Here goes another one: Nikon retires film cameras lineup. The one of the companies that constitute a core of photographic equipment producers decides to give up on standard cameras. As Konica Minolta example shows, this branch of market is unprofitable. However, the production of high-end cameras F6 and FM10 will continue, together with eight of most popular Nikkor lenses. Nikon statement says that company decided “to focus management resources on digital cameras in place of film cameras.”
After shock caused on me when Kodak materials and Konica Minolta photography section became history, I suffer another heart attack. I like being witness of historical events, it’s inevitable, but not these days. Photography as I liked it is becoming a part of the world that has to do more with past tenses than MY reality. I believe we are able to make reality as we like it to be. If so, and I’m quite sure of it, I’m in minority. I’m not the one to judge whether MY minority is better or not or whether the right is ours or not. What I can say is that I don’t like reality like this one.
Sad but true, the shape of today’s civilization is sculpted by majority. And this fact lets me repeat once again: democracy is rubbish.
So this is it. The company of the one of the most influence on the photography market retires. Konica Minolta declared to stop the production of cameras till march 2006. The company that developed such innovative things as first auto-focus camera (Dynax/Maxxym 7000, 1985), the fastest shutter (1/12,000 sec. in Dynax/Maxxum 9xi, 1992) or CCD-Shift mechanism (Dynax/Maxxum 7D) resigns as a producer of photographic equipment. Nevertheless, the production of films can continue until march 2007 and company will go on with office equipment and other.
What can I say… It is really sad. All the more, Sony will be in charge of that part of Konica Minolta. So now we can expect that we will not see any SRL camera with Minolta’s spirit anymore. There were some rumours about an SRL which would be Sony and Konica Minolta effort so an SRL can appear under Sony’s name. But no-one believes that Sony will risk to enter the SRL cameras market. They will rather expand their influence on the compact cameras market where they are one of the leaders.
I am still in favour of classic photography but I think I can see an inevitable end of an era.
So, the camera obcura is now known. Where is the photography, then? The fact that the photography waited till 1830s for its ‘discovery’ is somehow surprising. Why? Let’s see what happened…
To make photography possible, two things were needed: an optical and a chemical process. Even though both had been known for some time. First, camera obscura, as we know, had been drawn for Leonardo in sixteenth century. In the same time, first chemical observations had been made.
Robert Boyle notices that the silver chloride turns dark under exposure; unfortunatelly, he sees its cause in the air and not in the light. In 1727, by accident, proffesor Johann Heinrich Schulze discovers photo-sensitive compound noticing a darkening on the exposed to sunlight side of a flask contaning chalk, nitric acid and silver. At the beginning of the 19th century Thomas Wedgwood captures silhouettes of opaque objects placed on leather covered with silver nitrate. Images where very fragiles to exposure them to the light stronger than candlelight, because no fixation method were known.
In july 1827 first permanent picture is made by Joseph Nicephore Niépce. He dies in 1833 leaving his plans to Luis Jacques Mande Daguerre, his partner since 1929. Daguerre, by accident, puts an exposed copper plate in his cupboard with chemicals and finds the image developed some days later. He comes to the conclusion that the mercury vapour from a broken thermometer caused it. The discovery reduce the exposure time from many hours to thirty minutes. In 1837 is able to fix the images. Daguerre, then, makes a kickoff of photography as we know it today.
On 7 January 1839, after gained support from François Arago the invention is announced by Paul Delaroche and named Daguerreotype, from its inventor’s name. French government had bought the rights to the patent from Daguerre, who obtained a yearly pension, and released them free to the people. Daguerreotype image’s quality was suprisingly good with many details, but it had some disadvantage: the image could not be reproduced (which fact can be considerated as an advantage at a time), it was very delicate, it was reversed laterally and the substances used in developing process were highly toxic. It was also expensive: equalled to a weakly wage of average worker. Exposure time, even though reduced a lot since Niépce, it was still inappropriate for portraiture. As you can notice, on the photo below there are only two people, thanks to the period of time they stayed immobile long enough. Daguerreotype required an improvement.
In fact, Henry Fox Talbot obtains permanent negative image in 1934 already. He uses paper soaked in silver chloride and fixed with a salt solution. The advantage of Calotype, as Talbot had named the method, was that it made possible to get image positive copies by contact negative print to another sheet of paper. Its quality, however , was much more inferior to what Daguerre’s technique produced. Nevertheless, it is Calotype that gaved principle to nowadays photography.
Daguerre dies in 1851. His death marks an end of an important period in history of photography. In the very same year a wet collodion process is invented by Frederick Scott Archer.
First, albumen process , with a glass plate and white of an egg as the binding , is introduced by cousin of Niépce, Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor. Though the details and quality increased, it was very slow process. Archer’s Collodion process was much more cheaper than Daguerreotype and the exposure time was increadibly shorter, reduced to few seconds. That changed a lot. Unfortunatelly, it required fairy large equipment where taking a photograph,, because the plate needed to be developed when wet. Attempts to preserve exposed plates to later developement decreased their sensitivity. The most important was the safety question: The chemicals were highly explosive, fact which lead to many injuries and death cases among the photographers. The method was good but its realization caused some problems. A dry process was a must.
Twenty years later, in 1871, Dr. Richard Leach Maddox suggests gelatin instead of collodion, which leads to dry plate process development. Use of gelatin was already suggested in 1850 by Robert Bingham, but the idea failed due to collodion announcement the next year. Charles Bennett experimented with gelatine and revealed gelatin dry plate process in 1878. Though it was slower than the collodion, its advantages – no need of equipment when taking pictures, thus exposure and development process being taken independantly – made dry plate replace collodion totally by the end of the decade.
Earlier, with the invention of celluloid, at the beginning of 1860s, photography is ready to take another turn. Inspired by John Carbutt, George Eastman introduced a flexible film in 1884. The breakthrough is a fact. In 1888 Eastman himself presents first Kodak box camera that uses celluloid film. Photography is now accesible to anyone.
From now on I will try to write a little history of photography. As I had mentioned before, I have not studied any art or history relationated things, so this will be my pure knowledge gained by reading books or articles related to photography. First articles, I believe, will be more relationated to the invention itself; next part I will dedicate it to the figures of important, or should I say meaningful for me photographers.
The beginning… Well, the beginning of photography can be relationated with invention of camera obscura, which tracks can be found in Chinese philosopher Mo-Ti (5th century BC!). He noticed the phenomenon of inverted image formed by light as they passed through a pinhole into the darkened room, which he gaved name of “collecting place” or “locked treasure room”. So, you can consider photography as a gift from our mother nature – inventions are sometimes nothing but the discovery of obvious things nature offers us.
In 4th century BC, Aristotle projected the shape of partially eclipsed sun on the ground… through the holes in a sieve. I am not quite sure while he understood the mechanism of light projection; I would say that he was a curious observer and he rather knew ‘how’ and not ‘why’.
Alhazen, an Islamic scholar, was the first to experiment and to gave the full description of the principle. He experimented with five lanterns outside a room with a small hole.
The device itself was clearly described by Leonardo da Vinci in 1490. Those days, camera obscura was a large room and its use was rather limited to astrology. For example, Dutch scientist Reinerus Gemma-Frisius used it to observe a solar eclipse in 1544. In 16th century, a convex lens is added into the aperture for the sake of improving the image quality and the mirror to reflect it down onto a viewing surface, later. The world of arts appreciated the invention as Giovanni Battista Della Porta recommended its use as an aid for drawing for artists in his 1558 book Magiae Naturalis.
Nevertheless, the term of ‘camera obcura’ was given by German astronomer Johannes Kepler. For astronomical aplications he used a portable tent camera which he used for surveying in Upper Austria in the early 17th century. The utility, as we know it today, is a box with a hole, in its simpliest version, or lens which lets the light rays come in.
From now on, the development of camera obscura took two directions. First, as an entertainment tool, there were several camera obscura rooms in places of unique beauty.
The second track of the invention development was its application in arts. As a drawing tool, used by such names as Canaletto, camera obscura was not so far, but not so close either, from what we know today as photographic camera.