How The Invention of the Camera Changed the World

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Cameras; we take them on trips, to sports events, to concerts, to birthday parties, and we even take them to outings with our friends. The invention of the camera didn’t just develop in a few years but through decades of research and evolution of optics and photographic processes.

Al-Haytham, or Alhazen in Latin, was born in A.D. 965 in Basra, which is located in present-day Iraq. Later, he moved to Egypt and began to develop scientific writings on the camera obscura, how the human sight works, how light goes through water, and how to solve for an angle of a reflection from a beam of light. His writings helped bring knowledge of optics to Europe (Cox).

Leonardo da Vinci and Johannes Kepler were only two of some of the most famous Renaissance thinkers who used Alhazen’s writings on the obscura in their studies. The camera obscura continued to improve throughout time, and in 1568 Daniel Barbaro, a nobleman of Venice, Italy, developed a way to get sharper, clearer images by inserting a lens made of glass into the camera’s opening. Later, fellow Italian and scientist, Girolamo Cardano, further explained Barbaro’s idea by using a biconvex lens (Cox).

In 1686, Johann Zahn was a monk who described and wrote about many portable cameras that used lenses and mirrors. The box that was used could capture an image that appeared right-side up to its viewers however, people still had to trace the images that the camera produced (Cox).

The first known photograph was taken in Gras, France, in 1826. The photo was the view from a second story window in the home of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Niépce was born in 1765 and survived the French Revolution. In his early photography experiments, he used paper that was soaked in a s...

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..."An Animated History of Photography from Camera Obscura to Camera Phones." PetaPixel. DISQUS, 20 Apr. 2013. Web. 27 April 2014.

Cox, Lauren. "Who Invented the Camera? | History of the Camera." TechNewsDaily.com. N.p., 30 Apr. 2013. Web. 27 April 2014.

De Castella, Tom. "Five ways the digital camera changed us." BBC News. N.p., 12 Jan. 2012. Web. 27 April 2014.

Michael, Leigh. "How Cameras Changed Society." Mago Salute, The Art of Greeting. N.p., 6 Apr. 2013. Web. 27 April 2014.

Spencer, Jackie. "Invention of the camera - Cleveland Photography." Examiner.com. N.p., 12 June 2012. Web. 27 April 2014.

"The Story of The First Photograph Ever Taken - Agonistica." Agonistica. N.p., 8 June 2013. Web. 27 April 2014.

Tolmachev, Ivan. "A History of Photography Part 1: The Beginning - Tuts+ Photography Article." Photography Tuts+. N.p., 15 Mar. 2010. Web. 27 April 2014.

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