protection, special effects and functions.- Lens hoodLens hoodIn photography, a lens hood or lens shade is a device used on the end of a lens to block the sun or other light source in order to prevent glare and lens flare....
: used on the end of a lens to block the sun or other light source in order to prevent glare and lens flare. - Lens coverLens coverA lens cover or lens cap provides protection from scratches and minor collisions for camera and camcorder lenses. Lens covers come standard with most cameras and lenses...
: covers and protects the lens during storage - Lens adapter: sometimes called a step-ring, adapts the lens to other size filters
- Lens extension tubes allow close focus in macro photographyMacro photographyMacrophotography is close-up photography, usually of very small subjects. Classically a macrophotograph is one in which the size of the subject on the negative is greater than life size. However in modern use it refers to a finished photograph of a subject at greater than life size...
- Flash equipment: including light diffuser, mount and stand, reflector, soft boxSoft boxA Soft box is a type of photographic lighting device, one of a number of photographic soft light devices. All the various soft light types create even and diffused light by directing light through some diffusing material, or by "bouncing" light off a second surface to diffuse the light...
, trigger and cord - Care and protection: including camera case and cover, maintenance tools, and screen protector
- Large format cameras use special equipment which includes magnifier loupe, view finder, angle finder, focusing rail /truck.
- Battery and charger
Plate camera
The earliest cameras produced in significant numbers used sensitised glass platePhotographic plate
Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a means of photography. A light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was applied to a glass plate. This form of photographic material largely faded from the consumer market in the early years of the 20th century, as more convenient and less fragile...
s and are now termed plate cameras. Light entered a lens mounted on a lens board which was separated from the plate by an extendible bellows. Many of these cameras, had controls to raise or lower the lens and to tilt it forwards or backwards to control perspective. Focussing of these plate cameras was by the use of a ground glass
Ground glass
Ground glass is glass whose surface has been ground to produce a flat but rough finish.Ground glass surfaces have many applications, ranging from mere ornamentation on windows and table glassware to scientific uses in optics and laboratory glassware....
screen at the point of focus. Because lens design
Photographic lens design
The design of photographic lenses for use in still or cine cameras is intended to produce a lens that yields the most acceptable rendition of the subject being photographed within a range of constraints that include cost, weight and materials...
only allowed rather small aperture lenses, the image on the ground glass screen was faint and most photographers had a dark cloth to cover their heads to allow focussing and composition to be carried out more easily. When focus and composition were satisfactory, the ground glass screen was removed and a sensitised plate put in its place protected by a dark slide
Dark slide (photography)
In photography, a dark slide is a wooden or metal plate that covers the sensitized emulsion side of a photographic plate. In use, a pair of plates joined back to back were used with both plates covered with a dark slide...
. To make the exposure, the dark slide was carefully slid out and the shutter opened and then closed and the dark slide replaced. In current designs the plate camera is best represented by the view camera
View camera
The view camera is a type of camera first developed in the era of the Daguerreotype and still in use today, though with many refinements. It comprises a flexible bellows which forms a light-tight seal between two adjustable standards, one of which holds a lens, and the other a viewfinder or a...
.
Large format camera
The large format camera is a direct successor of the early plate cameras and remain in use for high quality photography and for technical, architectural and industrial photography. There are three common types, the monorail cameraMonorail camera
Monorail cameras are the studio workhorses that are still used today in the digital photography age to make many of the images for catalogs, magazines, and advertising around the world....
, the field camera
Field camera
A field camera is a view camera that can be folded in a compact size. Modern designs are little different from the first folding field cameras from the 19th century. In general they have more limited camera movements than the monorail cameras used in many professional studios worldwide.Modern field...
and the press camera
Press camera
A press camera is a medium or large format camera suitable for use by press photographers.Press cameras were widely used from the 1900s through the early 1960s and commonly had the following features:* collapsibility into strong, compact boxes...
. All use large format sheets of film, although there are backs for medium format 120-film available for most systems, and have an extensible bellows with the lens and shutter mounted on a lens plate at the front. These cameras have a wide range of movements allowing very close control of focus and perspective.
Medium format camera
Medium-format cameras have a film size somewhere in between the large format cameras and the smaller 35mm cameras. Typically these systems use 120- or 220-film. The most common sizes being 6x4.5 cm, 6x6 cm and 6x7 cm. The designs of this kind of camera show greater variation than their larger brethren, ranging from monorail systems through the classic HasselbladHasselblad
Victor Hasselblad AB is a Swedish manufacturer of medium-format cameras and photographic equipment based in Gothenburg, Sweden.The company is best known for the medium-format cameras it has produced since World War II....
model with separate backs, to smaller rangefinder
Rangefinder
A rangefinder is a device that measures distance from the observer to a target, for the purposes of surveying, determining focus in photography, or accurately aiming a weapon. Some devices use active methods to measure ; others measure distance using trigonometry...
cameras. There are even compact amateur cameras available in this format.
Folding camera
The introduction of films enabled the existing designs for plate cameras to be made much smaller and for the base-plate to be hinged so that it could be folded up compressing the bellows. These designs were very compact and small models were dubbed Vest pocket cameras.Box camera
Box cameras were introduced as a budget level camera and had few if any controls. The original box Brownie models had a small reflex viewfinder mounted on the top of the camera and had no aperture or focusing controls and just a simple shutter. Later models such as the Brownie 127Brownie (camera)
Brownie is the name of a long-running and extremely popular series of simple and inexpensive cameras made by Eastman Kodak. The Brownie popularized low-cost photography and introduced the concept of the snapshot. The first Brownie, introduced in February, 1900, was a very basic cardboard box camera...
had larger direct view optical viewfinders together with a curved film path to reduce the impact of deficiencies in the lens.
Rangefinder camera
As camera and lens technology developed and wide aperture lenses became more common, range-finder cameras were introduced to make focussing more precise. The range finder has two separated viewfinder windows, one of which is linked to the focusing mechanisms and moved right or left as the focusing ring is turned. The two separate images are brought together on a ground glass viewing screen. When vertical lines in the object being photographed meet exactly in the combined image, the object is in focus. A normal composition viewfinder is also provided.Single-lens reflex
Parallax
Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. The term is derived from the Greek παράλλαξις , meaning "alteration"...
which occurs when the viewfinder or viewing lens is separated from the taking lens. Single-lens reflex cameras have been made in several formats including 220/120 taking 8, 12 or 16 photographs on a 120 roll and twice that number of a 220 film. These correspond to 6x9, 6x6 and 6x4.5 respectively (all dimensions in cm). Notable manufacturers of large format SLR include Hasselblad
Hasselblad
Victor Hasselblad AB is a Swedish manufacturer of medium-format cameras and photographic equipment based in Gothenburg, Sweden.The company is best known for the medium-format cameras it has produced since World War II....
, Mamiya
Mamiya
is a Japanese company that today manufactures high-end cameras and other related photographic and optical equipment. With headquarters in Tokyo, it has two manufacturing plants and a workforce of over 200 people...
, Bronica
Bronica
was a Japanese brand of professional medium format roll-film cameras, including rangefinder and single-lens reflex models.Bronica cameras first appeared in 1958, when the company's founder, Zenzaburo Yoshino, introduced a camera of his own design, the Bronica Z rollfilm camera, at the Philadelphia...
and Pentax
Pentax
Pentax is a brand name used by Hoya Corporation for its medical-related products & services and Pentax Ricoh Imaging Company for cameras, sport optics , etc. Hoya purchased and merged with the Japanese optics company on March 31, 2008. Hoya's Pentax imaging business was sold to Ricoh Company, Ltd...
. However the most common format of SLRs has been 35 mm and subsequently the migration to digital SLRs, using almost identical sized bodies and sometimes using the same lens systems.
Almost all SLR used a front surfaced mirror in the optical path to direct the light from the lens via a viewing screen and pentaprism
Pentaprism
A pentaprism is a five-sided reflecting prism used to deviate a beam of light by 90°. The beam reflects inside the prism twice, allowing the transmission of an image through a right angle without inverting it as an ordinary right-angle prism or mirror would.The reflections inside the prism are not...
to the eyepiece. At the time of exposure the mirror flipped up out of the light path before the shutter opened. Some early cameras experimented other methods of providing through the lens viewing including the use of a semi transparent pellicle
Pellicle mirror
right|thumb|The pellicle mirror of the [[Canon EOS RT]]A pellicle mirror is an ultra-thin, ultra-lightweight semi-transparent mirror employed in the light path of an optical instrument, splitting the light beam into two separate beams, both of reduced light intensity...
as in the Canon Pellix and others with a small periscope such as in the Corfield
K. G. Corfield Ltd
K. G. Corfield Ltd was an innovative camera and lens manufacturing company based in Wolverhampton. The company produced high quality cameras and lenses basing many design features on the Leica range of 35mm cameras. One unique design was employed in the Periflex series of cameras which utilised a...
Periflex series.
Twin-lens reflex
Twin-lens reflex cameras used a pair of nearly identical lenses, one to form the image and one as a viewfinder. The lenses were arranged with the viewing lens immediately above the taking lens. The viewing lens projects an image onto a viewing screen which can be seen from above. Some manufacturers such as MamiyaMamiya
is a Japanese company that today manufactures high-end cameras and other related photographic and optical equipment. With headquarters in Tokyo, it has two manufacturing plants and a workforce of over 200 people...
also provided a reflex head to attach to the viewing screen to allow the camera to be held to the eye when in use. The advantage of a TLR was that it could be easily focussed using the viewing screen and that under most circumstances the view seen in the viewing screen was identical to that recorded on film. At close distances however, parallax errors were encountered and some cameras also included an indicator to show what part of the composition would be excluded.
Some TLR had interchangeable lenses but as these had to be paired lenses they were relatively heavy and did not provide the range of focal lengths that the SLR could support. Although most TLRs used 120 or 220 film some used 127 film.
Ciné camera
A ciné camera or movie camera takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film. In contrast to a still camera, which captures a single snapshot at a time, the ciné camera takes a series of images, each called a "frame" through the use of an intermittent mechanism. The frames are later played back in a ciné projector at a specific speed, called the "frame rateFrame rate
Frame rate is the frequency at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images called frames. The term applies equally well to computer graphics, video cameras, film cameras, and motion capture systems...
" (number of frames per second). While viewing, a person's eyes and brain merge the separate pictures
Persistence of vision
Persistence of vision is the phenomenon of the eye by which an afterimage is thought to persist for approximately one twenty-fifth of a second on the retina....
to create the illusion of motion. The first ciné camera was built around 1888 and by 1890 several types were being manufactured. The standard film size for ciné cameras was quickly established as 35mm film and this remains in use to this day. Other professional standard formats include 70 mm film
70 mm film
70mm film is a wide high-resolution film gauge, with higher resolution than standard 35mm motion picture film format. As used in camera, the film is wide. For projection, the original 65mm film is printed on film. The additional 5mm are for magnetic strips holding four of the six tracks of sound...
and 16mm film whilst amateurs film makers used 9.5 mm film
9.5 mm film
9.5 mm film is an amateur film format introduced by Pathé Frères in 1922 as part of the Pathé Baby amateur film system. It was conceived initially as an inexpensive format to provide copies of commercially-made films to home users, although a simple camera was released shortly afterwards.It...
, 8mm film or Standard 8 and Super 8
Super 8 mm film
Super 8 mm film is a motion picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement of the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format....
before the move into digital format.
The size and complexity of ciné cameras varies greatly depending on the uses required of the camera. Some professional equipment is very large and too heavy to be hand held whilst some amateur cameras were designed to be very small and light for single-handed operation. In the last quarter of the 20th century camcorder
Camcorder
A camcorder is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage...
s supplanted film motion cameras for amateurs. Professional video camera
Professional video camera
A professional video camera is a high-end device for creating electronic moving images...
s did the same for professional users around the turn of the century.
Types
- Camera phoneCamera phoneA camera phone is a mobile phone which is able to capture still photographs . Since early in the 21st century the majority of mobile phones in use are camera phones....
- Digital cameraDigital cameraA digital camera is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor. It is the main device used in the field of digital photography...
- Game camera
- IP cameraIP cameraAn Internet protocol camera, or IP camera, is a type of digital video camera commonly employed for surveillance, and which unlike analog closed circuit television cameras can send and receive data via a computer network and the Internet...
- Movie cameraMovie cameraThe movie camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film which was very popular for private use in the last century until its successor, the video camera, replaced it...
- Pinhole cameraPinhole cameraA pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens and with a single small aperture – effectively a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through this single point and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box...
- Pocket cameraInstamaticThe Instamatic was a series of inexpensive, easy-to-load 126 and 110 cameras made by Kodak beginning in 1963. The Instamatic was immensely successful, introducing a generation to low-cost photography and spawning numerous imitators....
- Rangefinder cameraRangefinder cameraA rangefinder camera is a camera fitted with a rangefinder: a range-finding focusing mechanism allowing the photographer to measure the subject distance and take photographs that are in sharp focus...
- Single-lens reflex cameraSingle-lens reflex cameraA single-lens reflex camera is a camera that typically uses a semi-automatic moving mirror system that permits the photographer to see exactly what will be captured by the film or digital imaging system, as opposed to pre-SLR cameras where the view through the viewfinder could be significantly...
- Toy cameraToy cameraToy cameras are simple, inexpensive film box cameras made almost entirely out of plastic, often including the lens. The term is misleading, since they are not merely 'toys' but are in fact capable of taking photographs. Many were made to be given away as novelties or prizes...
- Traffic cameraTraffic cameraA traffic camera is a video camera which observes vehicular traffic on a road. Typically, these are put along major roads such as highways, freeways, motorways, autoroutes and expressways, as well as arterial roads, and are connected with optical fibers buried alongside or even under the road,...
- Trail camera
- Twin-lens reflex cameraTwin-lens reflex cameraA twin-lens reflex camera is a type of camera with two objective lenses of the same focal length. One of the lenses is the photographic objective or "taking lens" , while the other is used for the viewfinder system, which is usually viewed from above at waist level...
- Waterproof digital cameraWaterproof digital cameraWaterproof digital cameras are digital cameras that can make pictures underwater. Waterproof housings have long been made but they cost almost as the cameras...
- Video cameraVideo cameraA video camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition, initially developed by the television industry but now common in other applications as well. The earliest video cameras were those of John Logie Baird, based on the electromechanical Nipkow disk and used by the BBC in...
- View cameraView cameraThe view camera is a type of camera first developed in the era of the Daguerreotype and still in use today, though with many refinements. It comprises a flexible bellows which forms a light-tight seal between two adjustable standards, one of which holds a lens, and the other a viewfinder or a...
Brands
- AgfaPhotoAgfaPhotoAgfaPhoto GmbH is a European photographic company, formed in 2004 when Agfa-Gevaert sold their Consumer Imaging division. Agfa had for many years been well known as a producer of consumer-oriented photographic products including films, photographic papers and cameras...
- AigoAigoaigo is the trade name of Chinese consumer electronics company Beijing Huaqi Information Digital Technology Co Ltd. aigo should not be capitalized, much like "iPod".-History:...
- Aiptek
- AlpaAlpaAlpa was formerly a Swiss camera design company and manufacturer of 35 mm SLR cameras. The current owners bought the company name after bankruptcy of the original company and the company exists today as a designer and manufacturer of high-end medium-format cameras.-History:Alpa was an offshoot of...
- ArgusArgus (camera company)Argus is an American maker of cameras and photographic products, founded in 1936 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Argus originated as a subsidiary of the International Radio Corporation , founded by Charles Verschoor. Its best-known product was the C3 rangefinder camera, which enjoyed a 27-year production...
- AsahiflexAsahiflexThe Asahiflex was a 35mm single-lens reflex camera built by the Asahi Optical Corporation . It was the first SLR camera built in Japan....
- BenQBenQBenQ Corporation is a Taiwanese multi-national company that sells and markets consumer electronics, computing and communications devices under the "BenQ" brand name, which stands for the company slogan Bringing Enjoyment and Quality to life .- Company :BenQ sells and markets technology products,...
- BolexBolexBolex is a Swiss company that manufactures motion picture cameras and lenses, the most notable products of which are in the 16 mm and Super 16 mm formats. The Bolex company was initially founded by Jacques Bogopolsky in 1927. Bolex is derived from his name. He had previously designed cameras for...
- BraunCarl Braun camera-werkCarl Braun Camera-Werk of Nuremberg, Germany, or Braun, as it was more commonly called, was originally founded as an optical production house. It is best known for its 35mm film cameras, the Paxettes, and for slide projectors.-History:...
- BronicaBronicawas a Japanese brand of professional medium format roll-film cameras, including rangefinder and single-lens reflex models.Bronica cameras first appeared in 1958, when the company's founder, Zenzaburo Yoshino, introduced a camera of his own design, the Bronica Z rollfilm camera, at the Philadelphia...
- Canon
- CasioCasiois a multinational electronic devices manufacturing company founded in 1946, with its headquarters in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Casio is best known for its electronic products, such as calculators, audio equipment, PDAs, cameras, musical instruments, and watches...
- ContaxContaxContax was a camera brand noted for its unique technical innovation and a wide range of Zeiss lenses, noted for their high optical quality. Its final incarnation was a line of 35 mm, medium format and digital cameras engineered and manufactured by Kyocera, and featuring modern Zeiss optics...
- CorfieldK. G. Corfield LtdK. G. Corfield Ltd was an innovative camera and lens manufacturing company based in Wolverhampton. The company produced high quality cameras and lenses basing many design features on the Leica range of 35mm cameras. One unique design was employed in the Periflex series of cameras which utilised a...
- CoronetCoronet Camera CompanyThe Coronet Camera Company was a British company most noted for its box cameras manufactured in the 1950s.-Products:Notable products include:* The Coronet Ambassador - a box camera taking 6x9cm format pictures on 120 film...
- DianaDiana cameraThe Diana camera is a plastic-bodied box camera utilizing 120 rollfilm. Most versions take 16 photographs per roll in a non-standard format of 4.2cm square using a simple plastic meniscus lens, although some are capable of 12 6 x 6cm exposures...
- Ducati SognoDucati SognoThe Ducati Sogno was a half-frame 35 mm rangefinder camera produced by Ducati Meccanica in the 1950s.Although the Ducati has been compared to the Leica, it was a mechanically different camera. For one, the Ducati was a so-called half-frame format camera, while the Leica was full frame. As...
- EbonyEbony camerasThe Ebony camera company was founded by Japanese photographer Hiromi Sakanashi in 1981. The Sakanashi family has been in the photographic business since 1871, when Hiromi Sakanashi's great grandfather founded one of Japan's first photographic equipment stores in the town of Kumamoto,...
- EdixaEdixaEdixa is a brand of camera manufacturer Wirgin Kamerawerk which was based in Wiesbaden, West Germany. The product line included several 35mm cameras and 16mm Edixa 16 subminiature cameras designed by Heinz Waaske from the 1950s to the 1970s....
- ExaktaExaktaThe Exakta is a pioneer brand camera produced by the Ihagee Kamerawerk in Dresden, Germany, founded as the Industrie und Handels-Gesellschaft mbH, in 1912.- Characteristics :Highlights of Exakta cameras include:...
- FEDFED (camera)The FED is a Soviet rangefinder camera, mass produced from 1934 until around 1990, and also the name of the factory that made it.FED is indirectly named after Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka...
- FujicaFujicaFujica is the name given by Fujifilm of Japan to its line of still-photography and motion picture cameras.Here is a list of all the Fujica branded still photo cameras that were produced and their date of introduction...
- FujifilmFujifilmis a multinational photography and imaging company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.Fujifilm's principal activities are the development, production, sale and servicing of color photographic film, digital cameras, photofinishing equipment, color paper, photofinishing chemicals, medical imaging...
- GamiGämiGämi is a village and suburb on the southeastern outskirts of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, approximately 5 kilometres from the city centre. It is located in Annau District in Ahal Province and lies on the M37 highway which connects Ashgabat to Annau....
- GatewayGateway, Inc.Gateway Computer Corporation, is a computer hardware company headquartered in Irvine, California, USA which develops, manufactures, supports, and markets a wide range of personal computers, computer monitors, servers, and computer accessories...
- GraflexGraflexGraflex was a manufacturer, a brand name and several models of cameras. William F. Folmer, an inventor, built the first Graflex camera in 1898, when his company was called The Folmer and Schwing Manufacturing Company, founded originally in New York as a gas lamp company...
- HasselbladHasselbladVictor Hasselblad AB is a Swedish manufacturer of medium-format cameras and photographic equipment based in Gothenburg, Sweden.The company is best known for the medium-format cameras it has produced since World War II....
- Hewlett-PackardHewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
- HolgaHolgaThe Holga is a medium format 120 film toy camera, made in China, known for its low-fidelity aesthetic.The Holga's low-cost construction and simple meniscus lens often yields pictures that display vignetting, blur, light leaks, and other distortions...
- HoneywellHoneywellHoneywell International, Inc. is a major conglomerate company that produces a variety of consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems for a wide variety of customers, from private consumers to major corporations and governments....
- Ilford PhotoIlford PhotoIlford Photo is a manufacturer of photographic materials known worldwide for its black-and-white film and papers and chemicals, as well as its range of Ilfochrome and Ilfocolor colour printing materials. Ilfochrome was formerly called Cibachrome, developed in partnership with the Swiss company...
- KodakEastman KodakEastman Kodak Company is a multinational imaging and photographic equipment, materials and services company headquarted in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded by George Eastman in 1892....
- Konica MinoltaKonica Minoltais a Japanese manufacturer of office equipment, medical imaging, graphic imaging, optical devices, and measuring instruments. It is headquartered in the Marunouchi Center Building in Marunouchi, Chiyoda, Tokyo, with a Kansai office in Nishi-ku, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture...
- Leica Camera
- LeidolfLeidolfLeidolf was a manufacturer of optical equipment situated in Wetzlar, Germany. It was founded by Rudolf Leidolf in 1921, initially producing lenses for microscopes. In 1948 camera production was started and in 1962 the factory ceased operations...
- LinhofLinhofLinhof is a German company, founded in Munich in 1887 by Valentin Linhof. The company is well known for making premium rollfilm and large format film cameras...
- LOMOLOMOLOMO or Leningrad Optical Mechanical Amalgamation is a manufacturer of advanced optical instruments, medical equipment, consumer still and movie cameras, projectors, lenses, film editors, splicers, professional sound recorders for motion-picture production based in St. Petersburg, Russia...
- LumixLumixLumix is Panasonic's brand of digital cameras, ranging from pocket point-and-shoot models to digital SLRs.Compact digital camera DMC-LC5 and DMC-F7 were the first products of the Lumix series released in 2001. They are equipped with Leica lenses....
- MamiyaMamiyais a Japanese company that today manufactures high-end cameras and other related photographic and optical equipment. With headquarters in Tokyo, it has two manufacturing plants and a workforce of over 200 people...
- Micro Precision ProductsMicro Precision ProductsMicro Precision Products Ltd was a British optical company that between 1941 and 1982 produced cameras and related equipment....
- MinoltaMinoltaMinolta Co., Ltd. was a Japanese worldwide manufacturer of cameras, camera accessories, photocopiers, fax machines, and laser printers. Minolta was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1928 as . It is perhaps best known for making the first integrated autofocus 35mm SLR camera system...
- MinoxMinoxThe Minox is a subminiature camera conceived in 1922 and invented in 1936 by German-Latvian Walter Zapp, which Latvian factory VEF manufactured from 1937 to 1943. After World War II, the camera was redesigned and production resumed in Germany in 1948. Originally envisioned as a luxury item, it...
- MirandaMiranda Camera CompanyThe Miranda Camera Company, originally named the Orion Camera Company, manufactured cameras in Japan between 1955 and 1978. Their first camera was the Miranda T. Many of their products were single-lens reflex cameras for 135 film...
- MustekMustek SystemsMustek Systems is a company based in Hsinchu, Taiwan, established in October 1988. Its brand is Mustek ....
- Newman & GuardiaNewman & GuardiaNewman & Guardia were a British manufacturer of cameras and other fine instruments including early aircraft instruments.The company was in existence between 1893 and 1956 and may have continued beyond that date....
- NikonNikon, also known as just Nikon, is a multinational corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, specializing in optics and imaging. Its products include cameras, binoculars, microscopes, measurement instruments, and the steppers used in the photolithography steps of semiconductor fabrication, of which...
- OlympusOlympus Corporationis a Japan-based manufacturer of optics and reprography products. Olympus was established on 12 October 1919, initially specializing in microscope and thermometer businesses. Its global headquarters are in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, while its USA operations are based in Center Valley, Pennsylvania,...
- Oregon ScientificOregon ScientificOregon Scientific, Inc. is a manufacturer of electronic products including radio-referenced clocks, home weather stations, public alert monitors, youth learning aids, and fitness devices. The firm was started in 1989 in Portland, Oregon, United States...
- PanasonicPanasonicPanasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Panasonic Corporation, which was formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd...
- PentaxPentaxPentax is a brand name used by Hoya Corporation for its medical-related products & services and Pentax Ricoh Imaging Company for cameras, sport optics , etc. Hoya purchased and merged with the Japanese optics company on March 31, 2008. Hoya's Pentax imaging business was sold to Ricoh Company, Ltd...
- PetriPetri CameraThe Camera Company was an optical company and manufacturer of cameras in Japan. It was founded in 1907. Prior to World War II, it was known as Kuribayashi Shashin Kōgyō or Kuribayashi Camera Industry, inc. Japan...
- Phase One
- PlaubelPlaubel MakinaThe Plaubel Makina was a series of medium format press cameras. The original Makina was manufactured by Plaubel & Co. in Germany from 1912 through 1953...
- PolaroidPolaroid CorporationPolaroid Corporation is an American-based international consumer electronics and eyewear company, originally founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land. It is most famous for its instant film cameras, which reached the market in 1948, and continued to be the company's flagship product line until the February...
- PrakticaPrakticaPraktica is a brand of camera manufactured by Pentacon in Dresden in eastern Germany, formerly within the GDR prior to reunification. Pentacon is the modern-day successor to Dresden camera firms such as Zeiss Ikon, and for many years Dresden was the world's largest producer of cameras...
- Reid and SigristReid and SigristReid and Sigrist was a British engineering company based at Desford, Leicestershire, England. They were an instrument manufacturer in the interwar era, specialising in aircraft applications mainly producing aircraft parts and instruments but later became a Camera manufacturer...
- RicohRicohor Ricoh, is a Japanese company that was established in 1936 on February 6th, as , a company in the RIKEN zaibatsu. Its headquarters is located in Ricoh Building in Chūō, Tokyo....
- RolleiRolleiRollei is a German manufacturer of optical goods founded in 1920 by Paul Franke and Reinhold Heidecke in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, and maker of the Rolleiflex and Rolleicord series of cameras...
- SamsungSamsung GroupThe Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...
- SeagullSeagull CameraShanghai Seagull Camera Ltd is a Chinese camera maker located in Shanghai, China. Seagull is the oldest camera maker in China. The product line of Seagull includes TLR cameras, SLR cameras, folding cameras, CCD and SLR camera lenses, large-format cameras, film, night vision scopes, and angle...
- SharpSharp Corporationis a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products. Headquartered in Abeno-ku, Osaka, Japan, Sharp employs more than 55,580 people worldwide as of June 2011. The company was founded in September 1912 and takes its name from one of its founder's first...
- SigmaSigma Corporationis a Japanese company founded in 1961, manufacturing cameras, lenses, flashes and other photographic accessories. All Sigma products are produced in the company's own Aizu factory in Bandai, Fukushima, Japan...
- SilvestriSilvestri cameraSilvestri is an Italian manufacturer of professional photographic cameras and large format cameras.-The history - SLV and T30:The production of the Silvestri cameras started in Florence, Italy, at the beginning of the eighties by the work of Vincenzo Silvestri who designed and developed the...
- SinarSinarSinar AG is a Swiss company producing medium format and large format cameras.The name SINAR is explained as an acronym for "Studio, Industrie, Natur, Architektur, Reproduktion", though in , the acronym is explained as "Sach-, Industrie-, Natur-, undArchitekturfotografie sowie Reproduktion"...
- SonySony, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
- TessinaTessinaThe Tessina is a high-quality 35 mm camera patented by Austrian chemical engineer Dr. Rudolph Steineck in Lugano Switzerland, manufactured by Siegrist in Grenchen Switzerland. It was introduced in 1957 and distributed by Steineck's company Concava S.A and remained in production up to 1996...
- Thornton-PickardThornton-PickardThornton-Pickard was a famous British camera manufacturer established in 1888. The company was based in Altrincham, near Manchester and was an early pioneer in the development of the camera industry.-Brief history of the company:...
- TopconTopconTopcon is a Japanese manufacturer of optical equipment for ophthalmology and surveying. Their headquarters are in Itabashi, Tokyo. They are affiliated with Toshiba, which holds 40% of Topcon's stock.-History of Topcon:...
- VivitarVivitarVivitar Corporation was a manufacturer, distributor and marketer of photographic and optical equipment originally based in Oxnard, California. Since 2008 the Vivitar name serves as Sakar International's photographic and optical equipment brand.-Products:...
- VoigtländerVoigtländerVoigtländer is an optical company founded by Johann Christoph Voigtländer in Vienna in 1756 and is thus the oldest name in cameras. It produced the Petzval photographic lens in 1840, and the world's first all-metal daguerrotype camera in 1841, also bringing out plate cameras shortly afterwards...
- Wray (lenses)Wray (lenses)Wray Ltd. was a British camera and lens manufacturer based in Ashgrove Road Bromley, Kent.The company had a reputation for producing excellent quality lenses and durable quality cameras including models such as the Wrayflex. Many Wray lenses remain in use, especially in photographic enlargers.Wray...
- YashicaYashicaYashica was a Japanese manufacturer of cameras.-History:The company began in December, 1949 in Nagano, Japan, when the Yashima Seiki Company was founded with an initial investment of $566. Its eight employees originally manufactured components for electric clocks...
- Zeiss
- ZenitZenit (camera)Zenit is a Russian camera brand manufactured by KMZ in the town of Krasnogorsk near Moscow since 1952 and by BelOMO in Belarus since the 1970s. The Zenit trademark is associated with 35mm SLR cameras...
- ZorkiZorkiZorki is the name of a series of 35mm rangefinder cameras manufactured in the Soviet Union between 1948 and 1978.The Zorki was a product of the Krasnogorsk Mechanical Factory , which also produced the Zenit single lens reflex camera...
Other
- Flash (photography)Flash (photography)A flash is a device used in photography producing a flash of artificial light at a color temperature of about 5500 K to help illuminate a scene. A major purpose of a flash is to illuminate a dark scene. Other uses are capturing quickly moving objects or changing the quality of light...
- Photographic filterPhotographic filterIn photography and videography, a filter is a camera accessory consisting of an optical filter that can be inserted in the optical path. The filter can be a square or oblong shape mounted in a holder accessory, or, more commonly, a glass or plastic disk with a metal or plastic ring frame, which...
- Tripod (photography)Tripod (photography)In photography, a tripod is used to stabilize and elevate a camera, or to support flashes or other photographic equipment. All photographic tripods have three legs and a mounting head to couple with a camera...
- ViewfinderViewfinderIn photography, a viewfinder is what the photographer looks through to compose, and in many cases to focus, the picture. Most viewfinders are separate, and suffer parallax, while the single-lens reflex camera lets the viewfinder use the main optical system. Viewfinders are used in many cameras of...
- Cameras in mobile phones