Chronography of Light, Cameras, Optics
Page last
modified 28/8/2022
See
also Electric Light.
1992, Japanese company Canon introduced a
camera with autofocus controlled by the user�s eye � it focussed on whatever
the user was looking at.
1988, The first electronic
camera, which stored images on magnetic disc instead of film, was produced in Japan.
1983, The National Museum of
Photography opened in Bradford, England.
1982, The first camcorder, a camera that could record
video images, was released. An earlier device, the videocamera, (1978) did not have a data storage facility.
1975, The Center for Creative
Photography was established at the University of Arizona, USA.
1972, Polaroid introduced the
SX70 camera with instant prints.
1966, The International Centre of
Photography was established in New York.
1965, Holography was first
discovered by D
Gabor.
18/3/1964, The Lava Lamp was patented by David George Smith for
Crestworth Ltd, Poole, UK.
16/5/1960, The first working laser was created by Theodore H Maiman. At first it had no obvious
practical applications, but is now indispensable by the military, phone
networks, supermarket checkouts and security.
22/3/1960, US scientists patented the laser.
1959, The zoom lens was invented
by Austrian firm Voigtlander.
1955, Kodak introduced the black and white 200 ASA
film Tri-X.
28/11/1948. The first Polaroid
cameras went on sale, in Boston, USA. They printed in black and white only,
and took about 1 minute to create the print. The
price was US$ 89.75 � the equivalent of US$ 900, or UK�595 in 2015. All 37 had
sold by the end of the day.
3/2/1948, The instant Polaroid camera was patented by Edwin Herbert Land in
Massachusetts.
1932, Polaroid Film was invented by Edwin Herbert
Land, a dropout from Harvard College
7/5/1909, Edwin Land, American inventor of the Polaroid
lens and the instant camera, was
born in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
1959, Xerox introduced the first
reliable commercial photocopier. It weighed 300kg.
22/10/1938, Chester F
Carlson made the first photocopy image.
8/9/1938, Chester Carlson patented the
first photocopier.
8/2/1906, Birth of Chester Carlson, who invented the photocopier.
1938,
Picture Post magazine began
publishing in the UK.
1935,
The electronic flash was invented
in the USA.
1/12/1935, Russian-German
optician Bernhardt
Voldemar Schmidt died in Hamburg.
1933,
High-intensity mercury vapour lamps were introduced.
4/7/1932, The Anglepoise adjustable
desk lamp was patented by George Geraldine in England.
14/3/1932. The
US industrialist George Eastman, founder of Kodak, committed suicide.
7/10/1931, The first photograph in
infrared light was taken in Rochester, New York, USA. This allowed pictures to
be taken in total darkness.
1924,
Leitz introduced the first 35mm camera, the Leica (delayed due to World War
One). Journalists quickly adopted it because it was quiet, small, reliable, and
came with a range of lenses and other accessories.
20/7/1924, Robert
D Maurer, who invented the optical fibre, was born.
19/1/1915, George
Claude patented the neon tube,
for use in advertising.
27/8/1910. Thomas Edison, in New Jersey, demonstrated talking movie pictures for the first
time in his New Jersey laboratory. He used a device that was part phonograph,
part camera, to record sounds and pictures simultaneously. He predicted that
moving pictures with sound in colour would soon be possible.
1/12/1906. The world�s first purpose-built picture palace,
the Cinema Omnia Pathe, opened in Paris.
17/10/1906. First transmission of a picture by telegraph.
1905, Alfred Stieglitz opened the
Gallery 291 in New
York, promoting photography Hewis Line used the medium of photography to
expose exploitative child labour in US factories, causing
protective laws to be passed.
15/7/1904, Pavel Chenenkov was born in Voronezh, Russia. In
1934 he discovered that a particle travelling at close to the speed of light in
a vacuum through a liquid or transparent solid travels faster than the speed of
light in that medium, light is emitted. This is now known as Cherenkov radiation.
Invention
of movie films
14/4/1904. The first attempt to produce
�talking pictures� was made at the
Fulham Theatre, London,
using cinematography and a phonograph.
28/12/1895, Auguste and Louis Lumiere screened tnhe
first true motion picture on their new invention, the cinematographe, which
gave us the word cinema.
13/2/1894, Auguste and Louis Lumiere patented the
Cinematographe, a combination film projector and camera.
15/4/1891. Thomas Edison
publicly demonstrated his �kinetoscope�, or moving picture machine, in
New York.
Photography
becomes cheap, accessible to all
1/2/1900, The Eastman-Kodak Company introduced the Brownie Cameras, It was very simple and easy to use, and cost just
1 US$. Film cost 15 cents for 6 shots. Suddenly,
photography was within reach of everybody. The Brownie cameras were sold until
the 1960s, when demand for 35mm cameras with Kodak�s newer film such as
Kodachrome outstripped them. The Brownie also fuelled a boom in family photo albums, which lasted until
the age of the digital camera.
13/9/1898, The Reverend Hannibal Williston Goodwin finally
received a patent for his invention of celluloid film, which he developed to
illustrate his sermons over a decade earlier (see 7/5/1888). His estate later
sued Eastman Kodak for copyright infringement and won US$ 5 million.
22/3/1895, The first demonstration of celluloid cinema film was given in Paris
by Auguste
and Louis
Lumiere.
1888, The Kodak camera went on sale; costing US$ 25, it
could take 100 shots. The whole camera was sent to Rochester New York for
processing and for US$ 10 was returned with another 100-shot film. It was very
easy to use.
4/9/1888, George Eastman, founder of the Kodak film
company, patented the first camera film
roll. Before then, cameras were the size of a microwave oven
and needed� chemicals, glass plates and
tanks to taker a photograph.
7/5/1888. George Eastman, a former bank clerk aged 34 (see
12/7/1854), founded the Kodak photographic company. He chose the name Kodak because he thought it would be
easy to remember.
2/5/1887, The Reverend Hannibal W Goodwin applied for a
patent on his invention of celluloid film. See 13/9/1898.
11/10/1881, US inventor David Henderson Houston patented
photographic roll film.
7/11/1888,
Sir
Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was born. In 1931 he won the Nobel
Physics Prize for his discovery of the changing wavelengths of light when it
passed through a transparent material.
15/1/1885, Wilson Bentley took the first photograph of a
snowflake.
30/12/1883, John Dallmeyer,
Anglo-German
optician, died (born 6/9/1830).
4/1/1882, John Draper,
photography pioneer, died (born 5/5/1811).
1881, An interferometer was developed by
German American physicist Albert Graham Michelson,aged 29. In 1887 he
used this apparatus, along with Edward H Morley, to prove that the speed of
light in a vacuum is constant irrespective of motion of the observer or source.
This led to Einsteins
Theory of Relativity.
9/11/1881, Dr Herbert Thomas Kalmus, US inventor of
Technicolor, was born.
1879, Coleman Defries patented the
bayonet cap for electric light bulbs.
19/2/1878. Thomas
Edison patented the phonograph.
11/12/1877, Englishman Eadweard Muybridge, photographer of
the American West, used a novel photographic technique to resolve a bet made by
the Governor of California, rail magnate Leland Stanford. Stanford believed that all four
legs of a racehorse left the ground simultaneously as it galloped. Muybridge
proved Stanford
right by stringing tripwires across a racecourse and galloping a horse down it,
setting off camera shots to obtain a series of still shots. Muybridge
then used the novel technique to study dancers and runners in action.
17/9/1877, William Henry Fox Talbot, English pioneer of photography,
died at Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire.
24/9/1870, Georges Claude was born in Paris. In 1910 he
introduced the neon light to Paris.
11/2/1868, Jean Foucault, French physicist who measured
the speed of light, died in Paris.
27/12/1867, Antoine Claudet, pioneer of photography, died
(born 12/8/1797).
19/10/1862, Auguste Lumiere was born. With his brother Louis,
he developed the motion picture
projector.
17/5/1861. The first
colour photograph was exhibited at the Royal Institution, London.
12/7/1854. George Eastman, USA photographic pioneer who
founded Kodak, was born in Waterville, New York State. (see 7/5/1888).
12/7/1851, Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre,
French
pioneer in photography,
died.
6/3/1841, Marie Cornu,
French physicist, was born (died 11/4/1902).
20/8/1839, In Paris, LJM Daguerre demonstrated a way of capturing
images on a metallic plate; the birth of photography.
2/1/1839, Frenchman Louis Daguerre took the first photograph of the Moon.
5/7/1833, Nicorie Nie, pioneer in photography and creator
of the first negative on paper,died.
6/9/1830, John Dallmeyer, Anglo-German optician, was
born (died 30/12/1883).
9/4/1830, Eadweard Muybridge, photographer and motion
picture pioneer, was born.
14/7/1827, Augustin Fresnel, pioneer in lenses, died
(born 10/5/1788)
1826. First directly fixed image
with a camera onto a pewter plate was produced � see the year 1813.
9/11/1825,
Thomas
Drummond set up a reflector with burning lime in front, and the
intense light could be seen 106 km (66 miles) away. Limelight came to be used
for lighthouses and theatres.
1821, Fraunhofer invented the diffraction grating.
1820, Augustin Jean Fresnel invented
the Fresnel lens, much used in lighthouses.
6/4/1820, Felix Nadar, photographer, was born.
23/9/1819, Birth of Armand Hippolyte, French physicist who was the
first to measure the speed of light, in
1849. Methods to find this speed include, 1) timing the eclipses of
Jupiter�s satellites when at closest and furthest point from Earth, 2) Adjusting
the speed of a rotating cog wheel so it turns just one tooth-breadth whilst
light travels to a distant mirror and back, and 3) Send a light beam from a
source to a rotating mirror and thence to a distant mirror and back, by which
time the first mirror has rotated a little, and see how the beam direction has
changed.
1813, Lithography (early photography) became fashionable in France. J N Niepce
(born 7/3/1765) conducted experiments to produce light-dependent images, which
he called Heliography. In 1826 he produced the first directly fixed image with
a camera onto a pewter plate.
23/2/1812, Etienne Malus, French optical physicist, died
(born 23/6/1775).
5/5/1811, John Draper, photography pioneer, was born
(died 4/1/1882).
1808, Etienne Louis Malus (born Paris
23/6/1775) discovered that reflected light is polarised and coined the term
�polarisation�.
28/1/1807. London�s
Pall Mall became the first street in the world to be lit by gaslight.
This was an initiative to publicise the new method of illumination by German
migrant FA
Winzer (later Anglicised to Winsor), and his company, the Gas Light and Coke Company, floated in
1812. In 1814 street gas lighting began in Westminister and by the end of 1816
London had 26 miles of gas mains. This rose to 122 miles by 1823 and 600 miles
by 1834. By 1823 52 English towns had gas lighting and by 1859 Britain had
nearly 1,000 gas works. The gas industry
produced many useful by-products such as ammonia, naphtha and crude tar.
1801, Ultra-violet radiation was discovered
in 1801 when the German physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter observed
that invisible rays just beyond the violet end of the visible spectrum darkened
silver chloride-soaked paper more quickly than violet light itself. He called
them �oxidizing rays� to emphasize chemical reactivity and to distinguish them
from �heat rays�, discovered the previous year at the other end of the visible
spectrum.
1800, Sir William
Herschel discovered infra-red
radiation, by using a sensitive thermometer.
10/10/1797, Thomas Drummond was born. Along with Goldsworth
Gurney (born 1798) he invented ;limelight�, an intense beam of light
produced by the combustion of lime (calcium oxide) in an alcohol flame with
added oxygen, and focussed by a parabolic mirror. See 9/11/1825.
12/8/1797, Antoine Claudet, pioneer of photography, was
born (died 27/12/1867).
2/3/1791. The
worlds first optical telegraph, or semaphore
machine, was unveiled in Paris.
10/5/1788, Augustin Fresnel, pioneer in lenses, was born
(died 14/7/1827)
18/11/1787, Louis Daguerre, French artist and pioneer of photography,
was born near Paris.
26/2/1786, Dominique Francois Arago was born in Estagel,
France. In 1809 he discovered that blue light from the sky is polarised, and
found the neutral point where polarisation is absent.
23/5/1785, Benjamin Franklin announced his invention of bifocals.
23/6/1775, Etienne Malus, French optical physicist, was
born (died 23/2/1812).
1773, The achromatic lens was invented. It is made of glass of different
refractive indeces, so refracts all colours of light equally.
7/3/1765, Joseph Niepce, French doctor who produced the
first photograph from nature using a camera obscura, pewter plates, and an 8
hour exposure, was born.
30/11/1761, John Dollond, English optician, died (born
10/6/1706).
14/2/1744, Joseph Hadley,
optician who invented the reflecting
octant, ancestor of the sextant,
died in East Barnet in Hertfordshire.
10/6/1706, John Dollond,
English optician, was born (died 30/11/1761).
1678, Huygens developed the wave theory of light.
1668, Isaac Newton built the first reflecting
telescope.
1666, Newton investigated the spectrum of light.
1660, The microscope
was greatly improved by Leeuwenhoek.
1608, In The Netherlands, Spectacle-maker Hans Lippershey made a
demonstration of the telescope.
1590, In The Netherlands, spectacle-maker Hans Janssen and his
son Zaccharias invented the microscope.
1286, A monk in Pisa is reported as
having made the first pair of eye
glasses � mentioned in a sermon of 1306.
79,000 BCE, Early stone lamps in use, fuelled
by animal fat with grass or moss for a wick.