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The two Frenchmen Nicéphore Niepce and Louis Daguerre are considered the discoverers of photography. They developed the first techniques and chemical processes that made it possible to capture images. This was followed by decades of continuous technical development.
With the introduction of the first Kodak camera in 1889, development reached a level that essentially persists to this day. Only after electronics and digitalization did new photographic possibilities arise.
The first photos of Niepce
The Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niepce (1765-1833) is considered the first to record images on light-sensitive film. He used a camera obscura, a device long known for projecting images of the outside world onto surfaces. He managed to capture these images on chlorine silver paper. However, they weren'tfade resistant and fade after a short time.
It was not until 1826 that Niepce succeeded in taking the first permanent photograph: It shows the view from the window of his study. However, with exposure times of up to eight hours it was impossible to photograph people or moving objects.
Louis Jaques Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851), a successful theater painter, heard of Niepce's work and was so fascinated that he became his partner. The two feverishly tried to find a way to shorten exposure times.
Shorter exposure time and multiple prints
After years of experimentation, Daguerre discovered that even a brief exposure of an iodine silver plate produced a latent (invisible) image, which could be fixed by evaporating it with mercury. Louis Daguerre exposed a photographic plate, but then aborted the process because the weather did not cooperate. He stored the plate in his chemical cupboard. When he took it out again later, he was surprised to find that it had a picture on it. Something in his cabinet must have shortened the exposure time of the plate.
He took out all the chemicals one by oneand placed a fresh photo plate in it again and again to find out which of the chemicals had caused this effect. In the end, only a few drops of accidentally spilled mercury remained.
That, Daguerre realized, was the solution to the mystery. Photographic plates treated with mercury vapors require shorter exposure times than untreated ones. After numerous attempts, he succeeded in reducing exposure times to four minutes in summer and 15 minutes in winter.
In 1839 Daguerre and Isidore Niepce, the son of the now deceased pioneer, entered into a contract with the French government, which thus obtained the right toto present the so-called daguerreotype to the public. The government considered the discovery so important that it expected it would increase its popularity. However, photographs taken with the daguerreotype were unique.
William Henry Fox Talbot put an end to this problem with the so-called calotype, a paper negative-positive process. Although the quality and brilliance could not be compared to that of the daguerreotype, it was possible to make multiple prints from one photo.
The process
Talbot's process had low resolution and was coarse-grained. The grain of the paper was also always clearly visible. Frederick Scott Archer overcame this problem in 1851 with his wet collodion process. The name comes from the cotton (collodion) dissolved in ether that was used in the process. This was used to apply the light-sensitive material (silver halide) to glass plates.
The resolution was much better, but the effort was still enormous. Collodion is a colorless, sticky mass that hardens quickly in air. Exposure and development therefore had to take place before the material had dried. The next breakthrough came in 1871 with RichardLeach Maddox. Using a layer of bromosilver gelatin, he succeeded in developing a dry plate that was in no way inferior to wet plates in terms of sensitivity.
The roll film
The plates used in the early years of photography as a support for the light-sensitive layer made handling much more difficult. Not only was the weight a nuisance: a new plate had to be inserted into the camera for each photo.
George Eastman and a partner therefore developed roll film in 1889. Now it was possible to take several photos in succession. It was Eastman who came up with the idea tofreeing photographers from the tedious and time-consuming process of developing and printing.
For his first self-developed camera models, he offered this work as a service. Those who had used up all their roll film could send the entire machine to Kodak and shortly later receive the prints and a camera loaded with fresh film. This is one of the main reasons why photography became increasingly popular from the turn of the century.
35mm cameras and colour films
The improved light sensitivity of films made it possible to create 35mm and miniature cameras in the early decades of the 20th century. As early as 1905, Oskar Barnack came up with the idea of reducing the negative size and then enlarging the photos. As head of development at Leica, he designed the world's first 35mm camera ten years later.
However, the First World War slowed down further development. It was not until the 1920s that Barnack completed the first Leica camera, which was officially presented in 1925. This was a viewfinder camera with a lens of 50 millimeters focal length, a standard that was later copied hundreds of times.
In addition to the viewfinder camera, the SLR camera was able to gain a place from the 1950s onwards. The principle: the incident light is mirrored in the viewfinder. This way the photographer can see exactly what the photo will show later. The deflecting mirror that projects the image into the viewfinder folds to the side when the shutter is released, allowing the light beam to illuminate the film. In 1936, the Agfa company was the first to succeed in developing colour film. Now everyone could take almost lifelike photos of their surroundings.
The digital revolution
With the use of more and more electronics, cameras became ubiquitousmore and more convenient over time. In 1963, Canon introduced the first camera with automatic focusing. This was followed about ten years later by a fully electronic camera from Rollei that could automatically set aperture, shutter speed and focus.
Towards the end of the 20th century, the entire photographic technique was once again revolutionized by digitalization. It was now possible to store photos on digital data carriers instead of on film material. This is cheap and simplifies editing the image. It can be viewed immediately and, if necessary, deleted immediately.
Image editing software facilitates subsequent editing and thus makes it possible to correct errors in the photo. Nowadays anyone can touch up or manipulate their photos using suitable software. In addition, the Internet simplifies the global exchange of images, which are now available as files.
Today it is even possible to have your Paint by Numbers own photo to print on a Paint by Numbers canvas.
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