View Camera Technique, 7th Edition

1View Cameras

1.1 View Cameras

Modern view cameras are the descendants of many generations of large-format cameras, dating back to the birth of photography in 1839 with the introduction of the daguerreotype process. The first commercially manufactured daguerreotype camera, designed by Daguerre and manufactured by Giroux in 1839, was a two-part wood box with the lens mounted on the outer front box and the ground glass attached to the inner back box, which could be moved back and forth to focus the image (Figure 1-1). A pivoted disk in front of the lens served as a shutter, and a 45° mirror behind the ground glass provided an upright but laterally reversed reflection of the inverted ground-glass image.¹

The desire on the part of photographers ...