From Point and Shoot to Mobile, How the Camera Has Changed Over Time

Smartphones make it easy for us to capture those special moments with the click of our camera app.

You don’t think twice about taking a selfie or shooting a few pictures of your toddler in dance class.

Your camera is always with you no matter where you go. Nowadays we take this for granted – Millennials know no different.

But, how did your parents or parents’ parents take their holiday snaps?

Just like apps such as the SURE Universal are replacing traditional remotes, smartphones and camera apps are replacing traditional cameras for the average consumer.

Let’s take a look at how the camera has changed over time.

Daguerreotype Cameras

The first practical piece of photographic camera was the Dageurreotype from Louis Daguerre in 1837.

The process of taking photos involved chemical reactions; a silver-plated piece of copper had a coating of light-sensitive silver iodide.

When this was exposed in the camera, an image was developed using mercury vapor and salt.

The structure of the camera looked more like a black box than an image capture device. It had a removable glass screen for manual focusing.

The Birth of Film

It wasn’t until Kodak entered the market did we see what many of us used to have developed after we returned from our summer vacation – film.

Film made its appearance in 1885. The inventor, George Eastman, sold the first ever box camera called the “Kodak.”

It came already loaded with film for 100 exposures and once it was used up, had to be returned to the factory for processing.

The First SLR Camera

What we know as a typical camera didn’t come into play until 1905 with the 35mm camera.

With some modifications and some advancement in film quality, the SLR – single-lens reflex camera – was born in 1933.

In the 1950’s, the Japanese broke into the market with their professional and sophisticated SLR cameras. Most popular was the Nikon and with its F and S series, they established the reputation we know today – professional quality cameras.

Instant Cameras

Do some of you remember Polaroid pictures growing up? You snap a picture and an undeveloped photo pops out. You had to wave it around and after a minute your picture appeared.

Well, the first version of this instant camera first appeared in 1948, but it wasn’t until the 1960’s when Polaroid became a household name. In fact, one of their earlier models – Model 20 Swinger – brought instant photography to the mass markets.

While the Polaroid version of a picture is now outdated, the idea behind it was completely innovative. The idea of instant photos is what modern technology is using in digital cameras and smartphones today.

The Dawn of Digital Cameras

Digital cameras didn’t appear until 1975, but the true digital camera that we know of today didn’t show up until the 1980’s.

Early models had a 2 MB SRAM memory card that needed batteries to keep the data in memory. Soon after, the arrival of JEPG and MPEG allowed the images and videos to be compressed for storage.

As more advances in technology occurred, the better digital cameras became. For example, one major advance – the adoption of CMOS sensors – is what helped the popularity of camera phones you see today.

Say Cheese!

Our smartphones make it easy for us to take pictures. As more advancements occur, the quality of camera phones will only continue to improve.

Of course there is still a place in this world for high-quality digital SLR and mirrorless cameras, but pretty soon, camera apps will be the norm for the everyday consumer.

Over to you – do you have a favorite point and shoot or digital SLR camera you still use, or do you mostly use your camera on your smartphone?