‘The Basic Camera’: A 1948 Film by the US Navy on Photography Basics

Want to see the state of cameras and photography back in 1948? Check out the 15-minute training film above, created by the US Navy in 1948. It’s titled “Fundamentals of Photography: The Basic Camera.”

The film offers an overview of how film cameras worked in that day, with the discussion starting with the “ancestor of all cameras”, the camera obscura.

After watching the above video, if you’d like to see how things advanced over the next 17 years, check out this 1965 video on the basics of photography by the US Army.