99 Fun Facts About Cameras

In a lens aperture setting such as f/2.8, what does the letter f stand for?

The f-number is the lens's focal length divided by the aperture diameter, so f/2.8 means an opening 2.8 times smaller than the focal length.

Which 11th-century scholar analysed the camera obscura in his Book of Optics?

Ibn al-Haytham, working in Cairo around 1021, analysed pinhole images in his Kitab al-Manazir (Book of Optics), showing that light travels in straight lines from each point of a scene.

Which astronomer's 1604 book contains the earliest known use of the term 'camera obscura'?

Johannes Kepler coined the term 'camera obscura' in his 1604 optics treatise Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena (Astronomiae Pars Optica), which analysed how pinhole images form.

Who made the first permanent photograph from a camera image, in 1826?

Nicéphore Niépce made View from the Window at Le Gras at his estate near Chalon-sur-Saône, exposing a bitumen-coated pewter plate for many hours in a Chevalier box camera.

A daguerreotype image was made on a polished sheet of what?

A daguerreotype was made on a silver-plated copper sheet, polished to a mirror and sensitised with iodine fumes; the latent image was then developed over mercury vapour.

What did the French government do with the daguerreotype process on 19 August 1839?

On 19 August 1839 France, which had bought the daguerreotype rights in exchange for state pensions, gave it 'free to the world'; Daguerre separately patented it in England.

George Eastman's first camera, the Kodak of 1888, came pre-loaded with film for how many exposures?

The 1888 Kodak came loaded with a roll for 100 exposures; the whole camera went back to the factory for developing and reloading: 'You press the button, we do the rest.'

How did George Eastman come up with the name Kodak?

He loved the letter K, calling it 'a strong, incisive sort of letter'.

Kodak's Brownie box camera of 1900 was named after characters created by which writer?

It cost $1 and more than 150,000 shipped in the first year.

What was the launch price of the original Kodak Brownie in the United States?

The Brownie sold for $1, with a six-exposure roll of film for 15 cents, a cardboard box camera that put snapshots within reach of children.

Kodak's Instamatic cameras, launched in 1963, made loading easy by using what?

The Instamatic took drop-in 126 film cartridges, so there was no threading; more than 50 million were made by 1970, and the later 110 Pocket Instamatic used a smaller cartridge.

Oskar Barnack built the Ur-Leica prototype around which format, borrowed from the movies?

Oskar Barnack's 1914 Ur-Leica ran 35 mm cine stock horizontally, doubling the movie frame to 24×36 mm; the production Leica I went on sale in 1925.

The name Leica is a blend of which two words?

Leica blends Leitz and camera: Ernst Leitz's Wetzlar firm, which took over Carl Kellner's optical institute in 1869, put its name on Oskar Barnack's compact design.

How much did a Leica 0-Series camera fetch, including premium, at a June 2025 auction?

Leica 0-Series No. 112, one of roughly 25 pre-production cameras built in 1923, sold for about €7.2 million with premium in June 2025, second only to the €14.4 million paid for No. 105 in 2022.

Which 1954 model from Wetzlar introduced the bayonet M mount and a combined viewfinder?

The M3 of 1954 introduced the M bayonet mount and a single bright-line viewfinder that also served for focusing, replacing the two-window design of the earlier screw-mount bodies.

Which German twin-lens reflex, launched in 1929, became the template for later TLRs?

Franke & Heidecke's Rolleiflex of 1929 shot 6×6 cm frames on roll film and was copied by dozens of makers; its waist-level finder shows the scene reversed left to right.

Which optical component lets an SLR show an upright, laterally correct image in its eye-level viewfinder?

A roof pentaprism flips the focusing-screen image so it appears upright and the right way round at eye level; the Contax S of 1949 was among the first SLRs to use one.

What was the first integrated 35 mm SLR to reach the market, in 1936?

Ihagee's Kine Exakta of 1936, made in Dresden, reached shops before the Soviet Sport, which was prototyped in 1934 but sold only from 1937 with its own cartridge.

The Nikon F of 1959 was widely adopted by photojournalists covering which war?

The rugged Nikon F became the standard camera of photojournalists covering Vietnam in the 1960s; NASA astronauts also carried it, and the F2 succeeded it in 1971.

Hasselblad's medium format cameras are most famous for their use on which programme?

Hasselblad 500EL data cameras recorded the Apollo Moon landings; NASA had first flown a Hasselblad on Wally Schirra's Mercury mission in October 1962.

In which country is Hasselblad based?

Hasselblad is based in Gothenburg, Sweden; Victor Hasselblad's company grew from a German aerial camera captured by the Swedish military in World War II, and DJI took a controlling stake in 2017.

The name Canon derives from what?

Canon comes from the bodhisattva Kannon, the Buddhist deity of mercy: the company's 1934 prototype was named the Kwanon, and the Canon trademark was registered the following year.

Which 1976 Canon was the world's first camera with an embedded microcomputer?

The Canon AE-1 of 1976 was the first SLR with a built-in CPU, which ran its shutter-priority auto exposure; it sold in the millions and brought SLRs to a mass market.

The Argus C3, sold in the United States from 1939 to 1966, was nicknamed what?

The boxy, heavy Argus C3 was nicknamed 'the Brick'; over 2 million were made in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Colin Creevey carries one in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Which 1916 model was the first camera marketed with a coupled distance-measuring focus aid?

The 3A Kodak Autographic Special of 1916 was the first camera sold with a coupled distance meter: turning the focusing dial aligned a split image in the finder, sixteen years before the German compact rivals of 1932.

What prompted Edwin Land to invent the instant camera in the 1940s?

He said he had the idea within an hour of three-year-old Jennifer's question in Santa Fe.

Polaroid's Model 95 Land Camera, the first commercial instant camera, went on sale in which year?

The Model 95 went on sale on 26 November 1948 at the Jordan Marsh department store in Boston, and the first batch sold out the same day.

What was Polaroid's original product line before cameras?

Polaroid began in 1937 selling polarising filters and polarised sunglasses made from Land's sheet polariser, long before it built an instant camera.

Which 1972 Polaroid was the first to eject the print automatically, with no tab to pull?

The SX-70 of 1972 ejected its integral-film print by motor and let it develop in daylight; its folding single-lens-reflex body became a design classic.

How much was Kodak ordered to pay Polaroid after losing their instant-camera patent battle?

Polaroid had asked for $12 billion; Kodak was forced to quit instant photography.

How many US patents had Edwin Land been granted by his retirement in 1982?

Edwin Land held 535 patents by his 1982 retirement, ranging from sheet polarisers to instant film, despite having dropped out of Harvard after his freshman year.

Which company developed the familiar disposable camera in 1986?

Fujifilm launched the QuickSnap in 1986, sold in Japan as Utsurun-Desu ('It takes pictures'), a year before its American rival's Fling.

Who built the first self-contained digital camera at Kodak in 1975?

Steven Sasson, a 24-year-old Kodak engineer, built the toaster-sized 1975 prototype; President Obama later awarded him the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

How long did Kodak's 1975 digital prototype take to record one 0.01-megapixel image to tape?

The 1975 prototype needed 23 seconds to write its 0.01-megapixel image from a Fairchild sensor to cassette tape, and about as long again to show it on a television.

Boyle and Smith won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing which sensor at Bell Labs?

Willard Boyle and George Smith sketched the charge-coupled device at Bell Labs in 1969 while working on MOS bubble memory; the 2009 Nobel recognised it as the basis of digital imaging.

Which 1988 model is regarded as the first fully digital camera to record images to a memory card?

The FUJIX DS-1P, shown by Fuji in 1988, stored images on a 2 MB SRAM card that needed its own battery to keep the data alive; it never went on general sale.

Sony's 1981 Mavica, the first filmless SLR, recorded analogue video stills on what?

The Mavica recorded up to 50 analogue stills on a 2-inch magnetic floppy disk dubbed the Mavipak, for playback on a television rather than printing.

What was the first commercially marketed mirrorless camera, released in Japan in October 2008?

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1, the first Micro Four Thirds body, replaced the reflex mirror with a live electronic viewfinder and went on sale in Japan in October 2008.

Which company released the first colour camera phone, the Visual Phone VP-210, in 1999?

Sharp's J-SH04, sold from 2001, was the first camera phone with a picture-messaging infrastructure.

On 11 June 1997, Philippe Kahn shared the first photos sent from a phone. What was the occasion?

He rigged a camera to his phone in the maternity ward.

GoPro founder Nick Woodman got the idea for his cameras on a 2002 trip doing what?

Woodman wanted a way to photograph himself surfing in Australia on a 2002 trip; the first GoPro, sold from 2004, was a wrist-strapped film camera.

What did Kodak file for in January 2012?

Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on 19 January 2012, having struggled with the shift to digital, and emerged some twenty months later as a much smaller company.

Kodachrome film was discontinued in 2009 after how many years of production?

Kodachrome, launched as a three-colour film in 1935, was discontinued in 2009 after 74 years; the last roll was processed at Dwayne's Photo in Kansas in December 2010.

A pinhole camera has no lens, which gives it what optical property?

With no lens to focus, a pinhole camera gives an essentially infinite depth of field: everything from close up to the horizon is equally, if softly, sharp.

What are the two types of mechanical shutter used in cameras?

The two kinds are leaf and focal-plane shutters: leaf shutters open a set of blades inside the lens, while focal-plane shutters run curtains just in front of the film or sensor.

On a twin-lens reflex camera, one lens forms the image. What does the other do?

The two nearly identical lenses sit one above the other.

Which camera type, with separate viewing and imaging systems, was historically the choice of photojournalists?

A rangefinder camera focuses by aligning two images in a separate window rather than through the lens, so it is quiet and compact, which suited street and news photographers for decades.

Which camera, in serial production from 1948, was the first SLR with an instant-return mirror?

The Hungarian Duflex, built by Gamma Works in Budapest in small numbers from 1948, was the first SLR whose mirror sprang back after exposure; it also offered eye-level viewing through a mirror system.

Which 1957 camera combined eye-level viewing with a thumb wind lever, setting the SLR template?

The Asahi Pentax of 1957 put an eye-level finder, a rapid-wind lever and an instant-return mirror in one body, the layout later SLRs followed; Asahi had built Japan's first SLR, the Asahiflex, in 1952.

What does a camera's bulb (B) shutter setting do?

On the bulb (B) setting the camera keeps the shutter open while the release is held; the name survives from the rubber air bulbs that once squeezed pneumatic shutter releases.

Which Eastman company tagline entered the language to describe a personal event worth photographing?

'Kodak moment', from the company's advertising of the 1970s and 80s, came to mean any occasion worth a photograph; the much older slogan was 'You press the button, we do the rest'.

Which stock symbol did GoPro use when it floated on the Nasdaq in June 2014?

It sold 17.8 million shares at $24 apiece.

Who invented the gelatin dry plate in 1871, finally rivalling the wet-plate process?

Richard Leach Maddox, an English doctor, described the gelatin silver bromide dry plate in 1871; Charles Bennett's 1878 heat-ripening discovery boosted its speed and made hand-held snapshots practical.

Which physicist co-designed one of the first automatic-exposure cameras, using an electric eye, in 1936?

Albert Einstein and his friend Gustav Bucky were granted a 1936 US patent for a camera whose photoelectric cell adjusted the exposure; the first production auto-exposure camera was Eastman's Super Six-20 of 1938.

Which 1963 camera was the first SLR with through-the-lens metering?

The Topcon RE Super of 1963 was the first SLR to meter through the lens, using a CdS cell behind a slotted mirror; the German Mec 16 SB subminiature had metered behind the lens in 1960.

The 1991 Kodak DCS digital SLR was built around which film camera body?

The first Kodak DCS of 1991 mated a 1.3-megapixel sensor to a Nikon F3 body, tethered to a shoulder-bag storage unit holding a hard drive and a small monitor.

Which 1995 Casio model was the first consumer camera with an LCD screen on the back?

The Casio QV-10 of 1995 was the first consumer digital camera with a rear LCD for framing and reviewing shots, storing 96 images of 320×240 pixels in 2 MB of memory.

The Nikon D1 of 1999, the first DSLR built from scratch by a major maker, had what resolution?

The Nikon D1 delivered 2.74 megapixels from a 23.7×15.6 mm sensor, cost under $6,000 and took the F-mount lenses film photographers already owned.

Nikon's 1963 Nikonos underwater camera was licensed from the Calypso design of which French firm?

The Calypso, designed by Jean de Wouters for the diving-equipment firm La Spirotechnique co-founded by Jacques Cousteau, was licensed to Nikon and relaunched as the Nikonos in 1963.

The world's first webcam, set up at Cambridge in 1991, watched what?

The Trojan Room camera let Cambridge researchers check whether the coffee pot was full before walking over; it stayed online until 2001 and the pot sold on eBay for £3,350.

What resolution was the rear camera on the original 2007 iPhone?

The original iPhone's rear camera was a fixed-focus 2 MP unit with no flash and no video mode; video recording arrived with the iPhone 3GS in 2009.

The 2012 Nokia 808 PureView phone packed a sensor of how many megapixels?

The Nokia 808 PureView's 41-megapixel sensor, paired with Carl Zeiss optics, oversampled into sharp 5- or 8-megapixel images years before 40-megapixel-plus phones became common.

Which computer company launched the QuickTake consumer digital camera in 1994?

Apple sold the QuickTake from 1994, a Chinon-built camera that stored eight 640×480 shots; Time later ranked it among its most influential gadgets of all time.

Ring's video doorbell was launched in 2013 as a crowdfunded startup under what name?

Jamie Siminoff launched the device as Doorbot in 2013 after a crowdfunding campaign, renamed the company Ring in 2014, and sold it to Amazon in 2018 for about $1.15 billion.

How many Hasselblad camera bodies did astronauts leave on the lunar surface to save weight?

12 Hasselblad bodies were abandoned on the lunar surface across the six landings to save weight for rock samples; only the film magazines came home.

Pentax's K1000, the classic student SLR, stayed in production from 1976 until which year?

More than three million were sold; production ended when the analogue meter galvanometers became too hard to source.

Kodak's Super 8 home-movie format was released in which year?

Super 8 arrived in 1965 with a drop-in cartridge and a larger frame than regular 8 mm; a Japanese rival's Single-8 followed the same year with the same frame in an incompatible cartridge.

RED Digital Cinema founder Jim Jannard had earlier founded which company?

Jim Jannard founded Oakley in 1975 selling motocross grips, then RED in 2005 to build an affordable 4K cinema camera; he owned more than 1,000 cameras.

How did Henri Cartier-Bresson make his Leica less conspicuous on the street?

Cartier-Bresson painted its shiny parts black, sometimes covering the chrome with tape, so the camera would not catch the eye; he favoured an unobtrusive 50 mm lens.

Fujifilm's Instax instant-film system went on sale in which year?

Instax went on sale in 1998 with the Instax Mini 10; after Polaroid stopped making film in 2008, Instax was for a time the only integral instant film in production.

Sony's α7, the first full-frame mirrorless camera, was announced in which year?

Sony announced the α7 and α7R in October 2013, the first full-frame bodies on the E-mount it shared with the smaller-sensor NEX range.

Fox Talbot's 1841 calotype process recorded its negative on what material?

The calotype's negative was a sheet of writing paper sensitised with silver iodide, from which many positive prints could be made; Talbot's patent slowed its adoption in England.

Which 2008 model was the first DSLR able to record video?

The Nikon D90, announced in August 2008, shot 720p video with mono sound at 24 frames per second; Canon's EOS 5D Mark II followed a month later with full HD.

Which 1985 camera was the first SLR with built-in autofocus and motorised film advance?

The Minolta Maxxum 7000, sold as the α-7000 in Japan, put the autofocus motor and film drive in the body, forcing rivals to redesign their lens mounts; Canon's all-electronic EOS followed in 1987.

Lomography takes its name from an optical works in which Soviet city?

LOMO stands for Leningrad Optical-Mechanical Association; its LC-A compact inspired a group of Viennese students to found the Lomographic Society in 1992.

The lo-fi Holga medium-format camera first appeared in 1982 where?

Lee Ting-mo designed the plastic Holga in Hong Kong in 1982 as a cheap 120-film camera for the Chinese market; its light leaks and vignetting made it a cult object.

How many exposures did a 1982 Kodak disc-film cartridge hold?

A disc cartridge held 15 tiny 10×8 mm negatives, which gave grainy prints; Kodak stopped making the cameras in 1988 and the film at the end of 1999.

Kodak sold the 1996 Advanced Photo System film under which brand?

Kodak branded its APS film Advantix; Nexia, Futura and Centuria were the brands of three rival makers, and the last APS film was produced in 2011.

A Micro Four Thirds sensor has what crop factor compared with full frame?

Micro Four Thirds has a crop factor of 2.0: a 25 mm lens frames like a 50 mm on full frame, because the standard, launched in 2008, uses a 17.3×13 mm sensor.

Which company's complaint forced Olympus to rename its 1972 M-1 SLR the OM-1?

Leica objected because its own bodies were already the M series, so Olympus renamed the camera the OM-1; the compact body kicked off a race to shrink the SLR.

Which company bought Flip Video maker Pure Digital in 2009, then killed it in 2011?

Cisco paid $590 million in stock for Pure Digital in 2009 and shut the Flip line in April 2011 while the cameras were selling well.

The Gatso speed camera grew from a device built by Maurice Gatsonides, a champion of what?

Maurice Gatsonides, a rally driving champion who won the 1953 Monte Carlo Rally, built the device to time his own cornering; Britain's first successful Gatso deployment was on Twickenham Bridge in 1992.

The Lumières' 1895 Cinématographe combined a camera, a projector and what?

The Cinématographe served as camera, projector and film printer in one hand-cranked box; Louis Lumière first showed Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory to invited guests in March 1895.

Which November 1977 compact was the first mass-produced autofocus camera?

The Konica C35 AF, nicknamed Jasupin ('just pin' sharp) in Japan, used Honeywell's Visitronic module to compare two images electronically and set the focus.

The 1959 Olympus Pen was Japan's first camera of which kind?

The Olympus Pen was Japan's first half-frame camera, taking 72 shots on a 36-exposure roll; designer Yoshihisa Maitani's format faded once full-frame compacts like the 1966 Rollei 35 shrank.

Nikon was founded in 1917 under a name meaning what in English?

Nippon Kōgaku Kōgyō, literally Japan Optical Industries, was formed in 1917 from three optical makers and only renamed itself Nikon Corporation after its cameras in 1988.

Bryce Bayer devised the colour-filter mosaic in most digital sensors while at which firm?

Bryce Bayer, a Kodak research scientist, patented the filter mosaic in 1976, describing the green cells as luminance-sensitive and the red and blue ones as chrominance-sensitive.

The CMOS active-pixel sensor was developed in 1993 at which NASA centre?

Eric Fossum's team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed the CMOS active-pixel sensor in 1993 to shrink spacecraft cameras; it went on to displace the older sensor type in nearly every camera.

Lytro's 2012 camera let users refocus shots after the fact using what technology?

Lytro's light field capture recorded the direction as well as the intensity of incoming light through a microlens array, so focus could be chosen afterwards; founder Ren Ng developed it at Stanford.

The original Minox subminiature camera was manufactured from 1937 in which country?

Walter Zapp's Minox was built from 1937 by the VEF electrical works in Riga, Latvia, until 1943; production resumed in West Germany after the war.

New York crime photographer Weegee was famous for using which press camera?

Weegee's 4×5 Speed Graphic, made by Graflex of Rochester, was the standard American press camera from the 1930s to the 1950s; Graphic models were built from 1912 to 1973.

Which Kodak slide film returned in 2018, five years after being discontinued?

Ektachrome E100 returned in September 2018 after Kodak had discontinued the last Ektachrome products five years earlier; cine versions followed the relaunch.

Olympus sold its camera division in 2020; what name did the spun-off company take?

The business became OM Digital Solutions when Japan Industrial Partners took 95% of it on 1 January 2021; its later cameras carry the OM System badge.

Which 2002 camera was the first DSLR with a full-frame 35 mm-size sensor?

The Contax N Digital, announced in 2000 and delayed repeatedly, shipped in spring 2002 with a 6-megapixel full-frame Philips sensor, months before Canon's EOS-1Ds.

The Soviet FED rangefinder, a Leica copy, took its initials from which person?

FED stands for Felix Dzerzhinsky (Felix Edmundovich), founder of the Soviet secret police; the camera was mass-produced from 1934 by a children's labour commune in Kharkiv named after him.

Who filed a patent for nitrocellulose roll film in 1887, two years before Eastman's?

Hannibal Goodwin, an Episcopal minister from Newark, filed in 1887; the patent office granted it only in 1898, and the successors to his company won an infringement suit in 1914.

How much was Anatol Josepho paid in 1927 for his Photomaton photo-booth invention?

Anatol Josepho sold the Photomaton rights to a group of investors for $1 million in 1927, plus future royalties; his first booth had opened on Broadway in 1925.

Which mathematician designed the fast f/3.6 portrait lens of 1840?

Joseph Petzval, a professor in Vienna, computed the lens in 1840 and Voigtländer built it; its wide aperture sharply cut daguerreotype portrait exposures.

The Zenit SLR line was launched in 1952 by KMZ, based in which town near Moscow?

KMZ, the Krasnogorsk Mechanical Works just north-west of Moscow, launched the Zenit in 1952 by adding a reflex housing to its Zorki screw-mount compact.