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Photography
Photography
When it comes to the origins of photography, the nationalist elite may not be able to help but cite China's Mojing from the Spring and Autumn period of more than 400 years B.C. as mentioning the imaging of the small holes as if the holes could prove that The Chinese people are the inventors of the camera. To be honest, this can not be completely considered masturbation, whether it is more than a hundred years ago, the bulky box machine, the first few decades of film cameras, or today's digital cameras, the imaging principle and the old ancestors described the small hole imaging is exactly the same: take a sealed box, in any side of the hole drilled in a small round hole, and then the hole in the face of this out of the window, the scene outside the window, such as a tree, or something, will be in the hole opposite the box wall The reflection of this tree will be generated on the wall of the box opposite the hole.
Theoretically, any sealed box with a hole in it is a primitive camera. But this primitive camera is half a camera at best, and when the sun goes down and everything goes back to darkness, we still have nothing. It's a camera without film - it can't record.
One day in 1826, the Frenchman Joseph Nièpce (1765-1833) finally found the first film - bitumen. He coated the white bitumen, which can harden after sensitization, on a tin alloy plate, put it into a dark box and exposed it to a window for 8 hours, and got the first photograph in human history, which was a partial picture of a rural house under the sky. His invention was not popularized because of the long exposure time and the blurring of the image.
It seems that asphalt is not a good light-sensitive material, and it takes 8 hours to take a blurry picture. To 1839, the Frenchman Daguerre invented a silver plate photography, with silver iodide instead of white pitch, with silver iodide coated steel plate in the dark box for exposure, to mercury vapor for development, and then to the sea wave solution fixing, and finally got a very clear picture of the metal. The silver-plate photographic exposure takes about 10 to 30 minutes.
Daguerre's silver plate photography is no negatives, shoot once to get one, and now the tourist attractions can be seen around the 10 yuan a Polaroid once imaging photos similar to, can not be reproduced. The first thing you need to do is to get a copy of the photo, and you can't reproduce it, so why spread it? So and Daguerre almost at the same time, the British Talbot (William Henry Fox Talbot, British, 1800-1877) invented the Carlo method "(Colotype) photography has a greater significance, although the Carlo method in the initial clarity is not as good as the silver plate method, but It had a negative and could be reproduced indefinitely. So, to be precise, the British Talbot is the real inventor of photography. 1844, Talbot published in London in the history of mankind's first photographic picture book "The Pencil of Nature", nature's pen, printed in 150 copies.
Special mention should be made of the Caro method of exposure times of as little as three to five minutes, a remarkable improvement over Daguerre's silver plate method. The reason we emphasize exposure time so much is that sensitivity is one of the most important indicators of a negative, and if it takes more than ten minutes to expose a photograph, the technique is not very practical, and should only be used for nature photography, and it is not possible (or very difficult) to take portraits - portraits are fine, but it is very difficult for a living person to hold a position in front of the camera for ten minutes without moving, not to mention Street photography and sports photography.
Over the next few decades, photographic negatives continued to make advances in both raw materials and sensitivity, and in 1851 Frederick Scott Archer (1813-1857), a Londoner, invented the Collodion process, also known as the Wet Plate Process. Wet Plate Process.) The Wet Plate Process further reduced the cost of negatives and reduced exposure time to less than a minute.
After 1871, the Dry Plate Process replaced the Wet Plate and further reduced the exposure time to 1/25th of a second (in outdoor light). That's a huge improvement, and 1/25th of a second meant that the camera could be hand-held. Before that, all shots had to be taken with a tripod.
But film plates were still a pain in the ass, and could they be rolled?In 1888, Eastman officially began selling rolls of Kodak film on a celluloid base. The film's sensitivity was ISO 12. Soon after, film with a sensitivity of ISO 100 or higher was developed, and the problem of the photographic negative was solved, with no major changes in film over the next 100 years. Maybe color film was a big development, but I think color was the last thing to be considered in photography.
The development of technology has not only solved the problem of film material and sensitivity, but also solved the problem of the camera itself. In the early days of travel photography, when the wet plate method was used, a photographer had to hire several people to carry boxes and negatives, which was a heavy load! The American Civil War war photojournalists carried their equipment in large wagons called photographic vans, because the negatives were large plates coated with light-sensitive material and measuring 8x10 inches or larger. Cameras in those days were the size of small boxes - you couldn't build a camera smaller than a negative, could you?
The need for a more portable camera for both travel and reportage photography was urgent, and when rolls of Kodak film became available in 1888, both cameras and film sizes got smaller and smaller, with the advent of 6x6-centimeter film around 1890, the 120 film we use today. It is said that Edison took the then newest 70mm film from Eastman Kodak and cut it down the middle and punched small easy-to-roll holes on both sides to make the 35mm film we commonly use today, which actually measured 24X36mm each.
In 1914, Oskar Barnack, an engineer working at the Leitz microscope factory in Germany, built the world's first 135 camera using 35-millimeter film, the famous Leica prototype Ur-Leica, and from then on, those bulky wooden boxes began to be discarded, and the 135 camera, a product of precision mechanics and optics, began to be used. The product of precision mechanics and optics, the 135 camera began to dominate the world. At first, the Leica represented the side axis view 135 cameras, to 1948, East Germany Zeiss (Zeiss) company produced a view and shooting can be *** with a lens 135 cameras, which is now we use a single lens reflex camera, referred to as single-lens reflex (SLR).
Mass industrialized production of 120 and 135 cameras began, and film and cameras became affordable for everyone. The speed of light-sensitive film was so fast that ISO 800 and even 1600 films were produced, and the cameras themselves were so small that they could be stuffed into pockets and shot everywhere! Just when the world thought that 135 cameras and Kodak film had been perfected and would be immortalized, in 1969, there was an invention that really did not take long to immortalize the traditional 135 film. In that year, two scientists at Bell Labs, Dr. Boyle and Dr. Smith, discovered a semiconductor that was so sensitive to light that it produced an electronic signal when shone upon. This light-sensitive semiconductor was named CCD, Charge Coupled Device, the Chinese called charge coupled device. Sounds oddly tongue-twisting, CCD this thing is actually an electronic photoreceptor, we call it electronic film it. Photosensitive semiconductor (electronic photoreceptor) there are a variety of CCD is one of the other common CMOS, Foveon's X3 and so on. Later in this book, we will use CCD to refer to the heart of all digital cameras - the electronic photoreceptor chip.
It wouldn't be hard for me to write the words "Take a picture without film" today, but if I'd been scribbling them around before 1969, I'd have been sent to the loony bin in no time. The invention of the electronic sensor, the CCD, meant that it was possible to take pictures without film, and so began the digital age of light recording, which has seen the death of traditional film, and now almost everyone has a CCD or two in their hands, so if you don't believe me, take your cell phone apart.
In 1975, Kodak's Mr. Sasson (Steven Sasson) developed the first digital camera. The camera had a 10 megapixel CCD (think 10 megapixels today), was powered by 16 five-cell batteries, the memory card was an ordinary cassette tape, and the camera weighed about four kilograms. it was certainly possible to produce a 10 megapixel digital camera in 1975, but I'm guessing that the CCD was probably the size of your living room.
Both computer CPUs and digital camera CCDs have benefited since 1975 from the rapid advances in semiconductor processing and large-scale integrated circuit technology. By 1986, Kodak had developed a 1-megapixel CCD, revealing the first glimmer of the digital takeover of film.
Today's digital cameras (2008)
And we all know the rest of the story. The incredible CCD has been slowly killing film ever since. 1998 was the first year of megapixels in digital cameras for home use, and every year since then digital cameras have added a megapixel to their CCDs, with prices dropping by 10% per year (for the same type of camera).
By 2008, very few people were traveling with film, and everyone had a small digital camera with at least six megapixels, at a price that was almost nothing (many 7-megapixel digitals cost less than CNY1000). Mid-range and high-end small digital has been 12 megapixels level, the price is also two thousand yuan. Digital SLR DSLRs are also selling at street prices, with 10-megapixel sets (body plus standard zoom lens) for less than CNY5,000. The top digital back reaches 39 megapixels (Phase1 P45+). I haven't played with this guy but I'm told that a 39 megapixel digital camera is better than a 4X5 inch negative drum electric minute scan, but it also costs more than a TOYOTA Corolla. Anyway, as of 2008, film can basically go into a museum.
There are dozens of brands and thousands of models of digital cameras that have come on the market in the decade from 1998 to 2007. I personally consider the following four models to be groundbreaking:
The Nikon Coolpix 950, a two-megapixel family DC, was released in February 1999 for $890 USD. This camera meant that the average family could afford a quality travel digital camera. Two megapixels was an important benchmark because 2 megapixels allowed for fine prints of 5x7 inches, which was the size of most family photos.
The Nikon D1, a 2.6 megapixel professional DSLR, shipped for $5000, June 1999. The D1 also signaled the end of the money-grabbing era for Kodak's DCS line of professional DSLRs, which had never gone below $10,000 per unit before the D1. After the D1, until 2007, Kodak never turned the corner in the digital camera market. It's called a messy punch.
The Canon 30D, a three-megapixel DSLR, launched at $2,800 in May 2000.The 30D meant that DSLRs were now affordable for photographers. Until then, buying a DSLR was similar to buying a car.
The Canon 300D, a six-megapixel DSLR, was released in August 2003 for $900 USD. One thousand dollars is a watershed moment in the popularity of electronics. The $900 300D meant that DSLRs were now in the hands of millions of people, and traditional film SLRs were basically in the museum.
Will the pixel count of CCDs in digital cameras continue to grow indefinitely? Like a couple more years to get a billion or two pixels or something? I don't think so. Because now mainstream digital cameras have fully reached the resolution of traditional 135 film, and can already meet all the needs of the average person, the lack of strong demand to promote it to continue to increase.
Over the years, many people have been arguing over how many pixels are equivalent to 135 film, and in the end, there was no conclusion, and the problem was not solved, but also hurt feelings. Photography is to get the picture, out of the film is the hard way. Generally speaking, 135 film is already the limit of 20 inches of fine pictures, and the limit of 8 megapixel digital camera is also about 20 inches of fine pictures. So 135 film is roughly equivalent to 8 megapixels.
Explain the fine print. The so-called "fine" means that the photo should be able to withstand being held in the hand (close up) and scrutinized after it is printed. How big of a picture can you put on a negative? It depends on how far away you stand to look. I can put a picture the size of a wall on a 135 negative for you if you want. That's exactly what movie theaters do. Such giant pictures should only be viewed from a distance, because the grain is too coarse. I'm full of crap, no one is going to come up to the screen to watch a movie.
Since 10 megapixels is perfectly fine for a 20" fine out, it makes no sense for CCDs to keep adding pixels. Other than wedding dresses, who has ever enlarged a picture at home to more than 20 inches? Wedding dresses don't need to be taken by yourself, and even if you want to take your own wedding pictures, it's only once or twice in a lifetime, so there's no need to break the bank by renting a high-end camera.
In 2008, there are already a lot of 12 megapixels on the market for small digitals. I'm dizzy, this market is being misled, many people think that the more pixels the better the photos, this is a complete misunderstanding. With a certain amount of CCD area, adding more pixels inside will cause a decrease in image quality instead.
The vast majority of digital camera marketers are catering to the public's misunderstanding, and are constantly urging R&D departments to make higher pixel CCDs, which is really a sad way to turn a falsehood into a falsehood. I think now digital cameras should not simply add a few more megapixels above 10 megapixels, but should work on improving the quality of the CCD. Reducing high sensitivity (high ISO) noise levels and increasing exposure latitude are the top priorities.
Nothing can change the nature of photography
What exactly is this thing called photography, 100 people have 108 answers. I think the essential function of text, photography and movie are all the same, that is to record. Text records events, photography records scenes, and movies record dynamic scenes.
Photographic images, like words and movies, have the function of artistic creation in addition to the basic function of recording. Words can be used to write poetry and novels; photographic images can also be used to express personal emotions and artistic creativity. Movies, not to mention movies, have become largely fictional.
Photography has changed dramatically in the 180 years between its invention in 1826 and 2007, but the changes have all been about how to make it easier to record. To make it easier to take pictures we turned wet plates into dry plates, and dry plates into film, and in recent years we have replaced traditional film with electronic film CCDs, and digital cameras have become very popular. With the development of technology, there may be biosensors to replace the existing digital camera CCD (CMOS). But no matter how the medium of recording changes, the essence of photography will not change.
The biggest advantage of digital cameras now is that the pictures are immediately available (visible). Human beings have become more and more impatient. In the past, not to mention the love for a year and a half, at least we still need to find a matchmaker or something, but now we need to get everything immediately and solve the problem overnight. The digital camera to take pictures is to get immediately, just shoot and see. From the picture of the post-production point of view, digital photography means that no longer need the traditional chemical darkroom, the picture is slightly adjusted to link the printer on the photo.
The development of photographic technology over the past 180 years has made the whole process of photography easier and easier, greatly reducing the threshold of this art (craft), so that photography in the form of the people's favorite further into the tens of thousands of households, which is now the digital camera is most worthy of recognition and praise.
While the process of photography has become easier, it is still not that easy to get good pictures. Technically, it still requires good conceptualization and diligent practice. As the saying goes, third-rate photographers than the camera, second-rate photographers than the technology, first-class photographers than the idea, to improve a person's intellectual cultivation more no shortcuts to go, read ten thousand books, travel ten thousand miles, the road is long and far, I will be up and down and seek.