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CAMERAS & THEIR VIEWING SYSTEMS

•!Essentially you need a camera or some sort of light tight box with an opening to make an image onto light sensitive material

•!The camera you buy depends on the image you wish to produce

•!What you produce with that camera depends on how you can control it

•!Cameras don t produce successful images, the user does

•!Before going out and buying the most expensive and newest camera on the market with all the bells and whistles, it is wise to make sure you are in control a fully manual camera


Film Camera Types:

•!Pinhole Camera •!Point and Shoot •!35mm SLRs •!Medium Format •!Large Format •!Rangefinder •!Plastic Cameras


Pinhole Cameras are the most rudimentary of cameras and can be constructed out of simple materials such as tins, boxes, black spray paint and aluminum. They can even be made out of found objects such as books, popcorn tins, cardboard boxes, eggs, etc. However, much more sophisticated pinhole cameras can be purchases.

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Medium format cameras: use 120mm and 220mm film and produce different image sizes depending on the camera being used.

The negative frame size ranges from 2 !” square, 6x7cm, 6x8cm, and 6x9cm.

Medium format cameras range from very expensive professional models to very basic plastic cameras.


The Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) camera has two lenses: one for viewing the scene and another just below it that exposes the film. A relatively large format (2.25” square) and a moderate cost are TLR’s advantages.

Its disadvantages are parallax error and a viewfinder image that is reversed left to right.

From: A Short Course in Photography, Barbara London & Jim Stone


Modern Medium Format cameras now have the ability to shoot both film and digital from the same camera body. Photographers using these cameras can now switch between digital and film formats anytime


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Large format cameras: utilize sheet film that ranges from 4”x5”, 5”x7”, 8”x10”, 11”x14” and larger.

Large format cameras are also called view cameras or field cameras and are called so depending on their use.


View Cameras have a lens in front, a ground glass viewing screen in the back, and a flexible, accordion like bellows in between. The camera’s most valuable feature is its adjustability; the camera’s parts cam be moved in relation to each other, which lets you alter perspective and sharpness to suit the scene. View cameras are, however, slow and rather inconvenient to use compared to smaller hand-held cameras.



Monorail mounted large format cameras such as this one are often used in studio situations for commercial images such as product photography where high detail and highly sharp images are needed

Field cameras like this one are more portable because they fold up to a much smaller size making it easier to carry and pack for travel. These cameras are used when the photographer needs to use large format on location.


The image on the viewing screen is upside down and it is usually so dim that you have to put a focusing cloth over your head and the screen to see the image clearly. When you want complete control of and image, the view camera’s advantages outweigh its inconvenience.


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Film Cameras are given a name based on the format or film size and by their viewing system

Film cameras named for their format of film size:

Small format cameras: normally use 35mm film and produce a 24mmx36mm image. We will be using 35mm film in this course


Small format cameras: have different types of viewing systems.

Two popular types of 35mm cameras that have different viewing systems are the Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera and the Viewfinder or Rangefinder camera. One other available model 35mm camera is the point and shoot, although not as popular with film lovers today.

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The Single Lens Reflex (SLR) shows you the scene directly through the lens, so you can preview what will be recorded on the film. You can see what the lens is focused on; Various interchangeable lens for SLRs are available. Automatic exposure is commonly available, as are automatic focus, flash, and film advance and rewind.

Most SLRs use 35 mm film. However, some use APS-C film.


BLACK AND WHITE FILM

The most important characteristic of film is that it is sensitive to light; it undergoes a physical change when exposed to light.

Light is energy, the visible part of the wavelength energy that exists in a continuum from radio waves through visible light to cosmic rays!


Silver halides are the light-sensitive part of the film. They respond primarily to blue and ultraviolet wavelengths, but dyes in the gelatin emulsion that holds the halides increase the film’s range of sensitivity. General purpose black and white films are panchromatic; they are designed to be sensitive to the wavelengths in the visible spectrum, so that the image they record is similar to that perceived by the human eye.




Film Speed Ratings: How sensitive a film is to light, that is, how much it reacts to a given quantity of light, is indicated by its film speed.

A high film speed is often useful: the faster the film, the less exposure it needs to produce an image. Fast films are often used for photographing in dim light or when a fast shutter speed is important. However, the faster the speed of the film the more grainy plus some decrease in contrast and loss of sharpness.

A low speed film is useful for getting smaller grain, thus creating finer detail in the print as well as more contrast.


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