Post Scripts: Camera advancements

One of my Father’s Day gifts was a neat very old wood carving of an old  man holding an old fashioned camera, and also on Father’s Day I saw the latest advancements in cameras which was an Apple iPad that my oldest grandson, Doug, owns.  I couldn’t believe all you could do with this gadget, which is very lightweight and you can easily hold in your hand.  He took a picture of Kathy and me and immediately put it on Facebook.  It does many things beside taking pictures and was mind boggling to this old man. We’ve gotten e-mails saying sent from my iPad, but hadn’t seen one. 

I read in a recent paper that Microsoft just announced their Tablet compared to the iPad built on its new Windows 8 operating system, which will roll out this fall.  Since this is way too much for me to comprehend, I’ll say no more about it, but I’ll keep watching the papers to see what comes next.  I got acquainted with the computer when I was still operating this newspaper, but more advancements keep coming along with it that it is too much for me to keep up with.

I still have an old Brownie box camera that was given to me when I was 12 years old by the Eastman Kodak Company in 1930, the 50th anniversary of the camera.  Every child who was 12 years old that year was eligible to receive one.  Of course you haven’t been able to buy film for it for many years, but it took hundreds of pictures. I wonder what it would be worth to a collector these days.

I received a very interesting item from my brother-in-law, Charles West, of Sedona, Ariz., with pictures by photographer Timothy O’Sullivan,  who had taken photos of the Civil War and after that accompanied explorers through Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah taking pictures of the land and people. He used a wet plate box camera, which he placed on a tripod to assemble, coating a glass plate with collodion, a flammable solution, placed in a holder and then the camera.  After a few seconds of exposure the plate was rushed to the covered wagon dark room and covered it with chemicals for development — certainly one of the very early cameras.   

I have owned a number of cameras in my life and have taken many pictures not only for personal and family collections but for the newspapers I have operated during my lifetime.  I still have my Nikon camera but not sure I can buy film for it.

I purchased a digital camera when they first came out but I never did enjoy operating it very much and still preferred my trusty Nikon. Old age could have had something to do with it.

I’ve always loved taking pictures and when I could afford it, I purchased one of the first movie cameras and have pictures in black and white, of our old dog, Lindy, and our cat, Sugar, along with mom and dad when they were a might young, too. It must have been in the late 30’s.  I have transferred it to a video tape and can still enjoy looking at them.

I have movies of when we got married in 1943 and by the time we had our first child, Kathy Ann, in 1946, color movies were available and we have her recorded doing all kinds of antics. Even bringing Cindy out of the hospital in 1949, is on film. All through their childhood and marriage and bringing us grandchildren, are also recorded on film, later converted to video.

Pictures of family gatherings and travels are also on film later on my Nikon Flash   Photography CamCorder, another advancement in movie cameras.  This, too, is outdated with something you can hold in one hand. Our great-grandchildren are now recorded with the iPad.

One wonders what comes next.  It’s exciting to contemplate.