A Fascinating Look at How Film Cameras Superimposed Dates on Photos

If you have ever shot with certain film cameras of the past, you have probably noticed that the prints came back to you with the date of capture superimposed on them in the bottom corner. It is a neat and very useful function, and this fun video will show you how cameras of the past made it happen.

Coming to you from Applied Science, this interesting video will show you how film cameras of the past superimposed the date of capture on the film (and thus on the prints). We sort of take it for granted in the digital age, but we did not always have the benefit of EXIF data to make it easy to comprehensively catalog our images. Back in the film days, you had to meticulously take notes on your shots to keep a good order in your personal catalog, otherwise, you could end up guessing at when and where a print was taken based on the image. For those who were using cameras more casually — family pictures, for example — it was often too tedious a process, which is what made something as seemingly simple as including dates on photos so tremendously useful. Check out the video above to see how it was done.