PHOTOGRAPHY

Running head: PHOTOGRAPHY

The History and the Physics of Photography and its Commercial and Practical Applications Doug Wills Jesse Dudley Taylor May Yuchen Hu Physics 1010 Salt Lake Community College

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Abstract

Throughout the course of this writing the goal is to explain the basics of photography and to further explain the theory and application of this revolutionary technology. By first breaking down the components of a camera the physics at play can be described more accurately. Rather than look at the overarching idea of photography, several important aspects will be utilized for the purposes of illustrating the physics behind the operation of snapping a photo. Following the demonstrative operation of photography it will be greatly important to show applications that have become the cornerstone of many aspects of human lives and technology.

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History Humans have forever wished for a way to capture their memories, photography brought this wish to life. The development of photography saw great minds make technological advancements throughout the 19 and 20th centuries, these advancements gave a further understanding of the physics of light and the chemical processes of recording it. Creative minds explored the artistic elements of taking a photo and the artistic aspects of different developmental techniques. These artists helped express, record, and promote the emotions of the world during their respected careers bringing awareness to all. Though this is a mere overview of how the photographic film process advanced, I hope to convey the importance of its mark on the world. Since at least the 5th century BC a form of light projection photography has been around. In a camera obscura light travels through a very small hole (the lens) in a thin surface into a completely dark room (the inside of the camera). Since light travels in a straight line when it is reflected off a bright object and passes through the hole it doesnt scatter instead it crosses and projects an upside down image of the outside world onto the walls of the dark room (Bellis, 2007). Mirrors can be used to flip the image. After The Chinese Philosopher Mo-Ti described the Camera Obscura in the 5th century BC it managed to find a place in other niches of history. Aristotle described it and so did Euclid. In the 10th century the Islamic scholar and scientist Alhazen fully described the principle of the camera obscura. Leonardo Da Vinci along with other renaissance men used it to assist them in their painting. Though its use was largely kept in secret for the fear of being called a cheat. Reinerus Gemma Frisius used it to safely view the solar eclipse. In the 16th century a convex lid

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and a mirror were added to help with resolution and to reflect the image so it was orientated right side up, this process helped lead to the now popular SLR camera type. Not until famous astronomer Johannes Kepler coined the phrase camera obscura did the process have a set name. The Camera Obscura eventually took two separate paths one became the portable camera obscura box which assisted artists in drawing and painting. And the other became camera obscura rooms which reflected scenery into a room. The turn of the 19th century is considered the first time someone tried to use a chemical process to record the image created with a camera obscura. Thomas Wedgewood used paper or white leather covered with silver nitrate as the surface the image was projected onto. Thomas succeeded in the fact that the objects shadows were successfully recorded. The oldest surviving permanent photograph was created by Joseph Niepce in 1826 or 1827 (Watson, 2009). The photograph was produced on a polished pewter plate. The material that made the plate light sensitive was a thin coating of bitumen which was dissolved in to white petroleum. After an extremely long exposure of 8 hours to days the image was recorded. Niepce continued his experiments with Louis Daguerre until he died in 1833. Daguerre began experimenting with photographing camera images onto a silver surfaced plate that had been fumed with iodine vapor. The Vapor reacted with the silver to form a coating of silver iodide. Exposure times were still very long. Then Daguerre started using mercury fumes on the plate and brought the exposure

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time down to a few minutes. This process became known as the Daguerreotype process.

Figure 1 (First Photograph) http://invetors.about.com/od/startinventions/a/stilphotography.htm

In 1840 William Henry Fox Talbot developed the calotype negative which could be used multiple times to copy a negative and gave the images a much softer look. This made the process popular for portraits. The negative to positive process was a ground breaking accomplishment in the world of photography. The first durable color photograph was created in 1861 using three black and white photographs that were taken through red green and blue filters then superimposed using a projector with the same filters. Thomas Sutton created the image for the physicist who proposed the method, James Maxwell. Two French inventors, Louis Ducos du Hauron and Charles Cros, working unknown to each other during the 1860s, famously unveiled their nearly identical ideas on the same day in 1869(Watson, 2009). Included were methods for viewing a set of three colorfiltered black-and-white photographs in color without having to project them, and for using them to make full-color prints on paper. Though color photography would not become available to the general public for 80 more years.

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During the 1870s camera development saw a significant with the mechanically rigged shutter mechanism, compared to the manual shutter mechanism this allowed shorter exposure time. In 1878 William Greene was issued patent no. 10131 for his chronophotographic camera. It was able to take up to ten photographs per second using perforated celluloid film. Though the unreliability of the camera caused it to fail to make an impression. W.K.L Dickson developed the kinetograph under the supervision of Thomas Edison. The Kinetograph was a camera that took instaneous photographs and recorded them in sequence to 35mm film Dickson then projected them using a device called The Kintoscope which required one to look into a box. This was the beginning of cinematography. Kinetoscope viewing parlors soon spread across Europe. Auguste and Louis Lumire invented the cinematograph, a portable camera, printer, and projector. In 1895 in Antoine Lumire began exhibitions of projected films for the public, beginning the medium of projection. Though this paper is not about cinematography these were very important advancements that led to many more projection techniques in the world of cinematography, and advancements in film. Photography blasted off in 1901 when George Eastman introduced the Kodak Brownie to the world with the slogan you push the button, we do the rest. In 1884 Eastman developed dry gel on paper which is now known as film this replaced the photographic plate and supremely refined the photographic process. The Kodak Brownie finally introduced the photography to the general public. As early as 1905, Oskar Barnack the development manager at Leitz had the idea of reducing the format of film negatives and then enlarging the photographs after they had been exposed. He took an instrument for taking exposure samples for cinema film and turned it into

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the 'Ur-Leica, the world's first 35 mm. The Leica one was finally released in 1925, this was the first commercially available 35mm. 35mm cameras today are very similar to the original Leica (Ellis, 2006). The first practical reflex camera came along in 1928 it was Franke and Heideckes Rolleiflex medium format TLR allowing superb resolution. SLR cameras blew up after WW2. The World saw its first viewfinder in 1947. The first widely used method of color photography was the Auto chrome plate, commercially introduced in 1907. The process was very expensive and the reversal process was not fast enough for hand held cameras or snapshot photography. Kodiak introduced kodachrome film in 1935 for 16mm home movies and 35mm slides in 1936. The film captured the red green and blue color components in three layers emulsion. A complex process produced the complementary colors, resulting in a subtractive color image. The first modern photoflash bulb or flashbulb was invented by Austrian, Paul Vierkotter. Vierkotter used aluminum foil in oxygen to create it. German, Johannes Ostermeier patented the flashbulb in 1930 and began mass producing it. The first camera to feature automatic exposure was the Super Kodak Six-20 pack of 1938. The Super Kodak Six-20 pack was too expensive to make a significant mark on the world. The 35mm Leica left a firm mark on photography, not to many major films photographic processes have changed since then. Innovation in the quality of camera components has been the driving force of advancement in photography since then. Here are some more advancements in the area of film photography: 1948 Edwin H. Land introduces the first Polaroid instant camera.

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1952 Bwana Devil, a low-budget polarized 3-D film, premieres in late November and starts a brief 3-D craze that begins in earnest in 1953 and fades away during 1954. 1957 First Asahi Pentax SLR introduced. 1957 First digital computer acquisition of a scanned photograph, by Russell Kirsch at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards (now the NIST).[5] 1959 Nikon F introduced. 1959 AGFA introduces the first fully automatic camera, the Optima. 1963 Kodak introduces the Instamatic. 1964 First Pentax Spotmatic SLR introduced. 1973 Fairchild Semiconductor releases the first large image forming CCD chip: 100 rows and 100 columns of pixels. 1975 Bryce Bayer of Kodak develops the Bayer filter mosaic pattern for CCD color image sensors. 1986 Kodak scientists invent the world's first megapixel sensor.

Physics of Photography

We all know what happened once the digital camera hit the market and the internet became popular. Would Joseph Niepce been able to comprehend the fact there are an incomprehensible number of images on the internet? Would the internet be even a little bit

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exciting without photos? The photo is as common to us as a written word but the world wasnt always that way. We owe it those who technologically advanced photography for making the world a much, much more connected place. Photons are the essential particle to understanding all we view. A ball of electrons neutrons and positrons can be focused or refracted to yield an image. Whether it be a photograph, an x-ray, sonar they all rely on the idea that particles can be accelerated to a certain frequency and thereby become useful for imaging in multiple mediums. The human eye works off the same concept in the sense that our retina receives the photons reflected by various objects and this becomes an image. Photographs seem the easiest example of the perception of images. When opening the shutter to a camera you allow light to flow light in. The different levels of light will in turn land on an image plane located in the back of the camera. The amount of time the shutter is opened directly relates to the amount of time the various levels of light are exposed to the film. Allowing light for a determined amount of time exposed to a surface will then excite the particles that are bouncing off the intended subject and produce an image. Imagine sitting down for a photograph, as the flash blinks one is bombarded with particles that have been excited, your body absorbs much of the radiation however the camera catches the photons that have slowed down enough to resolve an image. The photo paper catches the slower photons from the flash and this becomes a photograph. Each photon displaces the electrons of the photo paper and thus imparts the energy reflected from the image of interest. Considering Planks constant, which is the end result or number given when you can divide the energy of a photon by its frequency. Planks constant is a fundamental constant of nature that serves to set a lower limit on the smallness of things (Hewitt, 2010, p. 549). When

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breaking down this constant we can see its place in photography. While viewing most pictures from a distance, our brain perceives a smooth, uniform picture. However, if you took a magnifying glass or microscope to view some of these printed photographs, you will notice that it simply consists of very tiny dots. While viewing images through your television, the array of tiny dots that ultimately produce the picture are known as pixels. The closer these pixels (or dots) are together the higher the resolution and clearer the image. Another example and one of the simplest of this concept is a pinhole camera. Dating back to the time of Aristotle the idea is that pinholes are able to form images because light travels in a straight line. Thus for each point on an object, a reflected ray of light passing through the pinhole can fall on only one spot on the ground, glass, or film (Stroebel, Compton, Current & Zakia, p. 134). The excited photons are funneled through the pinhole, and as their energy carries them in a straight line, one manipulates the frequency of the particle and slows these particles down to measure the reflection or refraction of the photons and produce an image.

A camera merely opens itself to being bombarded with exited particles, or photons. As the lens captures and focuses all of the excited particles onto the negative film producing what we know as a picture. The physics involved to resolve and save an image are astounding. Capturing a moment in time seems like a difficult concept and yet photographs are commonplace, the photos we all take and share are comprised of a host of particles moving at various frequencies. Those particles become focused by lenses and various apparatus but nonetheless it is a harnessing of photons excitation and energy that makes this all possible.

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With advancements in technology specifically within the medical field, we have the capability to capture pictures that are impossible to take with a traditional camera. One example would be the common x-ray. X-rays are high-frequency electromagnetic waves, usually emitted by the de-excitation of the innermost orbital electrons of atoms (Hewitt, 2010 p. 578). The high level of energy harnessed by x-ray photons allows them to penetrate many levels of atoms. The x-ray travels through these many layers of atoms until its energy is eventually absorbed or scattered. Just like all rays, x-rays are subject to interference. Using the laws of physics one can understand why x-ray imaging works, energy cannot be created or destroyed and objects in motion tend to stay in motion. If a particle is pure energy it will either be refracted or absorbed. Given the visible spectrum of light as the rubric for frequencies of particles it only makes sense that imaging has relied on this process since the discovery of wavelength and energy. By attacking an object with excited particles one can accurately image anything because of the refraction or absorption of those particles. According to Anne H. Choy X-rays differ only in wavelength from other forms of electromagnetic radiation-gamma rays, ultraviolet light, visible light, infrared, and radio waves (Hoy, 2005, p. 424). Because X-rays have extremely short wavelengths they possess tremendous energy. That is to say that wavelength is a function of energy. For lack of a better explanation if one can control the energy of a particle one can control the wavelength of travel. Therefore a highly energetic particle is moving with a very high frequency, x-rays are a great example of this. The intensity at which an x-ray will pass through an object depends on the density of that object. X-rays can produce pictures of bone because the surrounding material is much less dense.

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Lenses allow one to focus the photons to a singular point which is to say allows one to control energy. In this sense lenses facilitate the shortening and lengthening of the waves. By shortening and lengthening the waves frequency lenses can control the wavelength of pure energy into a single point. Lenses afford the rare ability to focus energy and thus create images. The zoom function of a camera allows us to manipulate the focal point by adjusting the lens. A prism for example takes pure white light and at various angles refracts light at the various frequencies or wavelengths of the visible spectrum. The energy of particles in the visible spectrum is measured in nanometers which is seven orders of magnitude smaller than a meter. The energy and wavelength of particle determines the color we see. After the image has been successfully captured by the camera, the negative film needs to be developed. The developing process is a very delicate process as the negative film is still very sensitive to light. This is why film is developed in a dark room. Any exposure to light before the negative has been properly developed will affect the quality of the image. In addition to controlling levels of light, the dark room contains special chemicals used to develop the film. The image needs to be immersed into each chemical in a specific order for a specific amount of time. It is also important to note, that these chemicals need to be held at specific temperatures. After the chemical process is complete, the image is hung up allowing the remaining contents to evaporate. Modern Photography and Medical Applications Modern Photography Ever since the first practical camera design people have been continually expanding the use of capturing an image. The Images produced by early photographers and explorers like

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Ansel Adams took the average person to places they might never imagine exist, thus giving way to expand our imagination and creativity. The photographic became and is so important it has earned its own aphorism A picture is worth a thousand words. The photograph along with the ever growing technology industry has spurred many different amazing uses in. It is continually changing the way we live communicate and how we even capture memories. The amateur photographer has been taking photographs since companies like Kodak, Canon, Olympus, and countless other companies made the camera easy to use and accessible to anyone who could point and click. These large companies have had to evolve just the amateur photographer started to see the potential of commercial money from the use of images and the power they have. Photography has long had art linked with it, many people make their living solely from being professional photographers. There are many fields commercially including; fashion, portrait, wildlife, landscape, food, still life, photo journalism and even Paparazzi. With the advent of film also came the ability to capture multiple frames per second thus creating a constantly moving picture, the motion pictures. With film and TV constantly apart of our lives photo advertising is all around us. It surrounds us whether we are on the internet or using our smart phones or driving down the street. Pictures and images create emotions, these images can be used for good or bad and all together they are propaganda used to sway our actions. These images can evoke emotions reminding us to unite patriotically or they can persuade us to stop and get something for dinner we otherwise wouldnt have thought of, even reminding us when its time to take a vacation. Photographic images in the commercial world have become a unique and constant player on the way our cultures behave act and ultimately mass communicate.

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Medical Applications

Figure 2. C.T. scan of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm http://www.diagnosticimaging.com/news/display/articl e/113619/1541872

In 1905 the first Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Whilhelm Roentegen, professor of experimental physics in Germany. While working on emissions from electric current in vacuum he discovered the first x rays. While working with the electric currents he noticed a glow a glow from a barium platinocyanide coated screen across the room from where the current was passed between the two electrodes in a charged cathode tube. With this finding and weeks of experimentation he was able to submit his amazing findings to the local medical society in Germany and the rest has become history with the first Nobel Prize in Physics. Presently around the world even the smallest healthcare facilities have some form of radiological equipment available to them. With doctors now having the ability to tell patients whether or not they have just tore some connecting muscle tissue or that they have a broken bone was a huge advance to medicine. It gave Orthopedic surgeons they ability to see exactly what was going on in the bone structure enabling them to surgically heal severely broken bones with techniques that ensured correct placement of bones. Throughout the years other advancements

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with x-ray technology include Fluoroscopy an intraoperative use as in image intensification during orthopedic, vascular, and urological procedures. Most recently the significant advancement is the use of digital radiography introduced in the mid 1980s, and with the advancement of computer and digital cameras it is now competing with conventional screen film radiography in all applications due to its superior applications and its limited radiation dose to patients. Up until 2010, 5 billion medical imaging studies had been conducted worldwide (Morgan G. November 2010). Radiation exposure from medical imaging in 2006 made up about 50% of total ionizing radiation exposure in the United States (Henry G. Science Daily 2009). Since the use of medical imaging in the medical and scientific fields have come of age the scope of technologies used to create images of the human body for clinical purposes such as revealing, diagnosing, or examining disease have grown to fit those needs. For example as a discipline biological imaging incorporates Radiology, Magnetic Resonance Imaging or (MRI) scan, Nuclear medicine, medical Ultrasonography or Ultrasound, Endoscopy, Elastography, Tactile Imaging, Thermography and medical photography. In 1853 Charles Brooke invented a technology for the automatic registration of instruments by photography. These instruments included barometers, thermometers, psychrometers and magnetometers all of which recorded their readings by means of an automated photographic process. Science uses image technology that has derived from the design of the pinhole camera. X-ray machines are similar in design with the pinhole cameras with high grade filters and laser radiation. Photography is the brilliant and unique means and way we as humans record events and data in science and engineering, even crime scene and

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surveillance technologies. The photograph has in many was become vast array of ever expanding technology that has ultimately shaped the world we live in.

Practical Applications in Todays Society Photography is an important part of our life. We use photography to keep memories and to capture special moments. Photography takes places in many areas: Media; science; police; military; security forces; art; entertainment. Photography is the fast, easy, and effective way to tell a story or to send a message. Photography is not only about memories. Photography is everywhere, look around you, magazines; TVs; newspaper. All the media use photography as an effective way to present news, or stories, for instance, National Geographic. For example, in the picture of September 11 Attacks, we can get lot of information from the picture below by glance, thats the power language doesnt have.

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Figure 3. 2001 Terrorist attack of World Trade Center http://www.ted.com/talks/david_griffin_on_how_photography_connects.html

Photography also uses in science to record and study the movements. For example, an inventor and an artist, Dr. Harold Edgerton, a professor at MIT, pioneered the strobe flash, stopaction photography and a method of taking super-fast images called Rapatronic. These images allowed very early times in a nuclear explosions fireball growth to be recorded on film. And the exposure is just a millionth of a second. (Selwyn-Holmes, 2009)

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Figure 4. (Example of high speed photography) http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/edgerton-rapatronic/

Photography also is taking an important part of police, military, and security forces for crime scene, evidence, surveillance, and data storage. David Griffin said, Photography can make a real connection to people, and can be employed as a positive agent for understanding the challenges and opportunities facing our world today. (Griffin, 2008) And Photography can also compel us to confront issues that are potentially distressing and controversial, for instance, the pictures of global warming below; sometimes photography is more powerful than language. In conclusion, photography has integrated into many aspects of our everyday lives. Cameras are extremely complex devices yet simple to understand and very easy to use. Photography allows us to share detailed images with one another that couldnt otherwise be effectively explained. Without photography, the world we live in today would be very different. We capture and preserve images for many different reasons, most of which are geared toward entertainment and advertising. However, in todays society, photography has many practical

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applications, some proving to be life-saving. But this simple idea of capturing an image isnt possible without an in depth understanding of physics.

References

Artz, D S. Computed radiography for the radiological technologist. 1997 (book) Bansai, G.J. (2006) Digital Radiography. retrieved Oct 20, 2013 from www.ncbi.nlm.nih.hov/pmc/articles/PMC2563775/ Bellis, M. (2007, June 14). The history of photography and the camera. Retrieved 10/21/13 from the World Wide Web: http://invetors.about.com/od/startinventions/a/stilphotography.htm Ellis, T. (2006, May 12). The origins and history of photography. Retrieved 10/21/13 from the World Wide Web: http://www.ted.photographer.org.uk/photohistory_origin.htm Freihiherr G. (2010) Waste not, want not: Getting the most from imaging procedures. retrieved Oct 20 2013 retrieved from the World Wide Web:http://www.diagnosticimaging.com/news/display/article/113619/1541872 Hewitt, P. G. (2010) Conceptual Physics: Eleventh edition Glenview, IL. Pearson Education Hitltz, S.(2012) What is commercial photography. Retrieved October 23, 2013 from World Wide Web

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Hoy, A. H. (2005) The book of photography: The History The Technique The Art the Future. Washington D.C. National Geographic Society http://www.steves-digicams.com/knowledge-center/how-tos.html Stroebel, L., Compton, J., Current, I., Zakia, R. (2000) Basic photographic materials and processes: Second edition. Burlington, MA. Focal Press Watson. (2009, April 4). History of photography. Retrieved 10/23/13 from the World Wide Web: http://www.fi.edu/pieces/watson/hist.htm