SCI-TECH & ENGINEERING
FIRST SELFIE
Robert Cornelius
(USA) took this self-
portrait in Oct 1839. It
is a daguerreotype –
an early photographic
process employing
an iodine-sensitized
silvered plate and
mercury vapour. He
would have had to
sit for up to 15 min to
allow the necessary
exposure time as he
posed in the back
yard of his family’s
lamp and chandelier
store in Philadelphia,
USA. On the back,
Cornelius wrote:
“The first light Picture
ever taken. 1839.”
On average, more photographs are taken every two minutes
today than were taken in the whole of the 19th century.
350 million
60 million
Total number
of photos taken
each year
€2.16 m
(£1.73 m; $2,8 m):
price paid for the most
expensive camera, a
prototype Leica 35-mm film
camera, on 12 May 2012
new photos are added
to Facebook every day
new photos are added
to Instagram every day
Fuji Velvia 35-mm
film pixel resolution
equivalent =
168 megapixels
12
168
LARGEST PANORAMIC IMAGE
As measured on 6 Aug 2015, the panoramic image with the highest
resolution comprises 846.07 gigapixels and shows the Malaysian
city of Kuala Lumpur in all its glory. It was created by Tan Sri Dato’
Sri Paduka Dr Lim Kok Wing and Limkokwing University of Creative
Technology (both MYS) in Kuala Lumpur. The image was taken from the
Kuala Lumpur Tower. A gigapixel is 1 billion pixels – more than 80 times
greater than the resolution of an iPhone 7 camera (see right).
FIRST...
Hoax photograph
In Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man (1840),
Hippolyte Bayard (FRA) shows himself slumped
to one side, as if he had committed suicide.
He created the image as a protest for never
receiving what he believed was his rightful
credit for inventing photography. Instead, the
process was attributed to Louis-Jacques-Mandé
Daguerre (FRA) and William Henry Fox Talbot (UK).
Durable colour photograph
James Clerk Maxwell (UK) first suggested a three-
colour method of producing a chromatic image
in 1855. On 5 May 1861, an image of three colour
separations of a tartan ribbon was created from
a photograph taken by Thomas Sutton (UK).
Underwater colour photograph
In 1926, National Geographic photographer
Charles Martin and Dr William Longley took
a colour shot of a hogfish (Lachnolaimus
maximus) in the Florida Keys, USA. Martin used
a specially designed waterproof camera housing,
and the scene was lit with magnesium flash
powder ignited on a raft on the water’s surface.
Orbital images of Earth
On 14 Aug 1959, orbiting at 17,000 mi
(27,358.8 km), NASA’s Explorer 6 satellite took
the first image of Earth. Its “camera” was a
scanning device with a small analogue electronic
processor called “Telebit”. It took 40 min to
transmit back to Earth the 7,000 pixels each
frame of an image comprised. The first image
was of the crescent Earth.
Image of bonds forming
in a chemical reaction
In May 2013, researchers at the US
Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory in California, USA, took
the first high-resolution images of carbon
atoms breaking and reforming
bonds in a chemical reaction.
The team were making
graphene nanostructures,
and used an Atomic
Force Microscope
(AFM) for close study.
LARGEST...
Digital image of the Moon
For four years, starting on 11 Dec 2011, NASA’s
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured
the north pole of the Moon in stunning detail,
using two Narrow Angle Cameras (NACs) and a
Wide Angle Camera (WAC). The LRO team created
a 680-gigapixel composite picture of the Moon’s
north pole region from a total of 10,581 images.
Photographic negative
A print called The Great Picture was created over
the nine months leading up to 12 Jul 2006 by
six photographic artists known as The Legacy
Project. It shows the control tower, buildings
and runways at the US Marine Corps Air Station
El Toro in Southern California, USA. Aided by
400 volunteers, artists and experts, the team
turned an old aircraft hangar into a giant pin-
hole camera. They applied 80 litres (21.1 US gal)
of gelatin-based silver halide emulsion to a
seamless canvas 111 ft (34 m) wide and 32 ft
(9.8 m) high. The image was developed using
2,300 litres (607 US gal) of developing fluid and
4,500 litres (1,188 US gal) of fixing solution.
Photograph
On 18 Dec 2000, Shinichi Yamamoto (JPN)
printed an image 145 m (475 ft 8 in) long and
35.6 cm (14 in) wide. It was taken from a negative
30.5 m (100 ft) long and 7 cm (2.75 in) wide,
created with a hand-made panoramic camera.
Print from a pre-digital film photograph
For the Diamond Jubilee of the UK’s Queen
Elizabeth II, a 100 x 70-m (330 x 230-ft) print
of a photograph taken of the Royal Family
during the Silver Jubilee was erected in front
of Sea Containers House in London, UK. Eight
specialists took more than 45 hr to position the
separate sections, finishing on 25 May 2012.
Number of Hasselblad
cameras left on
the Moon by Apollo
astronauts
12
1930: 1 bn
1960: 3 bn
1970: 10 bn
1980: 25 bn
1990: 57 bn
2000: 86 bn
2012: 380 bn
2015: 1 tr
2017: 1.3 tr (est.)
Photography & Imaging
It is a
measure of
the exceptionally
high resolution of the
panorama below that
the inset picture of a
building remains so
sharp, despite being
magnified to such
a great degree.
Q: What does the
word “photography”
mean literally?
A: “Drawing with light”
iPhone 7 =
12 megapixels