Have you ever wondered?

[classic33]

How did they get that picture?​

 

[Shut Up Legs]

1. another one of the same type of camera?
2. a sketch artist?
3. Doctor Who?

 

[classic33]

1. another one of the same type of camera?
2. a sketch artist?
3. Doctor Who?

1. So it'd be the second camera, not the first.
2. Looks like more like a photo than a drawing.
3. Would the Doctor leave anything behind?

 

[FrankCrank]

...obvious innit. An alien craft landed nearby to see what was occurring, and being an advanced life-form they naturally enough had some superior camera type devices on board, and took a few snaps. Then, just before departing they said to them there fellas 'here you go, have a few copies yourself'........I think I need to lie down now....

 

[Archie_tect]

It's not the first camera- though it might be the world's biggest camera.

 

[LinchPin]

A complex series of mirrors.

 

[classic33]

It's not the first camera- though it might be the world's biggest camera.

Don't think its the largest.

 

[Gravity Aided]

If I recall correctly, that was a special camera built for a railroad, the Chicago and Alton, which was absorbed by the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio, then merged with Illinois Central, then the line was Chicago, Missouri and Western, then Southern Pacific, now Union Pacific. This camera was used to take a picture of the entire consist of The Alton Belle, a passenger train operating between Chicago and St. Louis. Railfan lore gives me an alleged exact spot for this photograph,Brighton Park, near Chicago. That is the size of the camera, no fakery involved.

By no means the first camera.
http://robroy.dyndns.info/lawrence/mammoth.html
This article claims the picture was taken in Brighton Park, but other reports have it near Normal. It may be hard to say, been 115 years ago. Eight by Four and a half foot plates. That is a large format.

Picture, taken for the Paris Exhibition of 1900.

another shot, closing the camera

Here's a pdf of the book about it, made at the time.
http://www.pacificrimcamera.com/milanpub/Alton-Limited.pdf

 

[ayceejay]

Does that camera still exist?
Could I take a photo of it on my DSLR?
Could I have taken a picture of it the day after it was made on a camera I had just made that day?
Would any of this change its status as the first camera made?

 

[Nigel-YZ1]

It's a shame everyone got distracted and looked to the right just as the picture was taken too...

 

[Gravity Aided]

This is an old Daguerre camera, circa 1839. The above picture of the railroad camera was taken in 1900.

This is being sold on an auction site as the world's first camera, but there were ones before it.
in 1835, William Henry Fox Talbot took this picture, oldest extant photograph.

 

[Piemaster]

@Gravity Aided The volume and diversity of trivia and knowledge on here has long ceased to surprise me. Seems that someone on CC knows something about anything you can think of.

 

[classic33]

It's a shame everyone got distracted and looked to the right just as the picture was taken too...

Its supposed to be a picture of people at work though.

 

[Dayvo]

I think the chicken took it. Or maybe it was the egg.