photography gear 3 - the single reflex camera

a single lens camera (slr) is basically a camera that uses a system that captures the light through a mirror and a prism that directs the light to the viewfinder. the mirror is at a 45% angle, allowing it to direct the light vertically toward the prism but when the photographer presses the shutter release, the mirror flips upward to let the light go directly to hit the film. the term 'reflex' comes from the reflection of the mirror system used to redirect the light. it was an ingenuous invention that allowed the photographer to view exactly the image that is passing through the lens and is captured on film.

the pentaprism situated on the roof of the camera sits on the optical path between the mirror and the viewfinder. it reflects the light several times to make up for the initial inversion caused by the lens. if you would look at the image directly through the lens, it would appear upside down.

the path of light in a single lens reflex camera

the single lens reflex is further development form the earlier cameras that used to have two light paths. one for the viewfinder and one that goes straight through the lens to hit the film. since the camera had two lenses they were referred to as twin-lens reflex (tlr). the major drawback of those cameras, in addition to bulk was, that since you have two light paths, they were not sharing the same optical path. though that wasn't too noticeable on medium and long range, at a short distance, parallax used to cause some framing errors, especially in close-up photography.

long before digital, we used to shoot film. pictured here is the pentax k1000, a middle range camera from the now defunct asahi pentax who was a major player in the photography industry

photography gear 2 - different types of cameras

in the days of film, we used to have different types of cameras targeting different types of photographers and suitable for different budget. if we define a photographer as someone who uses a camera. from the occasional photography buff who would load a film roll to save memories of the last family vacation, to the seasoned pro who makes a living from taking pictures. in the early days of photography of course, there didn’t use to be such distinction when Kodak first introduced the brownie camera in 1900. it was a point-and-shoot camera designed for mass appeal and was according to kodak’s advertisement "so simple they can easily [be] operated by any school boy or girl".

point-and-shoot
a point-and-shoot camera is a camera that is simple and inexpensive designed for the occasional photographer who’s only interested in taking pictures and not worry about anything else. it takes its name from that simplicity because To take a "snapshot," all one had to do was hold the camera waist height, aim, and press a button. their extreme simplicity comes with a lot of limitations which makes them unsuitable for a more advanced level in photography.

it’s hard to talk about image capture without getting deep into camera technology. the photographic camera got its name from Leonardo davinci’s early experiments in capturing images in a dark room with a pinhole that would project a reverse image on the flat surface of a parallel wall. hence the name camera obscura which translates from the Italian ‘dark room’. see picture

sources: 

http://www.brownie-camera.com/

http://www.sharpfocusphoto.com

photography gear 1 - the camera

if you wanna get started in photography, what equipment do you need? to answer that question, you must first know what type of photography you want to get into. different types of equipment are suitable for different types of photography. the camera that you will need, the lens or lens assortment that will make your job easy, whether you’re gonna need on-camera flash, a studio flash outfit or whether you’re gonna rely solely on natural light, all that depends on what you wanna do. there are other accessories that may be handy depending on the types of pictures that you wanna take. but most certainly, you’re gonna need a camera. so let’s start with that basic gear.

the camera

the camera is an electro-mechanical box that is designed to capture light. how a picture is created depends on the type of camera. a film camera records a latent image on a film which needs to be processed for the picture to show. a digital camera on the other hand has a sensor that captures light and records it as pixels that are stored on memory chip. unlike film, the picture recorded on a memory chip is readily usable without further need for processing. another aspect of digital photography is that memory is volatile, which means that the recorded image can be erased without leaving any traces. the sensor alone would be useless as it need a storage medium for the virtual image to be accessed. film has limits in the number of microscopic grains that record the image. a sensor also has a maximum amount of virtual grains that it can capture. the amount of virtual grains - pixels - that a sensor can records is referred to as the resolution of the camera. camera resolution is usually expressed in megapixels - one megapixel is one million pixels. by today’s standards, a decent camera will hold about 10 to 12 megapixels.