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=__Photography__=

Since the times of [|ancient China] and [|Greece], people have used [|Camera Obsuras]to create images on the walls of darkened rooms. These early cameras did not record any image, they only created a temperary projection, turning the darkened room into a kind of pinhole camera. In 1727, Professor J. Schulze mixed chalk, nitric acid, and silver in a flask, noticing some darkening on the side of flask exposed to sunlight, accidentally creating the first photo-sensitive compound. It would not be untill 1826, however, that this discovery would be put to use in the first photographs, by [|Joseph Nicéphore Niépce].

Contents:

 * Early developments
 * Development of chemical photography
 * Development of digital photgraphy
 * External links
 * Trick photography and special effect e-books

=__Early developments__= The chinese philosopher, [|Mozi] (470 BC to 390 BC) first described the properties of a [|pinhole camera]. [|Aristotle] (384 to 322 BC) also understood the principles behind its operation. He witnessed the light of a partially eclipsed sun projected onto the ground between the leaves of a [|plane tree], similar to the picture to the right.

The first recorded Camera Obscura was built by the Arab scientist [|Abu Ali Al-Hasan Ibn Al-Haitham] (965-1039 AD), known throughout Europe as Alhazen. He used it to attempt to observe the properties of light, such as [|speed] and [|refraction]. Also, Alhazen demonstrated that the image projected through the pinhole was reversed, by lining up several lanterns in front of his device.

=__Developments of Chemical Photography__=

In 1800, [|Thomas Wedgwood] created "sun pictures" by placing opaque objects on leather coated with [|silver nitrate]. The resulting images faded very rapidly if exposed to any light. The first permanent photograph was taken by inventor Nicéphore Niépce, using a Camera Obscura to burn an image of his countryside estate onto a plate of silver coated with [|bitumen]. Once exposed to to light, the bitumen hardened. The exess material was washed away forming a [|negative]. Coating the plate with ink and stamping it produced a positive print. The black and white picture required eight hours of exposure time and faded significantly, but the image is still disernable today.

In 1829, Niépce began collaborating with [|Louis Daguerre](1787-1851), a french artist and chemist, to improve his photographic process. Following Niépce's death in 1833, Louis Daguerre perfected his own process, called a [|daguerreotype], in 1839. First, a plate was evenly coated with [|silver halide] then exposed to light through the use of a [|focussing lens]. This formed an invisible, latent image. To develop the photo, or make it visible, the plate was held over a cup of gently heated mercury (about 75 °C). Next the photograph was dipped into a solution of [|hyposulphite of soda]in order to "fix" the image on the plate. The image produced was very delicate, requiring to be sealed in an air-tight glass case filled with an inert gas. The process was viewed as so important that the [|French government]immediately purchased his patent and made it available to the public, announcing it as, "Free to the World." Daguerre recieved 6,000 Francs for the rest of his life as payment by the government of France. Today's instant [|Polaroid] photos employ a similar technique.

By 1940, [|Fox Talbot]built upon the daguerreotype process in which paper sheets were used to create a negative image. This allowed the production of many copies, which the daguerreotype did not. In 1851, [|Frederick Archer]developed the [|collodion process]which used an emulsion of silver halide suspended in gelatin. This greately decreased exposure times and was so successful that it was still used until the 1960's. The first permanent color photograph was taken in 1861 by Scottish physicist [|James Clerk Maxwell] of a tartan ribbon (seen on left). However, full sensitivity to all colors was not reached untill the early 1900's.

Patented in 1903 by the [|Luminére brothers], the [|Autochrome Luminére]was the first viable form of color photography. The medium used was a glass plate coated with a random assortment of microscopic potato starch particles over a coat of [|lampblack], and a silver halide emulsion. The grains of starch were dyed orange, green, and purple and, once exposed to light, aligned with the silver halide to form a color image. The particals of starch created a hazy, impressionistic effect that oddly added to thier popularity, coinciding with the [|impressionist movement]in painting. The photographs did however require a projector or a "diascope" to view, making them difficult to exibit and nearly impossible to alter, much to the chagrin of the fans of the popular [|pictorialist movement].

In the early twentieth century, comercial cameras appeared on the market. Flexible rolled film, invented by [|George Eastman] in 1889 made commercial cameras possible. It used a flexible, unbreakable film base of [|cellulose nitrate]. The extremely popular [|Kodak "Brownie"] camera operated on the slogan, "You press the button, we do the rest". Available for the initial price of just $1, it was aimed at the american middle class and introduced the idea of a snapshot. While black and white photography has not changed mush since the 1920's, color film continued to improve rapidly in the twentieth century. Color cameras and film became widespread in the 1940's and 50's, developing further throughout the century.

=__Development of digital photography__= The first digital photgraph produced on a [|computer], taken in 1957 by Russell Kirsch of his infant daughter (seen right), was a paultry 40 pixels on one side. However, viable digital photography did not appear until 1969, when the [|CCD] was invented. The charge-coupled device, or CCD was invented by [|George Smith and Willard Boyle]. By 1973, they had made it capable of producing a 100 by 100 pixel image and in 1975, color images were possible. The first megapixel, or 1 milion pixels, camera was developed by Kodak scientists in 1986.

The first true, portable digital camera was developed in 1988 as the [|Fuji DS-1P], which included 16 MB of internal memory. The camera never made it to the United states and survives in obscurity. The first commercially available digital camera was the [|Dycam Model 1], released in 1990. It made use of a CCD image sensor, stored the photos in digital format, and connected to a computer for download. Cameras available a a price accessable to ameuture photographers were not introduced until the very late 90's and early 2000's. Since then, many developments have been made in the field. Today, cameras are available with megapixels numbering in the double digits, memories in the gigabite range, and new features such as [|auto-focussing] and [|face recognition].

=__External links__=


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