Photographing and how it started ?

Photography is a technique of permanently recording an image in different ways: chemically, mechanically or digitally. The word comes from the Greek words φωτος: photos - light + γραφις: graphis - pen or γρφη: graphê - drawing with light.

Large format camera lens

The oldest surviving photograph from 1826: View from the window on the estate of Le Gras, author Joseph Nicéphore Niépce

There are many stories circulating about the origin of photography, but the most interesting is the one published by a man named de la Roche in his work Giphantie in 1741. Even then, he imagined a material that would capture the colors of nature on a hard plate covered with an unknown substance , which should be developed only in the dark to become visible even during the day. With this, he practically announced the creation of photography as we know it today.

The word "photography" was first used in 1839 by Sir John Frederick William Herschel. Of course, the publication of the name of the photograph has nothing to do with the beginning or invention of photography, as it was created a long time ago, in the optical phase in 1519, when the camera obscura was invented. Photography as we know it today was taken in 1827 when Joseph Nicéphore Niepce invented a material that hardened on contact with light. The required exposure time of this material was 8 hours.

Camera operation

The most important part of a camera is the lens, as it only creates the image. Two values are important for the lens: focal length and light intensity. The first tells how far the center of the lens is from the film or light sensor and affects how big the subject will be in the photo. The longer the focal length, the closer the lens gets to the scene being photographed. Light intensity, on the other hand, is the ratio of the aperture through which the light comes and the distance to the surface on which it falls. The aperture in the lens is made of slats. They regulate the amount of light that falls on the sensor. The larger the aperture, the more light falls on the sensor and the shorter the exposure time we will need. It is also true that the greater the aperture, the lower the depth of field, which means that the area in the photo that is sharp is smaller, which allows you to isolate the subject from the background. The aperture is denoted by f-levels, with a smaller number in the denominator meaning a larger aperture. Thus, with the f / 1.4 aperture, twice as much light falls on the medium as with the f / 2.8 aperture. The lens also captures the image, either manually or automatically with a mechanism in the camera (this is called AF).

Through the lens, light travels to the camera body itself. In SLR cameras, it bounces off the mirror into a prism, which it then projects into a viewfinder, where the image can be seen by the photographer himself. This process is not available with cameras with an optical viewfinder, as these are viewed through a separate viewfinder. There is a shutter behind the mirror. Behind it, however, is a medium that preserves the image formed by the lens. The media can be different. This can be e.g. wet plate, film or digital sensor. Until the advent of digital cameras, it was dominated by a small 35mm film. Digital cameras are now available in most cameras, as it is cheaper to take pictures with them, but film still has its advantages. Each medium has a certain sensitivity, which is reported mostly in the ISO standard. The higher the sensitivity, the less light is needed to form an image - and at the same time the image is more grainy.

How long the light falls on the film is regulated by the shutter speed or. shutter speed. The exposure times in professional SLR cameras range from 1/8000 second and 30 seconds and the bulb setting, in which the shutter is open until it is closed. If there are moving objects in the photo, freeze them with a short exposure time and delete them with a long exposure time.

Optimal photo illumination is achieved by adjusting three elements: aperture, exposure time, and film sensitivity (ISO). Most cameras have a light meter, which calculates the most appropriate ratio of these three elements based on the lighting situation.

Development of photographic genres

As photography and photographic techniques developed, so did individual photographic genres, such as:

art photography, reporter photography - (mostly related to photography for newspapers), sports photography, landscape photography, architectural photography, medical photography, scientific photography, aerial photography, astrophotography

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