The
movie camera is a type of
photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of
film which was very popular for private use in the last century until its successor, the
video camera, replaced it. Many of these cameras today have become collectors items and there is a small but well organized group of fans of these devices who still use and maintain these cameras as hobby or a special interest, even if they went out of productions a long time ago. For professional purposes however, movie cameras are used and produced today, especially for the production of full feature movies. In contrast to a
still camera, which captures a single snapshot at a time, the movie camera takes a series of images; "frame". This is accomplished through an
intermittent mechanism. The frames are later played back in a
movie projector at a specific speed, called the "frame rate". While viewing, a person's
eyes and
brain merge the separate pictures together to create the illusion of motion.