Chronography of Light, Cameras, Optics
Page last
modified 30 May 2023
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 March 1964, The Lava Lamp was patented by David George Smith for
Crestworth Ltd, Poole, UK.
16 May 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 March 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 November 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 February 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 May 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 October 1938, Chester F Carlson
made the first photocopy image.
8 September 1938, Chester Carlson
patented the first photocopier.
8 February 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 December 1935, Russian-German
optician Bernhardt
Voldemar Schmidt died in Hamburg.
1933,
High-intensity mercury vapour lamps were introduced.
4 July� 1932,
The Anglepoise adjustable desk lamp was patented by George Geraldine in England.
14 March 1932. The
US industrialist George Eastman, founder of Kodak, committed suicide.
7 October 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 July� 1924, Robert D Maurer,
who invented the optical fibre, was born.
19 January 1915, George
Claude patented the neon tube,
for use in advertising.
27 August� 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 December 1906. The world�s first purpose-built picture
palace, the Cinema Omnia Pathe,
opened in Paris.
17 October 1906. First transmission of a picture by
telegraph.
5 July 1906, Paul Karl Ludwig Drude, German optical
physicist, committed suicide aged 42
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 July� 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 April 1904. The first attempt to produce
�talking pictures� was made at the
Fulham Theatre, London,
using cinematography and a phonograph.
28 December 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumiere screened tnhe
first true motion picture on their new invention, the cinematographe, which
gave us the word cinema.
13 February 1894, Auguste and Louis Lumiere patented the
Cinematographe, a combination film projector and camera.
15 April 1891. Thomas
Edison publicly demonstrated his �kinetoscope�, or moving picture
machine, in New York.
Photography
becomes cheap, accessible to all
1 February 1900, The Eastman-Kodak Company introduced the Brownie Cameras, It was very simple and
easy to use, and cost just 1 US$. Film cost 15 cents for 6 shots. Suddenly, photography was within reach of
everybody. The Brownie cameras were sold until the 1960s, when demand for
35mm cameras with Kodak�s newer film such as Kodachrome outstripped them. The
Brownie also fuelled a boom in family
photo albums, which lasted until the age of the digital camera.
13 September 1898, The Reverend Hannibal Williston Goodwin
finally received a patent for his invention of celluloid film, which he
developed to illustrate his sermons over a decade earlier (see 7 May 1888). His
estate later sued Eastman Kodak for copyright infringement and won US$ 5
million.
22 March 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 September 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 May 1888. George Eastman, a former bank clerk aged 34 (see 12
July� 1854), founded the Kodak
photographic company. He chose the name Kodak because he thought it would be easy to remember.
2 May 1887, The Reverend Hannibal W Goodwin applied for a
patent on his invention of celluloid film. See 13 September 1898.
11 October 1881, US inventor David Henderson
Houston patented photographic roll film.
7 November 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 January 1885, Wilson Bentley took the first photograph of a
snowflake.
30 December 1883, John Dallmeyer,
Anglo-German
optician, died (born 6 September 1830).
4 January 1882, John Draper,
photography pioneer, died (born 5 May 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 November 1881, Dr Herbert Thomas Kalmus, US inventor of
Technicolor, was born.
1879, Coleman Defries patented the
bayonet cap for electric light bulbs.
19 February 1878. Thomas
Edison patented the phonograph.
11 December 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 September 1877, William Henry Fox Talbot, English pioneer of photography,
died at Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire.
24 September 1870, Georges Claude was born in Paris. In 1910 he
introduced the neon light to Paris.
11 February 1868, Jean Foucault, French physicist who measured
the speed of light, died in Paris.
27 December 1867, Antoine Claudet, pioneer of photography, died
(born 12 August� 1797).
19 October 1862, Auguste Lumiere was born. With his brother Louis,
he developed the motion picture
projector.
17 May 1861. The first
colour photograph was exhibited at the Royal Institution, London.
12 July� 1854. George Eastman,
USA photographic pioneer who founded Kodak, was born in Waterville, New York
State. (see 7 May 1888).
12 July� 1851,
Louis Jacques
Mande Daguerre, French pioneer in photography, died.
6 March 1841, Marie Cornu,
French physicist, was born (died 11 April 1902).
20 August� 1839, In Paris, LJM Daguerre
demonstrated a way of capturing images on a metallic plate; the birth of
photography.
2 January 1839, Frenchman Louis Daguerre took the first photograph of the Moon.
5 July� 1833, Nicorie Nie, pioneer in
photography and creator of the first negative on paper,died.
6 September 1830, John Dallmeyer, Anglo-German optician, was
born (died 30 December 1883).
9 April 1830, Eadweard Muybridge, photographer and motion
picture pioneer, was born.
14 July� 1827, Augustin Fresnel, pioneer in
lenses, died (born 10 May 1788)
1826. First directly fixed image
with a camera onto a pewter plate was produced � see the year 1813.
9 November 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 April 1820, Felix Nadar, photographer, was born.
23 September 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 March 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 February 1812, Etienne Malus, French optical physicist, died
(born 23 June 1775).
1808, Etienne Louis Malus (born Paris
23 June 1775) discovered that reflected light is polarised and coined the term
�polarisation�.
Gas
lighting See Food for gas cooking.
1866, Moscow instituted gas
lighting.
1859, England now had nearly one
thousand gas works.
1837, Philadelphia, USA,
instituted gas lighting. However US homes generally did not adopt gas lighting
until after the Civil War.
1826, Berlin instituted gas
lighting.
1823, England now had 52 towns
lit by gas.
1819, The Palais Royal became
the first building in Paris to be lit by gas.
1816, Baltimore, USA, instituted
gas street lighting.
1 April 1814, Gas lighting commenced in the parish of St
Margaret�s, Westminster, London. By 1816 London had 26 miles of gas mains. The
spread of gas lighting was aided by the reduced fire insurance premiums charged
for buildings with it, as it was safer than other forms of lighting.
28 January 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.
11 February 1800, Tuesday (-53,046) William Henry Fox
Talbot, English chemist ad pioneer of photography, was born in Melbury Abbas,
Dorset (died 1877).
24 December 1799, Georg Christoph
Lichtenberg, German physicist who discovered the principlke of xerography
photocopying, died in Ober Ramstadt, near Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany,
aged 56.
10 October 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 November 1825.
12 August� 1797, Antoine Claudet,
pioneer of photography, was born (died 27 December 1867).
2 March 1791. The
worlds first optical telegraph, or semaphore
machine, was unveiled in Paris.
10 May 1788, Augustin Fresnel, pioneer in lenses, was born
(died 14 July� 1827)
18 November 1787, Louis Daguerre, French artist and pioneer of photography,
was born near Paris.
26 February 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 May 1785, Benjamin Franklin announced his invention of bifocals.
23 June 1775, Etienne Malus, French optical physicist, was
born (died 23 February 1812).
1773, The achromatic lens was invented. It is made of glass of different
refractive indeces, so refracts all colours of light equally.
7 March 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 November 1761, John Dollond, English optician, died (born
10 June 1706).
14 February 1744, Joseph Hadley,
optician who invented the reflecting
octant, ancestor of the sextant,
died in East Barnet in Hertfordshire.
10 June 1706, John Dollond,
English optician, was born (died 30 November 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.
13 August 1624, Danish
physicist Erasmus
Bartholin was born in Roskilde. In 1669 he published a study of double diffraction,
as observed in Iceland Spar.
2 April 1618, Francesco Maria
Grimaldi was born in Bologna, Italy. He discovered the interference
pattern and diffraction of light, suggesting that light was a wave phenomenon.
However his work was neglected until Thomas Yoiung redicvoveerd these principles in
1803.
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.