Today, photographers and videographers have it easy – digital capabilities make it possible to review and alter photos and films instantly; and transporting equipment is a breeze with handheld devices. But remember the days when clear photos required still scenes and people had to stand motionless for up to 20 minutes? Or when video cameras weighed twice as much as the person carrying it?
Let’s review a few of the more notable times in Photography and Videography history to find out how we got where we are…
1826 – The first known fixed, permanent photography was taken by Nicéphore Niépce. This landscape photograph required an eight hour exposure!
1835 – William Fox Talbot creates his own photography process. A few years later he invents the positive/negative process used in modern photography.
1854 – The first greeting card was introduced! Known then as the carte de visite (French for “visiting card”), eight individually exposed images were reproduced on a single negative then cut apart and glued to calling card-sized mounts.
early camera
1861 – The first-ever color photograph is shown by James Clerk Maxwell.
1888 – Kodak introduces the first easy-to-use camera – the n1 box camera.
1891 – Thomas Edison invents and patents the first motion picture device. The kinetoscope (an early motion picture exhibition device) led way to the Kinetograph – the first motion picture camera. Movies were photographed via rapid stop-and-go film movements resulting in the appearance of fluid movement.
1901 – 120mm film is introduced by Kodak.
1914 – The first color dramatic feature film – The World, the Flesh and the Devil, is released.
1923 – Kodak introduced the first 16mm film as an inexpensive alternative to 35mm.
1926 – The first Motion Picture Duplicating film is invented to duplicate negatives. Previously, duplicates were only available if a second camera was also used.
1932 – Disney creates the first full-color movie cartoon, Flowers and Trees, in Technicolor.
8mm movie camera
1932 – For the first time, amateur 8mm movie film, cameras and projectors are available.
1934 – 135mm film is introduced specifically for still photography. The 135mm film cartridge also increased the ease of 35mm film and grew in popularity to surpass 120 film in the 1960s.
1948 – The first Polaroid instant image camera in unveiled by Edwin H. Land.
1952 – Dreams of 3-D film become reality…and the craze begins.
1957 – The first digital image on a computer is produced by Russell Kirsch.
SLR camera
1959 – Nikon introduces its first single-lens reflex camera (SLR), the Nikon F, to become the most advanced camera of its day.
1960 – EG&G develops an underwater camera that functions at extreme depths for the U.S. Navy.
1965 – Super 8 film is introduced by Kodak as an improvement of the “Regular” 8mm film format. Super 8 film allows the exposed area of the photo to be larger.
1968 – For the first time, a photograph of the Earth is taken from the moon.
1978 – The first point-and-shoot, autofocus camera is developed by Konica.
1980 – Sony introduces the first consumer camcorder.
digital camera
1984 – Canon releases the first digital camera – the first ever electronic still camera.
1985 – The first digital imaging processor is introduced by Pixar, innovatively using computer algorithms to perform image processing on digital images.
1990 – Kodak introduces the first Photo CD. The first of its kind, it allowed digital images to be stored easily.
2008 – Polaroid announces the discontinuance of instant film products, leading to surge in digital imaging technology.
Leave A Legacy is one of the few companies primarily built for our local customers who wish to transfer their old memories and convert them to a more modern format, such as VHS to DVD, slide scanning to DVD and transfer 8mm film to DVD. Images, such as photographs, slides, and negatives have been around for decades as a means for people to capture special moments. Often times, as we collect and take new pictures over the years, these images can begin to take up all sorts of space! In this new technological era, many of us would find it much easier to digitize the images onto a computer, and load them all onto a DVD or a hard drive. However, many people do not have the time to do this themselves, and instead opt to use a transfer or scanning service to accomplish it for them. Usually you would box your photos up, and ship them off to destinations unknown, and pray you get everything back. However, have you looked to see if there are more convenient local options available? Here are some of the benefits of keeping your media local.
Peace of Mind – Keeping your images local, and close to you will ensure that your media will not get lost in transit, or misplaced at any point during the shipping process. Since we, at Leave A Legacy, handle all of our orders directly in our offices, you’ll know where your precious media is at all times. Once you leave your memories in our hands, they will remain safe until you come in to pick up your new DVDs.
Customer Experience – Leave A Legacy is set up to allow one on one interactions with the image scanning technician working on your order. This starts with the initial order-taking process. If at all possible, we will match your image scanning order with the technician who will be doing the bulk of the work on the order. This same technician will also be contacting you throughout the transfer process to indicate when the order had been completed, or if any additional information is required. In turn, our customers are encouraged to contact their technicians through phone or email, if they think of anything else they’d like to add or otherwise change their initial order. This will help ensure that your order is processed to your exact specifications and details.
Fast Turnaround – When dealing with local companies, you will often get a much faster turnaround than if you were to mail it off to a processing facility. Depending on how much media you bring in, we can sometimes have your order finished within 24 hours. This alone will save you not only time, but massive shipping and handling costs.
Competitive Costs – While you may not find the extreme low costs you’d see from businesses employing the use of document scanners or third-world labor, Leave A Legacy has a competitive pricing structure, with nice discounts applied if you bring in more and more media.
Courtesy of: Alan Chase
Marsha, owner of Leave A Legacy as a guest on Tom Martino on May 4, 2010. Here, Tom and Marsha show examples of the types of media that they can work with at Leave A Legacy. They give ideas of different things that can be created from various old media (and new media for that matter). A video clip of an 8mm film transfer is shown. Several examples of graduation projects are shown including a photo mosaic, chocolate bar invitations, DVD slideshow and video montage, photo paper fans and a school days book.
Leave A Legacy now offers on-line video preview. This 
allows you to view your production – created from your video tapes, movie films, photos or slides – on your home or office computer. We connect your computer and our computer over the internet. You can watch what we play or while we make edits on our computer. You can hear the audio of your production over the phone.
We’ve had one client couple who previewed their production playing on our computer in Fort Collins while they each viewed it at their work computers at two different locations in the Denver metro area.
While a client previews their video production they see changes that they want made. Clients can either make notes as they watch or may talk to one of our team to tell them about needed changes.
At Leave A Legacy, we do our best to find convenient solutions to help you preserve your memories with digital creations. With on-line video preview of your video production you’ll know just how it will look when you take the final product home with you.
Movie film length is determined by the diameter (distance across) of the film on the reel. Many of the films that come to the Leave A Legacy studios are 3 inches across and on blue plastic reels. These are 50 feet long when they are full. The attached chart shows the length of film on different sizes of reels.
Music or narration is often added to DVD slideshows, silent films, and even used to replace audio in a video recording. It completes the production and adds another valuable effect to your creation!
We have 3 basic options for music
- Free music – we have royalty-free, instrumental upbeat background music in a variety of styles
- Your CDs – we can pull music off of your music CDs. We charge for only the time to add it in.
- We purchase music on line – we charge a small amount per song.
Leave A Legacy can transfer your regular 8mm film, super 8mm film and 16mm film directly to DVD. We have both an 8mm and a 16mm projector that have been modified and are mounted in line with a 1CCD digital camera. The camera captures the image from every frame of your film and sends it to a computer. read more
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