Instant Camera
The Polaroid Land camera or, because it is now known, the moment camera, is that the most ordinarily recognized invention of Edwin H. Land. A chemist and physicist, he revolutionized the amateur and professional photography industries by inventing and producing a camera that incorporates its own processing lab, producing finished prints in less than a minute.
The inspiration for his invention came in 1943 during a family vacation, when he snapped a photograph of his daughter. The three-year-old was impatient to see the results, and even as Land was explaining that she would have to wait, he was formulating the first plans for his instant camera.
Camera history (Auto focus camera)
The Konica company of Japan introduced the first camera that focuses itself. Instead of turning a ring on the lens and focusing by eye, with the Konica C35AF you simply point and shoot. As you press the shutter, the camera’s autofocus system takes over. Light rays entering the camera hit special separator lens that splits the image in two. The camera then calculates the distance between the two images. If they are not at the right distance, a motor in the camera body adjusts the focusing ring on the lens until they are –then the shutter opens and a perfectly focused picture is taken.
Digital cameras
Though they often appear as if traditional film cameras, digital cameras take pictures electronically. The image is captured by charge-coupled devices (or CCDs, light sensitive semiconductors) and generated as pixels then stored as a file. After the picture is taken, it can be immediately seen-there is no photo processing involved. Digital camera technology has been a boon to photo journalists and other professional photographers, and continues to make headway in the consumer market of the late 1990s. indeed, more than 2 million digital cameras were sold in 1997.
