Cameras Trivia
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99 free Cameras trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This cameras trivia quiz follows the machine itself from the dark chamber described by Ibn al-Haytham and named by Kepler, through Niépce's first permanent photograph and the silver-plated daguerreotype, to the box that George Eastman named with an Anagrams set and the $1 Brownie that invented the snapshot. It covers the great designs of the 20th century: Barnack's 35 mm Leica, the Rolleiflex, the pentaprism SLR, the Nikon F in Vietnam, Hasselblads on the Moon, the Argus 'Brick', the Instamatic cartridge and Edwin Land's instant Polaroid. The second half is the digital era: the CCD that won a Nobel Prize, the 8-pound Kodak prototype that took 23 seconds per picture, Sony's floppy-disk Mavica, the first camera phones in Japan, mirrorless cameras, GoPro's surf-trip origins and Kodak's bankruptcy. Around a third of the questions are easy; the rest are for camera-club members and gear obsessives. Our photography quiz covers the photographers and their pictures. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the history of the camera and the companies and models named, and each explanation adds one more detail.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In a lens aperture setting such as f/2.8, what does the letter f stand for?
Focal length
The f-number is the lens's focal length divided by the aperture diameter, so f/2.8 means an opening 2.8 times smaller than the focal length.
Q 02Which 11th-century scholar analysed the camera obscura in his Book of Optics?
Ibn al-Haytham
Ibn al-Haytham, working in Cairo around 1021, analysed pinhole images in his Kitab al-Manazir (Book of Optics), showing that light travels in straight lines from each point of a scene.
Q 03Which astronomer's 1604 book contains the earliest known use of the term 'camera obscura'?
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler coined the term 'camera obscura' in his 1604 optics treatise Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena (Astronomiae Pars Optica), which analysed how pinhole images form.
Q 04Who made the first permanent photograph from a camera image, in 1826?
Nicéphore Niépce
Nicéphore Niépce made View from the Window at Le Gras at his estate near Chalon-sur-Saône, exposing a bitumen-coated pewter plate for many hours in a Chevalier box camera.
Q 05A daguerreotype image was made on a polished sheet of what?
Silver-plated copper
A daguerreotype was made on a silver-plated copper sheet, polished to a mirror and sensitised with iodine fumes; the latent image was then developed over mercury vapour.
Q 06What did the French government do with the daguerreotype process on 19 August 1839?
Gave it 'free to the world'
On 19 August 1839 France, which had bought the daguerreotype rights in exchange for state pensions, gave it 'free to the world'; Daguerre separately patented it in England.
Q 07George Eastman's first camera, the Kodak of 1888, came pre-loaded with film for how many exposures?
100
The 1888 Kodak came loaded with a roll for 100 exposures; the whole camera went back to the factory for developing and reloading: 'You press the button, we do the rest.'
Q 08How did George Eastman come up with the name Kodak?
With his mother, using an Anagrams set
He loved the letter K, calling it 'a strong, incisive sort of letter'.
Q 09Kodak's Brownie box camera of 1900 was named after characters created by which writer?
Palmer Cox
It cost $1 and more than 150,000 shipped in the first year.
Q 10What was the launch price of the original Kodak Brownie in the United States?
$1
The Brownie sold for $1, with a six-exposure roll of film for 15 cents, a cardboard box camera that put snapshots within reach of children.
Q 11Kodak's Instamatic cameras, launched in 1963, made loading easy by using what?
Film cartridges
The Instamatic took drop-in 126 film cartridges, so there was no threading; more than 50 million were made by 1970, and the later 110 Pocket Instamatic used a smaller cartridge.
Q 12Oskar Barnack built the Ur-Leica prototype around which format, borrowed from the movies?
35 mm cine stock
Oskar Barnack's 1914 Ur-Leica ran 35 mm cine stock horizontally, doubling the movie frame to 24×36 mm; the production Leica I went on sale in 1925.
Q 13The name Leica is a blend of which two words?
Leitz and camera
Q 21In which country is Hasselblad based?
Sweden
Hasselblad is based in Gothenburg, Sweden; Victor Hasselblad's company grew from a German aerial camera captured by the Swedish military in World War II, and DJI took a controlling stake in 2017.
Q 22The name Canon derives from what?
The bodhisattva Kannon
Canon comes from the bodhisattva Kannon, the Buddhist deity of mercy: the company's 1934 prototype was named the Kwanon, and the Canon trademark was registered the following year.
Q 23Which 1976 Canon was the world's first camera with an embedded microcomputer?
The AE-1
The Canon AE-1 of 1976 was the first SLR with a built-in CPU, which ran its shutter-priority auto exposure; it sold in the millions and brought SLRs to a mass market.
Leica blends Leitz and camera: Ernst Leitz's Wetzlar firm, which took over Carl Kellner's optical institute in 1869, put its name on Oskar Barnack's compact design.
Q 14How much did a Leica 0-Series camera fetch, including premium, at a June 2025 auction?
About €7.2 million
Leica 0-Series No. 112, one of roughly 25 pre-production cameras built in 1923, sold for about €7.2 million with premium in June 2025, second only to the €14.4 million paid for No. 105 in 2022.
Q 15Which 1954 model from Wetzlar introduced the bayonet M mount and a combined viewfinder?
The M3
The M3 of 1954 introduced the M bayonet mount and a single bright-line viewfinder that also served for focusing, replacing the two-window design of the earlier screw-mount bodies.
Q 16Which German twin-lens reflex, launched in 1929, became the template for later TLRs?
Franke & Heidecke's Rolleiflex
Franke & Heidecke's Rolleiflex of 1929 shot 6×6 cm frames on roll film and was copied by dozens of makers; its waist-level finder shows the scene reversed left to right.
Q 17Which optical component lets an SLR show an upright, laterally correct image in its eye-level viewfinder?
A roof pentaprism
A roof pentaprism flips the focusing-screen image so it appears upright and the right way round at eye level; the Contax S of 1949 was among the first SLRs to use one.
Q 18What was the first integrated 35 mm SLR to reach the market, in 1936?
The Kine Exakta
Ihagee's Kine Exakta of 1936, made in Dresden, reached shops before the Soviet Sport, which was prototyped in 1934 but sold only from 1937 with its own cartridge.
Q 19The Nikon F of 1959 was widely adopted by photojournalists covering which war?
Vietnam
The rugged Nikon F became the standard camera of photojournalists covering Vietnam in the 1960s; NASA astronauts also carried it, and the F2 succeeded it in 1971.
Q 20Hasselblad's medium format cameras are most famous for their use on which programme?
The Apollo Moon landings
Hasselblad 500EL data cameras recorded the Apollo Moon landings; NASA had first flown a Hasselblad on Wally Schirra's Mercury mission in October 1962.
Q 24The Argus C3, sold in the United States from 1939 to 1966, was nicknamed what?
The Brick
The boxy, heavy Argus C3 was nicknamed 'the Brick'; over 2 million were made in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Colin Creevey carries one in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Q 25Which 1916 model was the first camera marketed with a coupled distance-measuring focus aid?
The 3A Kodak Autographic Special
The 3A Kodak Autographic Special of 1916 was the first camera sold with a coupled distance meter: turning the focusing dial aligned a split image in the finder, sixteen years before the German compact rivals of 1932.
Q 26What prompted Edwin Land to invent the instant camera in the 1940s?
His daughter asked why she couldn't see a photo at once
He said he had the idea within an hour of three-year-old Jennifer's question in Santa Fe.
Q 27Polaroid's Model 95 Land Camera, the first commercial instant camera, went on sale in which year?
1948
The Model 95 went on sale on 26 November 1948 at the Jordan Marsh department store in Boston, and the first batch sold out the same day.
Q 28What was Polaroid's original product line before cameras?
Polarised sunglasses
Polaroid began in 1937 selling polarising filters and polarised sunglasses made from Land's sheet polariser, long before it built an instant camera.
Q 29Which 1972 Polaroid was the first to eject the print automatically, with no tab to pull?
The SX-70
The SX-70 of 1972 ejected its integral-film print by motor and let it develop in daylight; its folding single-lens-reflex body became a design classic.
Q 30How much was Kodak ordered to pay Polaroid after losing their instant-camera patent battle?
$909.5 million
Polaroid had asked for $12 billion; Kodak was forced to quit instant photography.