Camera Body Information from “Practical Photography”, March 2001, p.38

Requirement on the Materials  Opaque –don’t want your film to record undesirable light  Strength –to support the mechanism and lens  Durability – won’t fracture easily, won’t deform easily, won’t scratch easily, won’t corrode easily…  Weight – light but not too light  Cost – you know the answer, or don’t you?  Dimensional stability – the alignment and spacing of components must be kept at close tolerance  Processability – hundreds of operations are required for making the camera body

1839 The Daguerreotype Camera  The first commercial successful camera  Wooden box  Brass lens barrel and lens mount  No shutter  Focus with ground glass

1895 The Sanderson  Wood and rubberized cloth  Flexible bellow enables perspective control  Can be folded into smaller dimension for outdoor use

1900 The Brownie  Made with jute board  Small and light even for children  Can be made with very low cost (25p at that time)  The first to use 120 roll film

1925 The Leica I  The first 35mm camera  Hand made with brass with chromium plating and paint  Why use brass?  Do you know the shutter material?

1959 The Nikon F  Aluminium die-cast internal structure with brass top and bottom plates  Titanium shutter See this page as well

1985 The Minolta 7000  First AF camera  Al die cast internal stucture, with glass fiber reinforced polycarbonate external structure  How is GFRP compared with brass or zinc die- cast?

State of the Art  The internal structure is still mainly Al die-cast  High-end product: Ti- and Mg-alloy shell prevails  Consumer grade: polymeric materials are used widely