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Articles and Products of History Photography and da VinciAs with many inventions the camera can make its way back to Leonardo da Vinci. As early as 1519 Da Vinci drew a picture of a box shaped object, which captured an image.
It was not until sixty years later that additional people started to experiment with what was called exposure. Exposure in its most basic form is the chemical process that occurs when a picture is taken and then developed. When a photographic plate is exposed to light a chemical reaction occurs. This reaction creates a mirror image of an object based on the amount of light, which does, or does not pass through it. Some of the first chemicals that were used for primitive photos were powdered nitrate and silver chloride. These early pictures looked more like outlines of objects versus actual pictures but the concept had been proven. One major problem with these early pictures was there was no way to preserve them. A photograph would rapidly deteriorate. The next major leap forward for photography was in 1827. A gentleman named Niepce developed a process for taking pictures. The major advantage of his photographs was that they did not deteriorate. The down side was that the development process took a full eight hours. Approximately two years later Louis Daguerre teamed up with Niepce, and began to develop what we now call the photographic plate. Daguerre discovered that you could make a photo last much longer by dunking the developing photo into a pail of salt. The French government was excited about the potential of the camera and purchased the patent rights in late 1839. The first camera was developed and was called the Daguerreotype. The Daguerreotype was developed, made smaller and more affordable to use. This spawned the development of other cameras by other inventors, each improving on the last. Today you can buy digital cameras where no development process is needed. The lower costs and higher quality of cameras has made photography one of the worlds most popular hobbies. Get out there buy good camera and have some fun taking photographs. Remember a picture says a thousand words. Further Reading
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