The Word Camera Is From Latin “Camera Obscura” Which Means “Dark Chamber”. National Camera Day is observed each year on June 29th. This day commemorates photographs, the camera, and their invention. A camera is an irreplaceable tool used to record and replicate memories, events, and people/places. Before the invention of the camera, the only resource to document a vision was a painting. There are very few who can perfectly capture the image of a person or a place in a drawing. The power of a camera provided many with a simple, inexpensive and fast solution. George Eastman, also known as “The Father of Photography,” brought the camera to the masses. While he did not invent the camera, he did invent many additions that improved the use, ease, and production of the camera, making it widely available to homes around the world. The original camera was large and bulky but has now evolved into something that can be as small as a pen. Cameras have many features and variations, making them appealing to men and women of all ages for personal and professional use. Joseph Niépce was a French inventor; he is most noted as one of the inventors of photography and was a pioneer in the field. He developed the heliograph; a technique used to produce the world’s first known photograph in 1825, the view from the window at Le Gras the families estate. In 1839, Louis Jacques Daguerre took the first fixed image that didn’t fade. He is recognized for his invention of the daguerreotype process of photography. He became known as one of the fathers of photography. His method required 30 minutes of exposure. He named the process – the Daguerreotype. Tintypes were developed in 1856 by Hamilton Smith and decades later, George Eastman invented flexible and unbreakable film that could be rolled. This was the birth of the first Kodak that was offered for sale in 1888. In 1925 the Leica I went on sale, the Leica’s immediate popularity spawned a number of competitors. Kodak released its Retina I in 1934 though 35 mm cameras were still out of reach for most people things would soon change with the introduction of the inexpensive Argus A in 1936. The Japanese camera industry began with the birth of Canon in 1936 with its 35 mm rangefinder. Japanese cameras would soon become incredibly popular in the West after the Korean War as veterans and soldiers stationed in Japan brought them back to the United States. An entirely new type of camera appeared on the market in 1948. While TSLR and SLR were still the rage this new camera would change the way people would capture memories. This was the Polaroid, the world’s first instant-picture camera, no development needed. Known as a Land Camera after its inventor, Edwin Land, this camera was able to produce finished positive prints from the exposed negatives in under a minute. The first digital camera that was commercially sold was in December of 1989 in Japan, the DS-X by Fuji. In 1991, Kodak brought to market the Kodak DCS-100, the beginning of a long line of professional Kodak DCS SLR cameras that were based in part on film bodies. It used a 1.3 megapixel sensor and was priced at $13,000. The standardization of JPEG and MPEG in 1988, allowed images and video files to be compressed for storage onto a SD or CF card. With the introduction of the Nikon D1 in 1999 at 2.47 megapixels, this was the first digital SLR that was entirely by a major manufacturer. The D1 cost just under $6,000 and was inexpensive for professional photographers and high- end consumers. This camera also used Nikon F-mount lenses, which meant photographers could utilize many of the lenses they already owned. By 2010, nearly all mobile phones featured built-in camera with a resolution of 1-2 megapixels digital video camera. Many cameras also featured built-in GPS. The first ever color photograph was taken in 1861 by a physicist James Clark Maxwell. Did you know that there are 12 very expensive Hasselblad cameras on Moon’s surface? They were used during first moon landing, but had to be left there, so the astronauts could carry back rock samples. Today, people capture as many photos in less than two minutes than the entire population did during the 1800s. Dills Parekh from Mumbai,India is the owner of the largest camera collection in the world. He owns more than 4,425 cameras and has been collecting them since 1977. If you think that amusing photos of cats is a phenomenon that started on the internet, you’re definitely wrong. English photographer Harry Pointer was the first person to start photographing cats in amusing positions and he did it during the 1870s! He started by taking natural photos of cats, but it wasn’t long before he realized that he had much more success selling photographs of cats in ridiculous poses. Recent estimates say the human race has taken more than 3.8 trillion photos so far and the numbers are raising rapidly. The first ever camera described in the history was a pin hole camera, dating back to 4th or 5th century. The word camera originates from the Latin word “camera obscura” which means “dark chamber”. The word “photography” originates from Greek, meaning drawing with light. All sensors of modern cameras only capture in black and white. It then calculates red, green, and blue tints according to the luminescence to add color to the picture. The first known photograph of a tornado was taken on 28 August 1884, about 22 miles (45 kilometers) southwest of Howard, South Dakota by an unknown photographer. The first underwater color photograph was taken off the Florida Keys in the Gulf of Mexico by Dr. William Longley and National Geographic staff photographer Charles Martin in 1926. Apple released it’s first digital camera in 1994, the Apple Quicktake, which was designed by Kodak. Digital camera was invented by Steve Sasson in 1975 at Eastman Kodak. The first digital camera only had 0.01 megapixel, weighed 8 pounds (3.6 kg) and takes 23 seconds to record a picture on a cassette tape. There is an average of 300 million photos uploaded to Facebook per day. The idea of HDR photography was first started in the 1850s by Gustave Le Gray. Gustave Le Gray used one negative for the sky and one with a longer exposure for the sea and combined the two into one picture. Photo booth was invented by Anatol Josepho, a Russian in NYC in 1925, which subsequently led to the creation of Photomaton Company. Research by Kelsey Blackburn and James Schirillo of Wake Forest University, North Carolina found that our left side is our ‘better’ side to be photographed. Sources: National Day Calendar Days of the Year Just Fun Facts Fotographee.