How Camera's Work

_At my age, taking pictures is a common hobby. We snap some shot, we flip through tens of pictures we took maybe just minutes before, we might even be posing for the camera with just a timer set to flash. What we never really do is think about how this contraption that continues to get physically smaller but with a bigger storage capacity works. With three basic elements, a "simple" machine can collect and store memories to keep for infinite amount of time. An optical element, more commonly known as the lens, combines with a chemical film strip and a mechanical body structure. _A lens, as my class recently learned with out microscope test, is nothing more then a curved piece of glass (or sometimes plastic.) In the case of the camera, the lens captures light reflecting of objects and composes it to form a picture. This may be even more confusing but like anything, as light travels, its changes speed when switching from one medium to another. You might find it harder to run in the sand as apposed to running on pavement. When light transfers to glass from air it slows down. The curves in the glass allow the light to bend so all the aspects of the image can come together. _When the camera zooms in and out, the angel of light entry changes. If the object is close to the camera, then a sharper angel is applied. In contrast, the farther the object is the more obtuse the angels will be. As the light enters on an acute angel, it exits on an obtuse angel. Likewise when its enters on an obtuse angel it leaves on an acute angel. The bending point although stays the same no matter what distance is between the two. Whats really weird is how a real image of a closer object forms farther away from the lens then a more distant image does. This is what causes an image to be blurry. You want the picture to line up perfectly on the film rather then be to far or to close. Luckily with modern technology we have knobs and buttons to make it easier for us to focus our pictures. _After an image is captured, it prints itself onto a chemical strip with microscopical light sensitive grains. A colored image is exposed to more chemicals the dye of red, green and blue which layer on top of each other. As for black and white pictures, the areas that light was most brandished turned negative/darker. Now with digital cameras, film is saved on a tiny, miniature hard drive located inside the machine. _Its truly amazing how far technology has come. Although it is taken advantage of, cameras are considered a very important part of history. Next time my friends and i waste time with our unofficial photo shoots we'll keep in mind how phenomenal the contraption is. Cite: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/camera.htm