Camera & Camera Types

These days photography is such an easy job. Whenever we see something

beautiful around us or maybe we meet friends we just wipe-out a camera
and take pictures. Most of our cameras these days are embedded in a
cellular phone. So, we don’t need even a proper camera, we just take out a
camera and go click, click (and) click. Have you ever tried to imagine that
how exciting it would have been for people to have been for people to have
been photographed for the first time? About say 160 years ago, when the
first picture was taken, people were just amazed, because it was a painting
or an art form they were used to, people used to go to studios to get (their)
pictures painted. The sketch may take days or months to complete. Then
suddenly came this technology where you had to sit frozen for may be a few
seconds or a minute and your picture was created. So, I feel that
photography is as exciting an invention as may be lots of things which
happened in the 19th century. Though, photography was not a one day
invention. There were procedures which took years, 100 of years to make
photography the way we know possible.

Historically we know that the camera is a device that was even known to the
Greeks, at the time of Aristotle. One could not take a picture but one could
at least form a picture in a dark room. The ‘pin-hole camera’, which most of
us knows of. Later came to be known as ‘camera obscura’, the dark chamber
was a kind of chamber in which if you allowed a ray of light to enter through
small hole, an inverted picture of the outside was formed on a dark wall. We
have a record of about sometimes in the 10th century when the Arab
astronomer Alhazen used a dark chamber a camera, camera obscura to look
at the solar eclipse. So this was a technique which was very well known and
it was used by an astronomer, etc. This technique was further refined in the
renaissances period in Italy. As we know the renaissances period was a
period when lots of scientific inventions, discoveries took place, Leonardo Da
Vinci, Michelangelo, etc. In Italy saw this flowering of a period when lots of
good literature was written, scientific inventions were taken. In those
periods somebody, some person put a lens at the place where pin-hole used
to be. This was the great breakthrough, because now the lens could capture
more rays of light and create a stronger picture. That feeble picture inside a
dark chamber became a sharper and a brighter picture. So, you can just
sense how the camera is developing. This device which was further kind of
miniaturize, that made the big chambers smaller (and) was used by
painters, etc. to trace scenes. This further in some ways democratize
paintings, people put, not so good artist could also make good pictures by
facing this kind of a camera and tracing the picture. Till now as I say there
was no, no where the film was to be found. Though it struck people that how
about stabalising this picture, how about fixing this picture, how exciting it
would be? So, but there was no, there wasn’t any knowledge of stopping a
picture being formed, once you closed the lens, you blocked the light the
picture went away. Then again somewhere in 17th century it came to be
known to chemist, etc. that silver compounds when exposed to light left an
impression, blackened area. If silver, if a polished surface with silver
compound was exposed to light, areas which received light made a black
impression. This was the germinating idea for a photograph to happen. This
was further developed but now if you placed a silver compound, one could
get a picture, but the problem was, the picture, the silver compound which
left an impression when it came exposed to light again the whole picture
blackened.
In 19th century a couple of French inventors made the breakthrough here.
Louis Daguerre is the person to who photography, the way we came to know
later is attributed to. In 1839 he could stabilise or fix the picture on a plate.
Daguerre has used, had polished a silver surface with iodine, so it became
compound silver-iodide. When he exposed this plate the picture a latent
image of the picture was formed. A ‘latent image’ is the picture where you
cannot see the picture but the picture has left an impression on a plate.
Right now you cannot expose it to light, you can’t even see it. It has to be
washed by certain other chemicals for the picture to really arrive. Here he
made a remarkable discovery of another chemical called Sodium
Thiosulphate, which stabilise the image. What it actually did? It washed
away all those unexposed silver compounds which had not received lights
from the silver plate, therefore when the picture, when the plate was
brought out in the open the picture did not have any sensitive silver
compounds, all the sensitive silver compounds had either been exposed and
the picture formed and the unexposed parts which was dark or something
were washed away by sodium thiosulphate, this sodium thiosulphate was the
basic compound, the discovery of which helped us create a fixed picture. A
picture that was stable, therefore it acquired the name ‘fixer’. Sodium
thiosulphate is more commonly known in the photography industry as ‘fixer’.
Today also when we do photography the final thing we do after developing
the chemicals, after developing the picture, (before) the picture is out, the
latent image has become stable image, the stable image yet need to be
finally fixed by sodium thiosulphate and its use in 1839 by Louis Daguerre in
France opened the flood gates to photography. Though I find it important to
take name of another person Joseph (Nicéphore) Niépce who would thirteen
years before, in 1826 had created what we know as the first picture we
know of it, this is a first picture that he took the only thing is that he did not
used the technology of silver compound as we know just now. He used
something else. He used ‘Bitumen’ to create a picture & washed off washed
with Lavender Oil and he got a photograph. That was, He was a part of
struggle he is considered a pioneer of photography. Louis Daguerre himself
was assisting Niépce & Niépce create. He kind of invented a dead–end
technology, the real technology that we know of photography happened in
1839. Niépce who was dead by now who’s student Louis Daguerre created
the silver process of making photographs. After 1839 we had a whole new
long era of silver compound based photography. Photography in its first
phase was all plate based. It was either done on plates, as I told you on
silver plate polished with iodide compound later the emulsion, it had took
the emulsion meaning the compound silver compound were dipped in a glass
plate and found photography in it’s early phases being used as a plate
photography as something which was instant, it had to be done on location,
the chemical had to be sensitized, the picture taken, the picture had to also
developed at that time. It was also called ‘wet plate processes. Because
everything wet at the location, everything had to be the plate had to be
created the plate had to be exposed, and the plate had to be developed. It
was not an easy process. I am just trying to say all this Because the way we
click a picture just now and are happy that we have taken a picture there
was nothing (of this sort) it took a long-long time, it was a cumber some
process to make a photograph, the 1st revolution in photography and yet the
camera itself was a big object. It was a huge box which was only, which
could only be placed on a tripod or stand. The scene had to arrive or the
subject had to arrive in front of the camera, rather than the camera going
places, as it goes just now. Portraits were taken in the studios. Try to
imagine this was also time before electricity. Before, so we had to be totally
dependent on exposure from the sunlight. So, photography had a very
challenging 1st phase. It was a very difficult job, yet people traveled lands.
Just give it thought what kind of adventure photography was, when it was
first thought, when it brought distant scenes to people. People who be sitting
in cities could watch landscape and sceneries of far of places. Far away
moments, war scenes were recorded and brought to people. People started
hanging picture of their kings and queens in their houses. Living in the same
city, they would never know them, but photography brought them prominent
personalities, politicians and monarchs into the room. Photography available,
we also started photographing each other. Photography became as we say
more and more democratized. This is the first phase of photography which
becomes an interesting.

We are familiar with the name of Mr. George Eastman who formed the first
company of photography called ‘Kodak’. Somewhere in 1880s and why did
he become so famous? He was very shrewd businessman and he knew what
photography would do in the future. He made the first plastic gelatin roll
film. Earlier it was all plate photography and people had to take one
exposure, keep it aside, (and) put up another plate. Now he had developed a
roll-film, a roll-film had many exposures and he put that roll-film into a small
box. So, he made the camera smaller and he provided the plastic roll-film
with more than one say 30, 40 exposures. So, now the camera could travel
out. 1880s onwards the camera could travel out, he said his famous phrase
is ‘you push the button, we do the rest’. So, people used to go on trips on
far off places, amateur started doing photography. Earlier it was basically a
domain of the professional who were well trained scientists who could handle
the equipment. Now the camera could be carried by people like you and me,
on their travels, on their family functions, on various kinds of tours and they
came back with loaded with images in a box, which they gave to Kodak
Company. The Kodak Company in its lab took out this thing called the roll-
film and loaded the new one and processed it and sent you the pictures, just
imagine pictures, photography more and more and more photographs
started taking place. Camera became a very useful gadget for the common
man. Till now the photography before this was only restricted to the
professional, the person who had the studio. Now people were doing the
photographs day in, day out.

Now, let us turn our attention to the camera. What is a camera? Camera is a
dark chamber which forms an image. Today’s camera is also a camera a
dark chamber forms an image and record(s) an image. We are interestingly
living in the times where the second big revolution of photography is
happened. The first I think happened when the film was discovered was 150
years ago. Now the recording medium itself is changing. We are becoming
more and more used to a digital camera, rather than a film camera. Film
cameras reigned and were there for 160 – 170 years of photography. Now
we can see a rapid change of the recording medium. The camera but is the
same, the image making device is the same, because it is based on certain
very basic principles of optics. Light enters through a lens on to an image
plane or a focal plane as we know where the image is focused by moving the
lens forward and backward and when the sharp image is formed, we click a
picture. We click a picture means we expose the film or now we expose the
digital sensor. We allow this exposure to happen, because we have to control
the light. Light cannot keep falling on the film or the sensor. The light, the
film or the sensor is a very sensitive medium; we should know the amount
of light that it requires. So, in a dark chamber when we click a picture by
moving the trigger button we opened the shutter and close it. The shutter is
an important device in a camera. A shutter is like a garage shutter, it opens
and closes, allowing the light to fall for a fraction of time; exposing a film or
whatever the recording medium we are using. These days the film or the
sensor is so sensitive to light that in normal light, in sun light, we expose it
for as shorter time as may be --- 1/30th of second, 1/60th of second 1/100th
of second. Historically, early we had to do this exposure may be for one
minute or may be 3-4 minutes. It is said that first picture took hours to
expose. But now in modern times, films, etc. are so sharp, so sensitive to
the light that the camera, the shutter opens fractionally and it closes. It is
precise equipment. Similarly there is equipment which controls the coming
of a light, that is the iris or we call it the aperture. The iris is like the pupil of
the eye. It opens, in its opening that we open and closing; it is like a tap
when we open the tap full lots of water flows, if we open the tap a little bit
very small streak of water flows. So, we have to allow a certain amount of
light to enter the iris which is generally located inside the lens. I can show it
to you in a lens, it is somewhere inside the lens embedded between the lens
elements and iris when we click opens and closes. Here you may be you can
see how the iris is opening, when we do the exposure the amount of light is
controlled by the aperture.

The aperture is controlled by iris whereas the shutter is a separate device

which in this camera you can see now again opens and closes. The shutter is
a device which allows the entry of light into the camera on the film. The
shutter can, I remove the lens, now you can see. I can, may be, most
probably you can see the face through the shutter, (and) the shutter is
opening and closing. It is allowing the light to fall on the film. This is a film
camera. The film is kept here; the film would receive the exposure of light
by opening and closing the shutter. So, the shutter and the aperture are the
two devices. The aperture here in the lens, the iris in the lens and in the
camera-body the shutter which allowing the passage of light.

Just to, as a revision --- A camera is a dark chamber which with the help of
lens receives light. The lens happens to focus light to gather optimum
amount of light from the outside by focusing the camera, we can focus a
sharp image onto the film plane. Right ahead of the film plane somewhere is
(the) shutter which opens for a restricted moment of time and closes and
giving it an exposure. The other control to the light is provided by the
aperture. The aperture is embedded in the lens and the opening of the
aperture like the pupil of an eye allows a definite amount of light to travel in.
So, these three things --- the lens focuses the light on the film plane; the
aperture or the iris which controls the amount of light coming in and out;
and the shutter which is kind of door which opens and closes, again
controlling the amount of light, enable us to capture a sharp image onto the
film or better to say the recording plane. Cameras have evolved over a
period of time. As I mentioned earlier the first of the cameras were big
cameras gradually the miniaturised. They gradually, when the film became
stronger as I mentioned earlier the film was may be of big sheet film,
gradually when the roll film was discovered it became smaller, one could
take many an exposures and fit inside the camera, the camera also became
smaller, the camera became hand-held and the camera could travel here
and there. The camera itself evolved from a big camera to a small camera
but the beautiful part about the photography is that the optics, the principles
of photography remained the same. We used the camera again in the same
way that we used it first time, 160 years ago. Yes, it is now a more precision
body, it has its sharper lens, it has more devices and gadgets to give us just
the right exposure. But as you can see here I have kept three different
rather four different lenses here. This is a digital camera. Here the recording
medium is different. The film is being formed, is being captured on a digital
sensor, but the lens is there, the aperture is there, (and) the shutter is there
only the recording medium is different. These are three film cameras. These
two are rather older cameras. These cameras were much in use say 40 – 50
years ago, whereas this is a current camera or current film camera. This is a
film SLR, this is digital SLR. SLRs are the most commonly used professional
level cameras which are easy to use and are used by the professional world.
What is SLR? SLR stands for ‘Single Lens Reflex’. Single Lens Reflex means a
camera which has/is Single Lens Camera, you can see here, there is a single
lens, even in the digital camera there is a single lens. Image is what we see
is what we photograph. The image that I view from here, this is the place, is
called the ‘viewfinder’. I view the image from here. But to view the image I
see the real image which (we) will take the picture. This is possible because
of a device inside a camera called a ‘reflex mirror’. A reflex mirror is a mirror
which moves when I give an exposure. It moves up and down. In a SLR
camera when I take, actually when I take a picture the view get blackened,
because the reflex mirror moves up and allows light to pass straight through
the shutter on the film plane. Whereas in other cameras, in earlier cameras
like this one a TLR. This is a ‘Twin Lens Reflex’ camera, where one can see
the picture on top lens but one photograph the picture from the lower lens.
This was used to view the picture. There is a ground glass, the viewing
mechanism is here, I see picture being formed here. But the picture that I
click forms has an aperture and shutter behind this lens. The big
disadvantage here is, I am actually not seeing what I am photographing, I
am seeing slightly different, something slightly above it. It makes (the
difference) when I take a close-up, it makes viewing a bit difficult, because I
am seeing 90% of the frame of the actual frame that is being photographed,
because of viewing camera. The viewing lens is different from the taking lens
or the capturing lens. But the principles of the photograph are the same, as I
mentioned. All these cameras have a lens which is focusing the picture. They
all have an aperture which is allowing the right amount of light to go in, they
all have shutter which opens and closes again controlling the amount of light
falling onto the film or the sensor. So photography in principles follows a
same pattern everywhere.
There are various types of cameras. This is Twin Lens Reflex camera; a TLR
which was very much in use in the 50s and 60s and 70s, then later came the
SLR. The SLR was the photo-journalist camera. It was a fast using camera
because here you see a correct image also, you see what you photograph.
Here you did not see what you photographed. There was also camera like
this range finder cameras wherein again you saw through here and took a
picture through here. So, there was slight difference in the picture you saw.
But ultimately the picture you got was almost the same, from what you saw.
So, cameras have evolved over a period of time and there are cameras
specialized cameras for specialized job. That doesn’t mean there are only
these kind(s) of cameras, there are other cameras also. There are bigger
cameras also; still the commercial industry, the advertising industry uses big
cameras called view cameras, there are cameras placed on bellows on a rail,
they have film surface, a film plane and a picture plane or an image plane.
You use those cameras because it’s important; the same kind of old not a
plate film but they use a sheet film like, something like X-ray sheet. The
picture itself negative, the picture comes is recorded on a very big surface.
The principle being the bigger the picture surface, the film surface the crisp,
the better the resolution. You have to blow it up lesser. A small film has to
be blown up many, many times and when you expand the films many, many
times you start seeing grains, you start seeing spots, the resolution, the
sharpness of the film decreases. The camera which uses the bigger film,
even these cameras uses a bigger film than the regular film that we know of,
the Single Lens Reflex camera. Therefore, even the films are of various
types. Cameras were still classified basically on three types (of) films. They
are called Large Format Cameras, Medium Format Cameras and 35mm Film
Cameras. 35 mm film is the smallest. That is the film we know of. Bigger
than this is another roll film which is 120 film. The film size is much bigger,
it is 6 cm wide. It is loaded in these cameras and yet people use such films
for professional work, the size being that is called Medium Format Camera.
Then you have the sheet film variety, where the smallest film sheet is is
bigger than the pos-card, 4 inches X 5 inches. The film itself is big, but it is
used for specialized purposes, where you need immense details, most of the
advertising photography, most of the banners which are to be blown-up
needs expanded, enlarge many a times are shot on that kind of a cameras.
So, cameras have the classification in terms of their film we are using or
Medium Format Cameras, a Large Format Cameras or the smallest the
photojournalist or amateur uses a 35 mm camera. Now with the coming of
the digital technology, where the film is getting phased out, the sensor itself
is complying to that size, the digital sensor itself, there can be a Small
Format Digital Sensor, there can be a Large Format Digital Sensor. Cameras
are into new phase because of the digital they will evolve much more, they
will become more user friendly, more instant, (and) the digital cameras are
very easy to use in some ways because you can instantly take a picture,
download them and sent them on the computers to long distance. But yet
compared to film quality some coinsures, some experts believe that film
creates much better qualities just now, but that is just matter of time soon
the digital will surpass the film altogether and film will become a part of
history. So, we have to look forward into the digital era. So, here we saw
various types of cameras. I explained to you what the basic functions (are),
how the basic camera functions, which is the same as being the old camera
or the new camera? Digital era is coming and camera, the recording medium
has changed but the camera shall remain the same. There are other parts of
camera which we have to look into in much detail. How they affect the
image? Say the lens, ‘Lens’ is the very important part of the camera.
Similarly, the film, the ‘Film’ or the ‘Digital Sensor’. They all have there
important role to play in refining the photograph in imparting proper
characteristics to a photograph the look, the perspective, all these are tools
which makes a photograph or a photographers task much easier or much
challenging. We will look at these in future episodes of the same
programme.