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Frenchman Nicéphore Niépce produced the first permanent photograph of a view from nature. He uses the photosensitivity of bitumen of Judea. -
The invention of the daguerreotype by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre was announced in Paris. The first publicly announced photographic process, the daguerreotype, yielded unique and exquisitely detailed images. Harvard botanist Asa Gray collected daguerreotypes of his colleagues, including this portrait of his mentor John Torrey. -
William Henry Fox Talbot introduces the calotype, a further refinement of his negative-to-positive process. The calotype process greatly increased the negative's photographic sensitivity and reduced the camera's necessary exposure time to seconds. -
In London, James Clerk Maxwell demonstrated a projected color photographic image, using three different color filters. -
American Eadweard Muybridge develops a fast shutter that aids him in making photographs of objects in motion. -
George Eastman markets the Kodak No. 1 box camera with the slogan, “You press the button, we do the rest." -
Alta-Vista introduces the first mass-produced American panoramic camera. The first panoramic photographs appeared as early as 1845, but the Alta-Vista and the No. 4 Kodak Panoram, introduced in 1899, allowed amateurs to take small panoramas of no more than 12 inches using roll film and no tripod. -
A photographic method that allows images to be reduced or enlarged, known as the photostat, is introduced. -
ATT sends photographs by wire in an important step toward the invention of television. -
Zoomar introduced the zoom lens, which was the invention of American Frank Back. -
Edwin H. Land announces his invention of the Polaroid camera, which can develop images inside the camera in approximately one minute. -
Kodak introduced the Photo CD, the first method of storing digital images, to become available to the general public. -
