Rest’’ and a preloaded roll of film that recorded
100 images. Film and unopened camera were sent
back to the factory in Rochester for processing. It
was the beginning of the family snap shot, and its
simplicity made the camera a household item.
The Kodak Brownie followed in 1900, along
with a host of competing manufacturers of small
cameras for the amateur market. It was another 25
years, however, before the development of a 35-mm
precision camera capable of sharp focus, variable
shutter speeds, and low light exposures. This cam-
era, the Leica, was introduced by Oskar Barnack,
head of the experimental department at the E. Leitz
German Optical Works in 1925.
Following World War II, color film and the large
choice of small, easy to load and use cameras put a
modern camera on everyone’s wish list, but the
rangefinder 35-mm and the increasingly popular
single lens reflex 35-mm cameras, introduced
shortly after the war, still presented technical chal-
lenges to most amateur photographers.
Auto-exposure was the first breakthrough. Built-
in light meter systems coupled with electronically
controlled shutters set the shutter speed, depending
on the photographer’s choice of aperture. In 1977
Konica introduced the first 35-mm compact cam-
era with auto-focus and auto-exposure. By the
1990s easy to load film handling, automatic film
speed settings, automatic end of the roll rewind,
dedicated flash units, zoom lenses, and ultra light-
weight compact designs for 35-mm point-and-shoot
cameras dominated the amateur market.
Depending on the camera model, there are two
systems of auto-focus to choose from: passive or
active. In the active system, a beam of light, usually
infrared, is emitted from a small opening near the
lens and provides the lens with the distance from the
subject (as determined by the object in the center of
the viewing screen) to the camera. The lens automa-
tically adjusts the focus. This is an effective system in
low light, or on a foggy day, but if the subject is
behind glass or the beam strikes falling snow, the
system fails to focus on the subject.
In a passive system, used frequently on point and
shoot cameras with zoom lenses and on auto-focus
SLRs, sensors are located behind the lens. These
sensors measure both horizontal and vertical bands
of the subject and can be more accurate, particu-
larly in a landscape situation. They depend on con-
trast to work properly. Therefore, a single tone or
color (for instance, a field of snow) will be difficult, if
not impossible to focus. In some more expensive
point and shoots, an active ‘‘assist beam’’ is avail-
able for these situations.
In these fully automated cameras, the auto-expo-
sure and the auto-focus function together when the
subject is placed in the center of the viewing screen
and the shutter is pressed half way down. Light
meter sensors, located on the body of the read the
areas from several ‘‘zones’’ in the image. These
meters average the exposures of the different zones
to match an eighteen percent gray card, but gener-
ally give greater priority to the center of the viewing
screen. Known as center-weighted, this kind of
meter is good for subjects in a landscape or backlit
(light falling on the subject is less that the light
behind the subject).
Some center-weighted meters are balanced with
additional metering systems, such as spot meters.
Spot meters measure very specific areas, rather
than averaging the entire image. Usually, there is
a mode or a combination of modes to press to
utilize this type of metering.
Continuing to press halfway down on the shutter
locks in focus and exposure. This allows the photo-
grapher the opportunity to adjust exposure and
arrange the composition by moving the camera to
a different angle or view. Warning lights indicate if
there are problems with these functions.
The lenses on these cameras are ‘‘fixed,’’ that is,
they are not removable. The range of lens choices,
however, continues to grow, with zoom lenses a
top consumer choice. These little multifocal lens
generally range from from wide-angle 35-mm to
the telephoto 145-mm, or higher. A shortcoming
of these lens is an aperture range that is rather
limited and difficult to use in low light situations.
Small but powerful built-in dedicated flash units
have been developed to ameliorate this limitation.
They can be quickly employed as fill-flash for
backlit subjects on a sunny day or as full flash in
low light situations. Many of these cameras also
come with a night mode or slow sync flash. In this
mode, the flash goes off and the shutter remains
open, often for as long as a second, to record the
ambient light.
A large choice of films and film speeds are avail-
able for 35-mm point and shoots. APS point and
shoots, however, are far more limited. Film is easily
dropped in and speed is read from the DX code on
the canister. If the code does not function, these
cameras default to a film speed of ISO 100. The
film automatically rewinds after the last shot. The
ease of these cameras, their low cost, and their
precision functions have once again put cameras
in the hands of amateurs, just as George Eastman’s
Kodak No. 1 did in 1888.
KAYKennyCAMERA: POINT AND SHOOT