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{% block heading %}<h4>
    <img src="{% static "svg/about.svg" %}" width="30" height="30" alt="About">
    About</h4>{%endblock%}

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<p>CameraHub is an app for cataloguing vintage cameras, lenses, films, negatives & prints. This page has extra
    background information about CameraHub.</p>

<h2>History</h2>

<p>CameraHub started out as a pet project of photographer and camera collector <a
        href="https://jonathangazeley.com/">Jonathan Gazeley</a>. He started using a
    MySQL database to track his cameras and lenses, and later his films, negatives and prints. As the database grew, it
    became more difficult to
    manage, so he wrote a set of helper scripts in Perl.
</p>

<p>Jonathan thought that this collection of Perl scripts and a database might be helpful to others, so the <a
        href="https://github.com/djjudas21/photodb-perl">PhotoDB</a>
    project was born. PhotoDB was a
    command-line app written in Perl which was able to to catalog cameras, lenses, accessories, films, negatives, prints
    and scans. It was also able to write EXIF tags (such as date/time stamps, geotags and data about the camera)
    to JPGs scanned from negatives, so they could be catalogued with any digital photo library. PhotoDB had a
    number of
    releases and was nearing feature-completion as an app. Despite the database backend being comprehensive, it had a
    fairly impenetrable command-line user interface that never
    achieved traction with the photography community. The source code for PhotoDB is still available, but development
    has ceased.
</p>

<p>CameraHub is the latest generation of the project. It uses the same database schema as PhotoDB but has a completely
    new user inteface, written in Python and
    Django as a web application, that allows it to be accessed on virtually any device and makes it easier for all
    photographers
    and collectors to track their collection.</p>

<h2>Other sites</h2>

<p>There are many websites with information about camera equipment but most of these sites have primarily text-based
    information - for example, the excellent <a href="http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Main_Page">Camera Wiki</a> resource.
    By contrast, CameraHub centres around
    numerical, normalised, structured data that allows easy searching and sorting and the modelling of relationships
    between equipment and images. Relational data allows CameraHub to do things like show you all lenses that work with
    a particular camera, or all pictures you took with a particular lens.</p>

<p>Another popular site is <a href="https://collectiblend.com/">CollectiBlend</a>, which offers a more data-oriented
    experience. However, it prioritises pricing information and doesn't include much data about the cameras and
    lenses themselves.</p>

<p>CameraHub also offers unique features for cataloguing films, negatives, prints and scans.</p>

<h2>Community</h2>

<p>With a project like CameraHub, building a community is key. CameraHub provides a platform, but it is useless without
    good quality data.
    This is where the community comes in - collectively gathering and entering data so everyone can benefit.</p>
<p>For example, you might buy a camera on eBay, wish to catalogue it, and find that it is not yet in CameraHub. You'd do
    some research online, enter it into
    CameraHub and add it to your collection. The next person who wants to catalogue the same camera wouldn't need to
    enter the data again - the camera you
    entered is available to everyone, and anyone can add it to their collection too.
</p>
<p>As well as the community around CameraHub itself, there is a <a
        href="https://www.facebook.com/camerahubapp/">CameraHub Facebook page</a> where you can keep up to date with
    news.</p>

<h2>Roadmap</h2>

<p>CameraHub is an evolving project. For a detailed look at current bugs and feature requests, check out the <a
        href="https://github.com/djjudas21/camerahub/issues">issue tracker</a>. Anyone can report bugs, request features
    and contribute code.</p>

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