Box camera

A box camera is a simple type of camera, the most common form being a cardboard or plastic box with a lens in one end and film at the other. They were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The lenses are often single element designs meniscus fixed focus lens, or in better quality box cameras a doublet lens with minimal (if any) possible adjustments to the aperture or shutter speeds. Because of the inability to adjust focus, the small lens aperture and the low sensitivity of the sensitive materials available, these cameras work best in brightly lit day-lit scenes when the subject is within the hyperfocal distance for the lens and of subjects that move little during the exposure. Eventually, box cameras with photographic flash, shutter and aperture adjustment were introduced, allowing indoor photos.

The KODAK camera introduced in 1888 was the first "box" camera to become widely adopted by the public and its design became the archetype for box camera designs introduced by many different manufacturers. The use of flexible roll film meant that the cameras were light and portable and could be used without the encumbrance of tripods and the attendant difficulty of using glass photographic plates which were typical of earlier cameras. Before the introduction of the Kodak, photographers were responsible for making their own arrangements for the development and printing of their pictures. The first Kodak came pre-loaded with film and the customer returned the camera to Kodak for processing and to be reloaded with film for the customer. In 1900, a Yale plate box camera cost US $2 (about $58.00 in 2017 dollars). and a Kodak rollfilm box sold for US $1 (about $29.00 in 2017 dollars)

Although many cameras of the mid nineteenth century were wooden and "boxy" in appearance with a brass fitted lens on the front they should not be confused with the mass-produced box cameras that exploded in popularity after the introduction of the first Kodak.

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