{"id":62,"date":"2013-03-10T16:50:58","date_gmt":"2013-03-10T23:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.captainsglen.com\/?p=62"},"modified":"2013-03-10T16:51:22","modified_gmt":"2013-03-10T23:51:22","slug":"of-emulsions-and-equipment-the-early-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.captainsglen.com\/?p=62","title":{"rendered":"Of emulsions and equipment – the early years"},"content":{"rendered":"

The camera came before film<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Camera Obscure (translated as “dark chamber”) dates to around 1021 when it first appears in print in a work by a Muslim scientist Ibn al-Haytham, and it was little more than a sealed room with a pinhole in one wall which admitted light reflected from the scene. An artist could then trace the projected image onto a canvas as a starting point for a painting – perspective was not well understood at the time. The image was laterally and vertically reversed.<\/p>\n

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The simplest of early cameras also used a pinhole design, projecting the image onto a plate which was the same size as the finished print.<\/p>\n

Glass plates and room sized cameras<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the early part of the 20th Century photographic chemistry was comparatively crude. Emulsions were not very light sensitive, meaning that large surface areas were required in order to expose enough of the material to light – more surface area captures more light. This had several consequences:<\/p>\n