Baby It's You Trivia Quiz

Answer: Up to five minutes, less in bright sunlight

While some simple images could be produced in a matter of 10 seconds or so in very bright sunlight, getting all the detail necessary for a portrait required longer exposures, usually on the order of three to five minutes, depending on the brightness of the light. The polished silver plate was coated by passing it through the fumes given off by iodine (or bromine or chlorine, or a sequence of them) in darkness to produce a photosensitive coating of silver halide. It was then carefully covered as it was carried outside to where the camera had been set up, and placed in position. Removing the lens cap from the camera started the exposure. When finished, the photographer sealed the plate again in a lightproof container and took it inside, where the image was made clearer (developed) by exposure to fumes from heated mercury. The plate then was placed in a solution to remove any residual silver halide, so the image became 'fixed'. The solution originally used by Daguerre was heated sodium chloride (table salt), but sodium thiosulfate became the more common choice for fixing the image.

Most daguerrotypes are mirror images of the original subject, since it was tedious (and increased the necessary exposure time) to add the mirrors or prisms necessary to reverse the image again inside the camera. Although the exposure times for daguerrotypes may seem long to us, they were a distinct improvement on the eight hours needed by Joseph Nicephore Niepce in 1827, when he made the first permanent images using a camera obscura (pinhole camera).

Answer: Calotype

The production of positive images made portrait photography appeal to a wider audience, as it was possible to produce multiple prints from a single photographic session. Adolphe Disderi took this even further, with the 'carte-de-visite'. He devised a camera that could take multiple images at once, and then printed them eight to a page. Each printed page was then cut up to produce eight calling-card-sized photographs.

When Disderi produced a set of these cards for Emperor Napoleon III in 1859, they quickly became the height of fashion, a trend that spread through Europe and North America.

Answer: Ambrotype

The ambrotype process, an immediate precursor to tintypes, used dark glass coated with an emulsion. The emulsion produced a negative image, but seen against the background of the dark glass, that color intensity was reversed, giving a positive image. This method was quickly superseded by the use of iron coated with dark enamel as the backing for the emulsion - the metal was stronger, lighter, more durable, and less expensive than glass. Tintypes moved portrait photography out of the studio and into public spaces - a booth in which to have your picture taken was a common sight at fairs and traveling carnivals, as was the sidewalk photographer who offered to take your picture in areas with a lot of holidaymakers or tourists.

The name melainotype refers to the dark enamel coating and ferrotype to the iron base, but tintype became the term of common usage, despite the fact that tin was not involved in the process. Like daguerrotypes, almost all tintype photographs were actually mirror images of the original.

Answer: George Eastman

Eastman's first camera held a 20-foot long roll of photographic paper, enough for 100 pictures. After they had been taken, the entire camera was sent back so that the photographs could be processed; the camera was then reloaded with film and sent back to the customer.

As the Kodak marketing slogan said, "You press the button, we do the rest." In 1889 Eastman replaced the paper with film - the photographic emulsion was mounted on a roll of cellulose nitrate, which meant that it was possible to transport just the film, rolled up inside a light-proof canister.

It was also possible for amateur photographers to develop and print their own photos, if they were so inclined. The box camera became a part of family gatherings and holidays, as people started to record the moments they wanted to remember using this new technology, and the snapshot entered popular culture.

Answer: Full color photographic image

Monochrome photography, often referred to as black-and-white, is generally based on the reaction between silver halides and light, which means that the image is composed of shades of grey. The stability of the image was improved by treatment of the paper on which the print was made with sepia (producing a reddish-brown range of colors) or selenium (producing a silvery range of colors). For those who could afford it, an artist could be hired to paint a photographic image with watercolors, to make them more realistic. However, the Lumieres produced the first commercial film that produced actual color photographs. The glass plate was first coated with a sticky substance such as pitch, to hold things in place; a layer of potato starch grains (roughly 10 microns in diameter) which had been dyed red, blue and green before being thoroughly mixed to look grey to the naked eye was spread thinly on the plate, then lampblack was dusted over to fill in any gaps between the grains of starch; this was covered with shellac, so that the water in the emulsion layer to follow would not damage the starch; a gelatine layer containing panchromatic photosensitive chemicals finished it off. Panchromatic chemicals reproduce all frequencies of light accurately, unlike simple silver halides, which are more sensitive to the blue end of the spectrum than to the lower-frequency colors. Their use allowed the production of realistic colors, although the images were often fuzzy, due to the roundness of the starch grains.

While the autochrome process was able to produce lifelike color photographs, its extensive filtering of the light meant that exposure times were quite long, so the convenience of hand-held cameras was sacrificed. They were quite popular for formal studio photographs, but not for family photos. That had to wait until 1936, when Kodak produced a color film roll that could be used in the same cameras as those using their black-and-white films.

Answer: Polaroid

In 1932 Land and an associate established the Land-Wheelwright Laboratories, renamed Polaroid in 1937. They produced research in many areas, one of which was the Land camera, which used a self-developing film to give 'instant' photos (in less than a minute, amazing for the time). The film was multi-layered; after exposure, it was pulled out of the camera between two rollers that squeezed the negative and positive sheets together, releasing the reagent that transferred the image; count to sixty, and it was time to peel the layers apart and see your print. The first cameras went on sale in November of 1948, hoping that seasonal shopping would allow all sixty of them to be sold before Christmas; so appealing was the concept that they sold out in the first day!

The original process only produced black and white images; color Polaroid film was developed in 1963. Polaroid cameras (the Land part of their name was dropped after Land retired in 1982) stayed in production until Polaroid decided to drop all film technology and become completely digital in 2008.

Answer: Instamatic

The Instamatic camera used a new film, called the 126, which came in a plastic cartridge that simply had to be placed in the camera - none of the hassle of getting the roll of film wrapped around the spools and advanced to the proper position associated with earlier cameras such as the box Brownie.

This also allowed the camera itself to be simpler and cheaper to produce, since fewer moving parts were needed. The early models had fixed shutter speed, aperture and focus - this made them simple to use, but not much good for serious photography. Still, since most people wanted their cameras for snapshots to be used as mementos of special events and not for 'artistic' work, they were massively popular, and most camera companies produced similar cameras. Later models allowed the user the option of varying degrees of control over the process, as opposed to simply accepting the automated setup.

The last Instamatic in the US was marketed in 1988. By then, the disposable camera introduced by Fuji in 1986 was taking over the snapshot market.

Answer: Photoshop

Photoshop has become the industry standard for image-manipulation programs, and is used by professionals as well as by amateurs who just want to touch up their photos (not always to remove imperfections - humorous effects are immensely popular, too). It allows you to crop a photo (removing unwanted buts around the edges), change the color or brightness of a specified area or the entire photo, retouch the photo, add text, cut the photo into pieces and rearrange them, and much more. Photoshop could originally only be used in a Macintosh computer, but today has versions for PCs and tablets.

When Photoshop was first released, most images were analog, and had to be scanned to produce a digital image suitable for manipulation. The increased popularity of digital cameras has increased its appeal for the casual photographer.

Answer: Sony Mavica

The Sony Mavica, first produced in 1981, was not digital; it was an analog electronic camera that effectively took video movie footage but recorded the footage in single frames on a 2" magnetic floppy disc. The digital cameras of the 90s came in a range of qualities, from those suited to the Instamatic fan to those appropriate for the professional photographer. These cameras recorded images on a storage device called a memory card; the first camera to use a CompactFlash memory card, currently the most popular for high-end users, was the Kodak DC-25 in 1996. The first digital camera to have an LCD display on the back so you could quickly see your photo was the Casio QV-10. The Ricoh RDC-1 is thought to have been the first digital camera with the facility to record video footage as well as still shots. The pace of technological development in the area means that similar technologies were being developed around the world along a very similar timeline, so some of these 'firsts' are also claimed by other companies.

The popularity of digital cameras was influenced by several features, including the fact that digital images are easily manipulated and can be quickly transmitted electronically. They are also easier to store and look up than are images printed on paper. Many also like the fact that they can see immediately whether a particular shot was successful, so don't need to waste time taking a lot of photographs in the hope that at least one will turn out as desired.

Answer: Selfie

Taking a picture of yourself (or getting someone else to take it for you) has been popular ever since camera use became widespread - think of all those tourists holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, wandering around the Beefeaters at Buckingham Palace or leaning over the edge of the Grand Canyon. The rise of social media in the early years of the 21st century created a new market for posting pictures of yourself that go well beyond the traditional holiday slide show. Early selfies were often taken using a mirror, and often were of poor quality. The introduction of the phone camera, which allowed the user to readily take a shot of themselves as they held the camera at arm's length changed that, although most selfies are still of little artistic merit, to put it mildly. Still, you can easily share pictures of yourself with friends on the other side of the world, which is useful for families and friends who are not near each other.

The first camera phone was a J-Phone released in Japan in 2000. Since then, camera phones have sold like wildfire, since almost all mobile/cell phones are now camera phones. In 2003 they first outsold stand-alone digital cameras, and their market share has continued to grow. In 2011 over a quarter of all the pictures taken in the world were estimated to have been made on camera phones.