The Camera

The first "camera" was created around 500 BCE by Greek and Chinese philosophers. They discovered that if you make a small hole in a completely dark room, a strange thing occurs. The small hole focuses light and the scene outside the box is projected upside down on the opposite wall. This has come to be known as the "camera obscura" effect. Camera obscura is latin for dark room.

Then, in the 17th century, Isaac Newton and Christian Huygens perfected optics and glass lenses. This was a step closer to the modern camera.

In the 19th century, the first portable camera obscuras were created by Joseph Niepce. However, the camera could not yet take pictures. In 1827. Niepce added film to the camera to make the first modern camera.

Our modern cameras still have much in common with Niepce's camera obscura. We still use film, and the dark room effect is still used inside the camera.

To capture images, we still use film. It's very different from the plastic film of the past. Nowadays, we use digital film that is much more eco-friendly than its plastic relative. The digital film is also much cheaper than plastic film.

"Auto" on the camera controls flash and exposure for you. "Program" usually lets you control flash and maybe some other camera effects. "Portrait" mode tries to blur out the background and uses the fastest lens available. "Sports" mode uses the highest shutter speed possible to freeze motion. When you "half-press" on the trigger button, the camera lens will try to focus on whatever you're aiming it at. You will hear a beep when the camera is focused and ready to take the picture.

 Disabled flash means no flash. You would use it if you wanted more natural light or a very dramatic picture. Auto flash is default in most cameras and will automatically become enabled if the camera thinks the picture needs more light. Too much light in a photo will cause it to appear washed out. Not enough, and the picture is too dark to see anything. A "stop" is light intensity. If you wanted to increase the light, or "stop", then you would double the currant light intensity. For example, 1 stop is two light bulbs and four light bulbs is two stops. If a planet had two suns, the light intensity would be one stop. If it had four suns, the light intensity would be 2 stops.

Longer shutter speed makes more light, while shorter shutter speed makes less light. The aperture is what the light must go through before reaching the film. Larger openings make more light. You can get larger openings by making the F-stops smaller.