History and Technical Development
The earliest daguerreotype (invented 1839) photographic cameras did not have shutters, because the lack of sensitivity of the process and the small apertures of available lenses meant that exposure times were measured in many minutes. A photographer could easily control exposure time by removing and returning the camera lens' lens cap or plug.
However, as one increased sensitivity process replaced another and larger apertures lenses became available during the 1800s, exposure times shortened to seconds and then to fractions of seconds. Exposure timing control mechanisms became a necessary accessory and then a standard camera feature.
Read more about this topic: Focal-plane Shutter
Famous quotes containing the words history, technical and/or development:
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“... work is only part of a man’s life; play, family, church, individual and group contacts, educational opportunities, the intelligent exercise of citizenship, all play a part in a well-rounded life. Workers are men and women with potentialities for mental and spiritual development as well as for physical health. We are paying the price today of having too long sidestepped all that this means to the mental, moral, and spiritual health of our nation.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)