Light, Cameras, Optics
Page last
modified 8/5/2021
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, Xerox introduced the first
reliable commercial photocopier. It weighed 300kg.
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.
1938,
Picture Post magazine began
publishing in the UK.
22/10/1938, Chester F
Carlson made the first photocopy image.
8/9/1938, Chester Carlson patented the
first photocopier.
1935,
The electronic flash was invente din the USA.
1/12/1935, Russian-German
optician Bernhardt
Voldemar Schmidt died in Hamburg.
1933,
High-intensity mercury vapour lamps were introduced.
1932, Polaroid Film was invented by Edwin Herbert
Land, a dropout from Harvard College
4/7/1932, The Anglepoise adjustable
desk lamp was patented by George Geraldine in England.
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 withy a range of lenses and other accessories.
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.
7/5/1909, Edwin Land, American inventor of the Polaroid
lens and the instant camera, was
born in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
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.
8/2/1906, Birth of Chester Carlson, who invented the photocopier.
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.
14/4/1904. The first attempt to produce �talking pictures� was made at the Fulham Theatre, London,
using cinematography and a phonograph.
1/2/1900, The
Eastman-Kodak Company introduced the Brownie
Cameras, It was very simple and easy to use, and cost just 1 US$. Film cost
15 cents for 6 shots. Suddenly,
photography was within reach of everybody. The Brownie cameras were sold
until the 1960s, when demand for 35mm cameras with Kodak�s newer film such as
Kodachrome outstripped them. The Brownie also fuelled a boom in family photo albums, which lasted until
the age of the digital camera.
15/4/1891. Thomas Edison
publicly demonstrated his �kinetoscope�, or moving picture machine, in
New York.
22/3/1895, The first demonstration of celluloid cinema film was given in Paris
by Auguste
and Louis
Lumiere.
1888, The Kodak camera went on sale; costing US$ 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.
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.
4/9/1888, George Eastman,
founder of the Kodak film company, patented
the first camera film roll.
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).
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.
1821, Fraunhofer invented the diffraction grating.
1820, Augustin Jean Fresnel invented
the Fresnel lens, much used in lighthouses.
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�.
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.
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.
18/11/1789, Louis Daguerre, French artist and pioneer of photography,
was born near Paris.
10/5/1788, Augustin Fresnel, pioneer in lenses, was born
(died 14/7/1827)
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.