The Daguerreotype Camera of 1839 is a photographic landmark. It introduced the first practical method for taking a photograph. Except that what is generally acknowledged as the first photograph was actually taken thirteen years before with a different type of camera. The Leica was the first camera to make the 35mm format popular, but it was by no means the first camera to use 35mm film. Likewise, Polaroid wasn't the first to produce an instant picture camera but was, surprisingly, the first company to introduce an autofocus single lens reflex. The history of the camera is flush with similar anomalies. This lavishly illustrated book with over 460 pictures looks at the cameras that became landmarks and analyses how and why they influenced future design ? sometimes in a big, important manner, other times in a lesser but still significant way. AUTHOR: John Wade has written and illustrated numerous articles on camera history for photographic, antique, and collectors' magazines in the UK, America, and Australia and has written, edited, or contributed to more than 30 books on photographic history and techniques. SELLING POINTS: ? A detailed examination of 50 cameras, each a major landmark of its time ? More than 460 pictures chronicle models from 1839-1991 and the styles and trends they influenced ? Victorian era portrait photographers would clamp the heads of their subjects during long exposures 425 colour, 37 b/w, 10 charts, graphs and drawings
