-
A device used by artists in the 17th and 18th centuries in aid in drawing, by the beginning of the 19th century the camera obscura was ready with little or no modification to accept a sheet of light sensitive material to become the photographic camera.
-
Patented in 1806 by William Hyde Wollaston, the camera lucida (actually a reinvention of a device clearly described 200 years earlier by Johannes Kepler in his Dioptrice (1611)) performs an optical superimposition of the subject being viewed on the surface on which the artist is drawing
-
In France the Niepce brothers initiate experiments to create images using light-sensitive materials
-
Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833) a French doctor, produces the world’s first photograph using pewter plates in a camera obscura. Exposure was around eight hours.
-
Back in England, Talbot develops a “photogenic drawing process”, by creating a negative image on paper using sodium chloride and silver nitrate.
-
Daguerre’s new process is
announced to the French Academy of Sciences, without revealing the details
and Daguerre seeks to have the French government buy the rights to his discovery. -
After hearing about Daguerre’s experiments, Talbot hurriedly prepares and presents papers at the Royal Institution and the Royal Society. Unlike the Daguerre process the image is recorded as a “negative” and has to be printed via a similar process to produce the final “positive”. Many positive prints can be made from a single negative.
-
Richard Beard opens his public portrait studio for Daguerreotypes on the roof of the Royal Polytechnic Institution in London.
-
First advertisement with a photograph made in Philadelphia
-
Frederick Scott Archer invented the Collodion process - images required only two or three seconds of light exposure.
-
Panoramic camera patented - the Sutton.
-
Oliver Wendell Holmes invents stereoscope viewer.
-
Photographs and photographic negatives are added to protected works under copyright.
-
Richard Leach Maddox invented the gelatin dry plate silver bromide process - negatives no longer had to be developed immediately.
-
Eastman Dry Plate Company founded.
-
George Eastman invents flexible, paper-based photographic film.
-
Eastman patents Kodak roll-film camera.
-
Reverend Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film.
-
First mass-marketed camera—the Brownie.
-
First 35mm still camera developed.
-
General Electric invents the modern flash bulb.
-
First light meter with photoelectric cell introduced.
-
Eastman Kodak markets Kodachrome film.
-
Eastman Kodak introduces Kodacolor negative film.
-
Chester Carlson receives patent for electric photography (xerography).
-
Edwin Land markets the Polaroid camera.
-
Eastman Kodak introduces high speed Tri-X film.
-
EG&G develops extreme depth underwater camera for U.S. Navy.
-
Polaroid introduces instant color film.
-
Photograph of the Earth from the moon.
-
Polaroid introduces one-step instant photography with the SX-70 camera.
-
George Eastman and Edwin Land inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
-
Konica introduces first point-and-shoot, autofocus camera.
-
Sony demonstrates first consumer camcorder.
-
Canon demonstrates first digital electronic still camera.
-
Pixar introduces digital imaging processor.
-
Eastman Kodak announces Photo CD as a digital image storage medium.