A History of Photography in Fifty Cameras

Fifty Things That Changed the Course of History

by Michael Pritchard

The history of photography is best revealed in the history of what makes it possible--the camera.

A History of Photography in Fifty Cameras explores the 180-year story of perhaps the most widely used device ever built. It covers cameras in all forms, revealing the origins and development of each model and tracing the stories of the photographers who used and popularized them. Illustrated throughout with studio shots of all fifty cameras and a selection of iconic photographs made using them, it is the perfect companion guide for camera and photography enthusiasts alike.

The cameras include:
* The Nikon F, the "hockey puck" that saved photographer Don McCullin's life when it stopped a sniper's bullet during the Vietnam War. Its indestructibility, reliability and interchangeable lenses made it a favored workhorse of photojournalists.
* The Leica M3-D was also favored by war photographers, including David Duncan Douglas, who used the camera during his coverage of the Korean and Vietnam Wars. In 2012, one of his four customized Leica cameras sold at auction for nearly $2 million.
* A Speed Graphic was used to take Sam Shere's widely published photograph of the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, "the world's most famous news photograph ever taken." With few shots left and no time to get the camera to his eye, he shot his Pulitzer Prize-winning image "literally from the hip. It was over so fast there was nothing else to do."
* The camera phone has transformed picture-taking technology most profoundly since the invention of cameras. The "selfie" has become a new genre of photography practiced by everyone, and shared globally. * In 2014, Ellen DeGeneres shared her selfie taken at the Academy Awards. By the end of the ceremony, it had been shared 2,070,132 times with no sign of stopping, crushing the record of 780,000 held by President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, for their 2012 post-election self-portrait.

Genres: Photography, History, Nonfiction, Art, Reference

224 pages, Hardcover

First published September 25, 2014

Reviews

[Nick L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Required reading for anyone interested in the history of photography

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was really awesome. If you have even a passing interest in photography, check this book out! It tells the history of still photography through profiling 50 cameras that changed or impacted the field of professional and amateur photography in some way. The camera profiles are technical enough for people who want to know tech specs, but also general enough to interest people who just want to learn a bit about the camera, who used it, why it was an important innovator. I liked learning the history of photography, but also some of the history of the camera making corporations and the ways they worked with each other or, in some cases, changed their focus when they didn't think they could compete with other corporations. Some of the cameras were made famous by famous photographers and photo journalists, and some of them are highlighted, as well. I found those stories interesting, too. It is a really fascinating book. The profiles are in chronological order by release date of the camera, but you don't have to read them all to get something out of this book. Great!

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pictures of 50 cameras with a brief but interesting history for each one. Most include examples of photos taken with the camera, info about the inventor, diagrams, etc.

Starting with a Giroux Daguerreotype and ending with a Nokia Lumina 1020 and the "rise of the selfie" this book would be interesting for wide variety of readers, whether you are into photography or not. I admit I primarily skimmed the book, but only due to lack of time, not interest.

Examples - 1853 Ottewill's double-folding camera (folds flat, sort of). The 1859 Sutton Panoramic (the first wide-angle lens). 1904 "Ticka" camera disguised as a pocket watch. The 1912 vest pocket Kodak - aka "The Soldier's Camera" encouraging the owners to "make your own record of the war."

Ending with an unsettling stat - "Of all phones in use today, 83 percent are camera phones, and more than 90 percent of all humans who have ever taken a picture have only done so on a camera phone." !!

[John Geary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and entertaining book. If you’re interested in the history of photography you will really enjoy this book. I find the early history of cameras particularly interesting and I didn’t actually realize that photography existed as early as 1839, but it did.
I also found it really interesting whenever I read about the development of cameras that I used myself, moving from the mid60s up to the current day.
One caveat: this book was published in 2015, I received it as a gift in 2019 and just got around to reading it this summer, so already some the information about modern cameras is a bit dated. It does get into digital cameras and the use of camera phones, but it doesn’t delve very much at all into the development of mirrorless cameras, which have become really the latest development in cameras the last few years.
One complaint about the book: some typos in it that can actually lead to some really misunderstood information if you’re not sharp enough to pick it up. Example: in the pages about the Kodak Instamatic, it mentions that photographer Annie Leibovitz photographed John Lennon and Yoko Ono just a few days before his assassination and some of the photos she took at that session “ended up on the January 1971 cover of Rolling Stone magazine.” That of course is impossible because he was assassinated in 1980. A quick check on Google shows that it was on a January 1981 cover of the magazine. Whenever I read a typo like that in a book I wonder how many other typos are in there that I didn’t pick up on because I wouldn’t have knowledge of the event.
Aside from that, the book has some amazing photos and stories about old cameras and what cameras were used to record significant moments in history. So from that perspective, it’s also a good book if you’re a history buff.

[Norman Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a better book than I expected it to be. It features the 50 cameras mentioned in the title, but also a large number of related cameras that derive from these 50, thereby really building the history.

As a collector, it was also fun to read about some of the cameras I own and start me thinking about some that I don't.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting details about camera history.

[Moni Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read! The only issue I had was that there were descriptions of famous photographs but no examples of them.

[Jbondandrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting collection of cameras used to illustrate the history of photography.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

The format here is to give a large illustration of a camera, describe it and and how it represents an innovation or trend, and then sidebars fill in some gaps. It's a nice history of photography; as someone who doesn't know a lot about photography, I found it understandable and interesting, especially the sidebars on various failed or unusual designs for cameras, the origins of "instant" photography, and the spy cameras.
Disclaimer: I got a free copy for review in a Goodreads "first reads giveaway". I am not sure I would have read this otherwise.

[Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating history of photography that focuses on the cameras. There are a few here I've used, many that I've seen or heard of, and a few I've never heard of before. There are many illustrations and stories that accompany the cameras. What's unbelievable now in the age of digital cameras and especially camera phones, is the massive number of photos that are being taken. Everyone is a photographer and many of us are also film makers. Of course my favorite is the Nikon F which has over 900 parts and more than 800,000 of them were manufactured.

[Verkakte]

I'm thrilled to have won a copy of this book from Goodreads Giveaway. Honest review to come once the book has been received.