As
shown in the video “Silver & Light” (linked below), one man has turned his
passion into something entirely new. He
says the idea came to him after years of seeing the same, detailed but boring, camera models that everyone else had—and wanting to stray toward the road less
traveled.
In
the video, we see the invention of something considered impossible by many…a
camera that produces originals of large-frame film sheets. This may be difficult
to comprehend without some background knowledge on cameras.
“The basic technology that makes all of this possible is fairly simple. A still film camera is made of three basic elements: an optical element (the lens), a chemical element (the film) and a mechanical element (the camera body itself)” (Harris). The basic idea of a camera is this: 
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And the process within the camera then
looks a little something like this:
This
newly designed “camera” allows for the creation of large original prints, costing around $500 each just to make. Using natural
light, a large sheet of film, and photography‑specific liquid chemicals, a
large photograph can be captured. And no, success is not as simple as that for
the inventor of this method. As you can see from the documentary-style video,
he has worked long and hard with many failures to try and make his idea work.
His successes make it worth it to him.
I
really enjoyed learning of this man’s successes because it gives me hope that
technology is not entirely going to lead to the downfall of advancing the same
types of things, like computers and telephones. Cameras aren’t often thought of
as a key aspect of technology, but when looking at them more closely, we see
that that is almost entirely what they are. I can’t wait to read more about him
in the future and see when I finally masters this mechanism in a fool-proof
way.
Sources:
“Silver & Light.” http://vimeo.com/39578584
Harris, Tom. “How Cameras Work.” http://www.howstuffworks.com/camera.htm
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ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post, and the video. I thought it was very refreshing to see someone try something out of the box. The most recent trends have been for cameras and lenses to get smaller and smaller, like in our cell phones. His movement contradicts that trend, and also an exciting new approach to photography.
ReplyDeleteI thought this post was very interesting. There are always new inventions that can be made on products that already exist. And we have seen this throughout our lifetime with mobile phones. And normally these new trends involve the objects getting smaller in size; however he has done the opposite, and it has worked for him.
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