Timeline of photography technology
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The following list comprises significant milestones in the development of photography technology.


Timeline


Prior to the 19th century

* 1614 – In ''Septem planetarum terrestrium spagirica recensio,''
Angelo Sala Angelo Sala (Latin: Angelus Sala) (21 March 1576, Vicenza – 2 October 1637, Bützow) was an Italian doctor and early iatrochemist. He promoted chemical remedies and, drawing on the relative merits of the conflicting chemical and Galenical syst ...
reported that "Si lapidem lunearem pulveratum ad solem exponas instar atramenti niggerimus" (When you expose powdered silver nitrate to sunlight, it turns black as ink), and also its effect on paper; silver nitrate wrapped in paper for a year turned black. * c. 1717 – Johann Heinrich Schulze makes fleeting sun prints of words by using stencils, sunlight, and a bottled mixture of
chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...
and
silver nitrate Silver nitrate is an inorganic compound with chemical formula . It is a versatile precursor to many other silver compounds, such as those used in photography. It is far less sensitive to light than the halides. It was once called ''lunar causti ...
in
nitric acid Nitric acid is the inorganic compound with the formula . It is a highly corrosive mineral acid. The compound is colorless, but older samples tend to be yellow cast due to decomposition into oxides of nitrogen. Most commercially available nitri ...
, simply as an interesting way to demonstrate that the substance inside the bottle darkens where it is exposed to light. * c. 1794 –
Elizabeth Fulhame Elizabeth Fulhame (fl. 1794) was an early British chemist who invented the concept of catalysis and discovered photoreduction. She describes catalysis as a process at length in her 1794 book ''An Essay On Combustion with a View to a New Art of ...
invented the concept of catalysis and discovered photoreduction. She describes catalysis as a process at length in her 1794 book ''An Essay On Combustion with a View to a New Art of Dying and Painting, wherein the Phlogistic and Antiphlogistic Hypotheses are Proved Erroneous''. * c. 1800 – Thomas Wedgwood conceives of making permanent pictures of
camera A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with a ...
images by using a durable surface coated with a light-sensitive chemical. He succeeds only in producing
silhouette A silhouette ( , ) is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single colour, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject. The interior of a silhouette is featureless, and the silhou ...
s and other shadow images, and is unable to make them permanent.


19th century

* 1810 –
Thomas Johann Seebeck Thomas Johann Seebeck (; 9 April 1770 – 10 December 1831) was a Baltic German physicist, who, in 1822, observed a relationship between heat and magnetism. Later, in 1823, Ørsted called this phenomenon thermoelectric effect. Seebeck was b ...
records near-true colours of the solar spectrum on paper sensitised with silver chloride, though is unable to preserve the results, and his report is included in
Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...
's ''
Theory of Colours ''Theory of Colours'' (german: Zur Farbenlehre, links=no) is a book by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe about the poet's views on the nature of colours and how these are perceived by humans. It was published in German in 1810 and in English in 1840 ...
'' (Zur Farbenlehre). * 1816 –
Nicéphore Niépce Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833), commonly known or referred to simply as Nicéphore Niépce, was a French inventor, usually credited with the invention of photography. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he us ...
succeeds in making negative photographs of camera images on paper coated with
silver chloride Silver chloride is a chemical compound with the chemical formula Ag Cl. This white crystalline solid is well known for its low solubility in water (this behavior being reminiscent of the chlorides of Tl+ and Pb2+). Upon illumination or heating, ...
, but cannot adequately "fix" them to stop them from darkening all over when exposed to light for viewing. * 1822 – Niépce abandons silver halide photography as hopelessly impermanent and tries using thin coatings of
Bitumen of Judea Bitumen of Judea, or Syrian asphalt, is a naturally occurring asphalt that has been put to many uses since ancient times. Wood coloration usage Bitumen of Judea may be used as a colorant for wood for an aged, natural and rustic appearance. It ...
on metal and glass. He creates the first fixed, permanent photograph, a copy of an engraving of Pope Pius VII, by
contact print A contact print is a photographic image produced from film; sometimes from a film negative, and sometimes from a film positive or paper negative. In a darkroom an exposed and developed piece of film or photographic paper is placed emulsion ...
ing in direct sunlight without a camera or lens. It is later destroyed; the earliest surviving example of his "heliographic process" is from 1825. * 1824 – Niépce makes the first durable, light-fast camera photograph, similar to his surviving 1826–1827 photograph on pewter but created on the surface of a lithographic stone. It is destroyed in the course of subsequent experiments. * 1826 – Mary Somerville a Scottish science writer and polymath conducted a series of experiments to explore the relationship between light and magnetism and she published her first paper, "The magnetic properties of the violet rays of the solar spectrum", in the ''
Proceedings of the Royal Society ''Proceedings of the Royal Society'' is the main research journal of the Royal Society. The journal began in 1831 and was split into two series in 1905: * Series A: for papers in physical sciences and mathematics. * Series B: for papers in life s ...
''. * 1826 or 1827 – Niépce makes what is now the earliest surviving photograph from nature, a landscape. It requires an exposure in the camera that lasts at least eight hours and probably several days. * 1834 –
Hércules Florence Antoine Hercule Romuald Florence (February 29, 1804 – March 27, 1879) was a Monegasque-Brazilian painter and inventor, known as the isolate inventor of photography in Brazil, three years before Daguerre (but six years after Nicéphore Niépce) ...
, a French-Brazilian painter and the isolate inventor of photography in Brazil, coined the word ''photographie'' for his technique, at least four years before John Herschel coined the English word ''photography''. * 1835 – Henry Fox Talbot produces durable silver chloride camera negatives on paper and conceives the two-step negative-positive procedure used in most non-electronic photography up to the present."WHF Talbot: Biography"
, a concise account by widely acknowledged and extensively published Talbot expert Larry J. Schaaf. Retrieved 10 September 2014.
* 1839 **
Louis Daguerre Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre ( , ; 18 November 1787 – 10 July 1851) was a French artist and photographer, recognized for his invention of the eponymous daguerreotype process of photography. He became known as one of the fathers of photog ...
publicly introduces his daguerreotype process, which produces highly detailed permanent photographs on silver-plated sheets of copper. At first, it requires several minutes of exposure in the camera, but later improvements reduce the exposure time to a few seconds. Photography suddenly enters the public consciousness and Daguerre's process is soon being used worldwide. ** Talbot publicly introduces the paper-based process he worked out in 1835, calling it "photogenic drawing", but it requires much longer exposures than the daguerreotype and the results are not as clear and detailed. **
Hippolyte Bayard Hippolyte Bayard (20 January 1801 – 14 May 1887) was a French photographer and pioneer in the history of photography. He invented his own process that produced direct positive paper prints in the camera and presented the world's first public e ...
presents the first public exhibition of photographs. He claims to have invented a photographic process prior to Daguerre and Talbot. ** Sarah Anne Bright creates a series of
photogram A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The usual result is a negative shadow image th ...
s, six of which are known to still exist. These are the earliest surviving photographic images created by a woman. ** John Herschel introduces hyposulfite of soda (now known as
sodium thiosulfate Sodium thiosulfate (sodium thiosulphate) is an inorganic compound with the formula . Typically it is available as the white or colorless pentahydrate, . The solid is an efflorescent (loses water readily) crystalline substance that dissolves well in ...
but still nicknamed "hypo") as a highly effective fixer for all silver-based processes. He also makes the first glass negative. ** Mungo Ponton a Scottish inventor, discovered that dichromates are light sensitive leading to
Gum bichromate Gum bichromate is a 19th-century photographic printing process based on the light sensitivity of dichromates. It is capable of rendering painterly images from photographic negatives. Gum printing is traditionally a multi-layered printing process, ...
printing another permanent form of photography and additions for improvements in others including contrast increase with cyanotype, and salt printing. * 1841 – Talbot introduces his patented calotype (or "talbotype") paper negative process, an improved version of his earlier process that greatly reduces the required exposure time. * 1843 –
Anna Atkins Anna Atkins (née Children; 16 March 1799 – 9 June 1871) was an English botanist and photographer. She is often considered the first person to publish a book illustrated with photographic images. Some sources say that she was the first woma ...
Publishes first photobook. British Algae. * 1845 –
Francis Ronalds Sir Francis Ronalds FRS (21 February 17888 August 1873) was an English scientist and inventor, and arguably the first electrical engineer. He was knighted for creating the first working electric telegraph over a substantial distance. In 1816 ...
invents the first successful camera for continuous recording of the variations in meteorological and
geomagnetic Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun. The magnetic ...
parameters over time * 1848 – Edmond Becquerel makes the first full-color photographs, but they are only laboratory curiosities: an exposure lasting hours or days is required and the colors are so light-sensitive that they sometimes fade right before the viewer's eyes while being examined. * 1851 – Introduction of the collodion process by
Frederick Scott Archer ] Frederick Scott Archer (1813 – 1 May 1857) was an English photographer and sculptor who is best known for having invented the photographic collodion process which preceded the modern gelatin emulsion. He was born in either Bishop's Stortfor ...
, used for making photographic plate, glass negatives, ambrotypes and
tintype A tintype, also known as a melainotype or ferrotype, is a photograph made by creating a direct positive on a thin sheet of metal coated with a dark lacquer or enamel and used as the support for the photographic emulsion. Tintypes enjoyed their ...
s. * 1850s –
Combination printing Combination printing is the photographic technique of using the negatives of two or more images in conjunction with one another to create a single image. Similar to dual-negative landscape photography, combination printing was technically much ...
was introduced, probably first suggested by Hippolyte Bayard when he thought of using a separate negative of a properly exposed sky in combination with a proper negative of the landscape or monument documented for the
Missions Héliographiques Missions Héliographiques was a 19th-century project to photograph landmarks and monuments around France so that they could be restored. The project was established by Prosper Mérimée, France's Inspector General of Historical Monuments and autho ...
that started in 1851. * 1854 ** ''
British Journal of Photography The ''British Journal of Photography'' (BJP) is a magazine about photography, published by 1854 Media. It includes in-depth articles, profiles of photographers, analyses, and technological reviews. History The magazine was established in Liver ...
'' (initially established as the Liverpool Photographic Journal) first issue was published on 14 January 1854 **
André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri (; 28 March 1819 – 4 October 1889) was a French photographer who started his photographic career as a daguerreotypist but gained greater fame for patenting his version of the '' carte de visite,'' a small photog ...
credited with introduction of the '' carte de visite'' (English: ''visiting card'' or ''calling card'') format for
portraiture A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this r ...
. Disdéri uses a camera with multiple lenses that can photograph eight different poses on one large negative. After printing on albumen paper, the images are cut apart and glued to calling-card-size mounts. * 1857 – In America David Acheson Woodward patents the solar camera, derived from the earlier solar microscope, using sunlight to make enlargements from glass negatives * 1861 –
James Clerk Maxwell James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and li ...
presents a projected
additive color Additive color or additive mixing is a property of a color model that predicts the appearance of colors made by coincident component lights, i.e. the perceived color can be predicted by summing the numeric representations of the component colo ...
image of a multicolored ribbon, the first demonstration of color photography by the three-color method he suggested in 1855. It uses three separate black-and-white photographs taken and projected through red, green and blue color
filters Filter, filtering or filters may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming * Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream * Filter (video), a software component tha ...
. The projected image is temporary but the set of three "color separations" is the first durable color photograph. * 1868 –
Louis Ducos du Hauron Louis may refer to: * Louis (coin) * Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name * Louis (surname) * Louis (singer), Serbian singer * HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy See also Derived or associated terms * Lewi ...
patents his numerous ideas for color photography based on the three-color principle, including procedures for making
subtractive color Subtractive color or subtractive color mixing predicts the spectral power distribution of light after it passes through successive layers of partially absorbing media. This idealized model is the essential principle of how dyes and inks are use ...
prints on paper. They are published the following year. Their implementation is not technologically practical at that time, but they anticipate most of the color processes that are later introduced. * 1871 – The gelatin emulsion is invented by Richard Maddox. * 1873 –
Hermann Wilhelm Vogel Hermann Wilhelm Vogel (26 March 1834 – 17 December 1898) was a German photochemist and photographer who discovered dye sensitization, which is of great importance to photography. Academic career After finishing school in Frankfurt (Oder), ...
discovers dye sensitization, allowing the blue-sensitive but otherwise color-blind photographic emulsions then in use to be made sensitive to green, yellow and red light. Technical problems delay the first use of dye sensitization in a commercial product until the mid-1880s; fully panchromatic emulsions are not in common use until the mid-20th century. * 1876 –
Hurter The von Hurter family belonged to the Swiss nobility; in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries three of them were known for their conversions to Roman Catholicism, their ecclesiastical careers in Austria and their theological writings. Friedr ...
&
Driffield Driffield, also known as Great Driffield, is a market town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The civil parish is formed by the town of Driffield and the village of Little Driffield. By road, it is north-east of Leeds ...
begin systematic evaluation of sensitivity characteristics of photographic emulsions — the science of
sensitometry Sensitometry is the scientific study of light-sensitive materials, especially photographic film. The study has its origins in the work by Ferdinand Hurter and Vero Charles Driffield (circa 1876) with early black-and-white emulsions. They determin ...
. * 1878 ** Heat ripening of gelatin emulsions is discovered. This greatly increases sensitivity and makes possible very short "snapshot" exposures. **
Eadweard Muybridge Eadweard Muybridge (; 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904, born Edward James Muggeridge) was an English photographer known for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion, and early work in motion-picture projection. He adopted the first ...
uses a row of cameras with trip-wires to make a high-speed photographic analysis of a galloping horse. Each picture is taken in less than the two-thousandth part of a second, and they are taken in sufficiently rapid sequence (about 25 per second) that they constitute a brief real-time "movie" that can be viewed by using a device such as a
zoetrope A zoetrope is one of several pre-film animation devices that produce the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing progressive phases of that motion. It was basically a cylindrical variation of the phénak ...
, a photographic "first". * 1887 –
Celluloid Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common contemporary ...
film base A film base is a transparent substrate which acts as a support medium for the photosensitive emulsion that lies atop it. Despite the numerous layers and coatings associated with the emulsion layer, the base generally accounts for the vast majorit ...
introduced. * 1888 ** The
Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
n°1 box camera, the first easy-to-use camera, is introduced with the slogan, "You press the button, we do the rest." **
Louis Le Prince Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince (28 August 1841 – disappeared 16 September 1890, declared dead 16 September 1897) was a French artist and the inventor of an early motion-picture camera, possibly the first person to shoot a moving picture sequ ...
makes
Roundhay Garden Scene ''Roundhay Garden Scene'' is a short silent motion picture filmed by French inventor Louis Le Prince at Oakwood Grange in Roundhay, Leeds, in the north of England on 14 October 1888. It is believed to be the oldest surviving film. The cam ...
. It is believed to be the first-ever motion picture on film. * 1889 – The first commercially available transparent celluloid roll film is introduced by the Eastman Company, later renamed the Eastman Kodak Company and commonly known as Kodak. * 1891 **
Gabriel Lippmann Jonas Ferdinand Gabriel Lippmann (16 August 1845 – 13 July 1921) was a Franco-Luxembourgish physicist and inventor, and Nobel laureate in physics for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference. ...
announces a "method of reproducing colors photographically based on the phenomenon of interference". **
William Kennedy Laurie Dickson William Kennedy Laurie Dickson (3 August 1860 – 28 September 1935) was a British inventor who devised an early motion picture camera under the employment of Thomas Edison. Early life William Kennedy Dickson was born on 3 August 1860 in ...
develops the " kinetoscopic" motion picture camera while working for
Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...
. * 1895 –
Auguste and Louis Lumière The Lumière brothers (, ; ), Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière (19 October 1862 – 10 April 1954) and Louis Jean Lumière (5 October 1864 – 6 June 1948), were French manufacturers of photography equipment, best known for their ''Ciném ...
invent the
cinématographe Cinematograph or kinematograph is an early term for several types of motion picture film mechanisms. The name was used for movie cameras as well as film projectors, or for complete systems that also provided means to print films (such as the Cin ...
. * 1898 – Kodak introduces the
Folding Fold, folding or foldable may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Fold'' (album), the debut release by Australian rock band Epicure * Fold (poker), in the game of poker, to discard one's hand and forfeit interest in the current pot *Abov ...
Pocket Kodak. * 1900 – Kodak introduces their first Brownie, a very inexpensive user-reloadable point-and-shoot box camera.


20th century onwards

* 1901 – Kodak introduces the 120 film format. * 1902 – Arthur Korn devises practical
telephotography Wirephoto, telephotography or radiophoto is the sending of pictures by telegraph, telephone or radio. Édouard Belin's Bélinographe of 1913, which scanned using a photocell and transmitted over ordinary phone lines, formed the basis for the Wir ...
technology (reduction of photographic images to signals that can be transmitted by wire to other locations).''Wire-Photos'' are in wide use in Europe by 1910, and transmitted to other continents by 1922. * 1907 – The Autochrome plate is introduced. It becomes the first commercially successful color photography product. * 1908 –
Kinemacolor Kinemacolor was the first successful colour motion picture process, used commercially from 1908 to 1914. It was invented by George Albert Smith in 1906. He was influenced by the work of William Norman Lascelles Davidson and, more directly, E ...
, a two-color process known as the first commercial "natural color" system for movies, is introduced. * 1909 – Kodak announces a 35 mm "safety" motion picture film on an acetate base as an alternative to the highly flammable nitrate base.Kodak Chronology of Motion Picture Films 1889 to 1939
. Retrieved 2 June 2013.
The motion picture industry discontinues its use after 1911 due to technical imperfections. * 1912 ** Vest Pocket Kodak using
127 film 127 is a roll film format for still photography introduced by Kodak in 1912. The film itself is 46 mm wide, placing it between 35 mm and 120 "medium format" films in terms of size. The image format normally used is a square 4  ...
. ** Thomas Edison introduces a short-lived 22 mm home motion picture format using acetate "safety" film manufactured by Kodak. * 1913 – Kodak makes 35 mm panchromatic motion picture film available on a bulk special order basis. * 1914 ** Kodak introduces the Autographic film system. ** '' The World, the Flesh and the Devil'', made in Kinemacolor, is the first dramatic feature film in color released. * 1922 – Kodak makes 35 mm panchromatic motion picture film available as a regular stock. * 1923 ** The
16 mm 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, edu ...
amateur motion picture format is introduced by Kodak. Their Cine-Kodak camera uses
reversal film In photography, reversal film or slide film is a type of photographic film that produces a positive image on a transparent base. Instead of negatives and prints, reversal film is processed to produce transparencies or diapositives (abbreviat ...
and all 16 mm is on an acetate (safety) base. ** Harold Edgerton invents the
xenon flash lamp A flashtube (flashlamp) is an electric arc lamp designed to produce extremely intense, incoherent, full-spectrum white light for a very short time. A flashtube is a glass tube with an electrode at each end and is filled with a gas that, when tr ...
for strobe photography. * 1925 – The Leica introduces the 35 mm format to still photography. * 1926 – Kodak introduces its 35 mm Motion Picture Duplicating Film for duplicate negatives. Previously, motion picture studios used a second camera alongside the primary camera to create a duplicate negative. * 1932 ** "
Flowers and Trees ''Flowers and Trees'' is a 1932 '' Silly Symphonies'' cartoon produced by Walt Disney, directed by Burt Gillett, and released to theatres by United Artists on July 30, 1932. It was the first commercially released film to be produced in the full- ...
", the first full-color cartoon, is made in
Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...
by
Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
. ** Kodak introduces the first 8 mm amateur motion picture film, cameras, and projectors. * 1934 – The 135 film cartridge is introduced, making 35 mm easy to use for photography. * 1935 ** ''
Becky Sharp Rebecca "Becky" Sharp, later describing herself as Rebecca, Lady Crawley, is the main protagonist of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1847–48 novel ''Vanity Fair''. She is presented as a cynical social climber who uses her charms to fascinate an ...
'', the first feature film made in the full-colour "three-strip" version of Technicolor, is released. ** Introduction of
Kodachrome Kodachrome is the brand name for a color reversal film introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1935. It was one of the first successful color materials and was used for both cinematography and still photography. For many years Kodachrome was widely used ...
multi-layered color reversal film (16 mm only; 8 mm and 35 mm follow in 1936, sheet film in 1938). * 1936 ** Introduction by IHAGEE of the Ihagee Kine
Exakta The Exakta (sometimes Exacta) was a camera produced by the ''Ihagee Kamerawerk'' in Dresden, Germany, founded as the Industrie und Handels-Gesellschaft mbH, in 1912. The inspiration and design of both the VP Exakta and the Kine Exakta are the wo ...
1, the first 35 mm SLR (
Single Lens Reflex A single-lens reflex camera (SLR) is a camera that typically uses a mirror and prism system (hence "reflex" from the mirror's reflection) that permits the photographer to view through the lens and see exactly what will be captured. With twin l ...
) camera. **
Agfacolor An Agfacolor slide dated 1937 from café in Oslo, Norway. An Agfacolor slide dated 1937 from Paris, France. An Agfacolor slide dated 1938 from Hungary. An Agfacolor slide dated 1938 from Zakopane in Poland. An Agfacolor slide dated 1938 fr ...
Neu (English: New Agfacolor) color reversal film for home movies and slides. * 1939 ** Agfacolor negative and positive 35 mm color film stock for professional motion picture use (not for making paper prints). ** The
View-Master View-Master is the trademark name of a line of special-format stereoscopes and corresponding View-Master "reels", which are thin cardboard disks containing seven stereoscopy, Stereoscopic 3-D pairs of small transparent color photographs on film.M ...
3-D viewer and its "reels" of seven small stereoscopic image pairs on Kodachrome film are introduced. * 1942 – Kodacolor, the first color film that yields negatives for making
chromogenic In chemistry, the term chromogen refers to a colourless (or faintly coloured) chemical compound that can be converted by chemical reaction into a compound which can be described as "coloured". There is no universally agreed definition of the term. ...
color prints on paper. Roll films for
snapshot Snapshot, snapshots or snap shot may refer to: * Snapshot (photography), a photograph taken without preparation Computing * Snapshot (computer storage), the state of a system at a particular point in time * Snapshot (file format) or SNP, a file ...
cameras only, 35 mm not available until 1958. * 1947 **
Dennis Gabor Dennis Gabor ( ; hu, Gábor Dénes, ; 5 June 1900 – 9 February 1979) was a Hungarian-British electrical engineer and physicist, most notable for inventing holography, for which he later received the 1971 Nobel Prize in Physics. He obtained ...
invents
holography Holography is a technique that enables a wavefront to be recorded and later re-constructed. Holography is best known as a method of generating real three-dimensional images, but it also has a wide range of other applications. In principle, i ...
. ** Harold Edgerton develops the
Rapatronic camera The rapatronic camera (a portmanteau of ''rap''id ''a''ction elec''tronic'') is a high-speed camera capable of recording a still image with an exposure time as brief as 10 nanoseconds. The camera was developed by Harold Edgerton in the 1940s a ...
for the U.S. government. * 1948 ** The
Hasselblad Victor Hasselblad AB is a Swedish manufacturer of medium format cameras, photographic equipment and image scanners based in Gothenburg, Sweden. The company originally became known for its classic analog medium-format cameras that used a waist ...
camera is introduced. **
Edwin H. Land Edwin Herbert Land, ForMemRS, FRPS, Hon.MRI (May 7, 1909 – March 1, 1991) was an Russian-American scientist and inventor, best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. He invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a ...
introduces the first Polaroid
instant camera An instant camera is a camera which uses self-developing film to create a chemically developed print shortly after taking the picture. Polaroid Corporation pioneered (and patented) consumer-friendly instant cameras and film, and were follow ...
. * 1949 – The
Contax S Contax (stylised as CONTAX in the Kyocera era) began as a German camera model in the Zeiss Ikon line in 1932, and later became a brand name. The early cameras were among the finest in the world, typically featuring high quality Zeiss intercha ...
camera is introduced, the first 35 mm SLR camera with a
pentaprism A pentaprism is a five-sided reflecting prism used to deviate a beam of light by a constant 90°, even if the entry beam is not at 90° to the prism. The beam reflects inside the prism ''twice'', allowing the transmission of an image through a r ...
eye-level viewfinder. * 1952 – ''
Bwana Devil ''Bwana Devil'' is a 1952 American adventure B movie written, directed, and produced by Arch Oboler, and starring Robert Stack, Barbara Britton, and Nigel Bruce. ''Bwana Devil'' is based on the true story of the Tsavo maneaters and filmed wit ...
'', a low-budget polarized 3-D film, premieres in late November and starts a brief 3-D craze that begins in earnest in 1953 and fades away during 1954. * 1954 – Leica M Introduced * 1957 ** First Asahi Pentax SLR introduced. ** First digital computer acquisition of scanned photographs, by Russell Kirsch et al. at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards (now the NIST). * 1959 **
Nikon F The Nikon F camera, introduced in April 1959, was Nikon's first SLR camera. It was one of the most advanced cameras of its day. Although many of the concepts had already been introduced elsewhere, it was revolutionary in that it was the firs ...
introduced. ** AGFA introduces the first fully automatic camera, the ''
Optima Optima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf and released by the D. Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, West Germany in 1958. Though classified as a sans-serif, Optima has a subtle swelling at the terminals suggesting a glyphic s ...
''. * 1963 – Kodak introduces the
Instamatic : ''For the film formats associated with the ''Instamatic'' and ''Pocket Instamatic'' camera ranges, see 126 film and 110 film respectively.'' The Instamatic is a series of inexpensive, easy-to-load 126 and 110 cameras made by Kodak beginning ...
. * 1964 ** First
Pentax Spotmatic The Pentax Spotmatic refers to a family of 35mm single-lens reflex cameras manufactured by the Asahi Optical Co. Ltd., later known as Pentax Corporation, between 1964 and 1976. All Pentax Spotmatics used the M42 screw-thread lens mount which w ...
SLR introduced. **
Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...
introduces the
Canon FL lens mount Canon FL refers to a lens mount standard for 35mm single-lens reflex cameras from Canon. It was introduced in April 1964 with the Canon FX camera, replacing the previous Canon R lens mount. The FL mount was in turn replaced in 1971 by the Canon ...
with the
Canon FX The Canon FX is a 35 mm SLR manufactured by Canon Inc. of Japan and introduced in April 1964. It introduced the Canon FL lens mount, the successor to the Canon R. The camera has a built-in lightmeter using a CdS photocell mounted on the ph ...
* 1967 – First MOS 10 by 10 active pixel array shown by Noble * 1972 – Integrated Photomatrix (Noble) demonstrates for 64 by 64 MOS active pixel array * 1973 – Fairchild Semiconductor releases the first large image forming CCD
chip Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) is a type of immunoprecipitation experimental technique used to investigate the interaction between proteins and DNA in the cell. It aims to determine whether specific proteins are associated with specific genom ...
: 100 rows and 100 columns of
pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the ...
s. * 1974 – Josef H. Neumann created the first
Chemogram A chemogram (from "chemistry", "optic" and ''gramma'', Greek for "things written") is an experimental art where a photographic image is partly or fully enlarged and processed onto photographic paper in the darkroom and afterwards selectively pai ...
s combining the disciplines painting and photography within the fotographic layer for the first time. * 1975 – Bryce Bayer of Kodak develops the
Bayer filter A Bayer filter mosaic is a color filter array (CFA) for arranging RGB color filters on a square grid of photosensors. Its particular arrangement of color filters is used in most single-chip digital image sensors used in digital cameras, cam ...
mosaic pattern for CCD color image sensors. * 1976 –
Steadicam Steadicam is a brand of camera stabilizer mounts for motion picture cameras invented by Garrett Brown and introduced in 1975 by Cinema Products Corporation. It was designed to isolate the camera from the camera operator's movement, keeping th ...
becomes available. * 1986 – Kodak scientists invent the world's first megapixel sensor. * 1987 **
Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...
releases the first camera for its fully electronic autofocus EF lens mount, the EOS 650 **
Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster ...
developed by
Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...
and
John Knoll John Knoll (born October 6, 1962) is an American visual effects supervisor and chief creative officer (CCO) at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). One of the original creators of Adobe Photoshop (along with his brother, Thomas Knoll), he has also ...
* 1990 — Adobe ''Photoshop'' 1.0 released on February 19, for
Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
exclusively. * 1992 – Photo CD created by Kodak. * 1993–95 – The
Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...
develops devices using CMOS or active pixel sensors. * 1994 –
Nikon (, ; ), also known just as Nikon, is a Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, specializing in optics and imaging products. The companies held by Nikon form the Nikon Group. Nikon's products include cameras, camera ...
introduces the first optical-stabilized lens. * 1995 – "
Kodak DC40 The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
and the Apple QuickTake 100 become the first
digital cameras A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices ...
marketed for consumers." * 1996 – Eastman Kodak,
FujiFilm , trading as Fujifilm, or simply Fuji, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, operating in the realms of photography, optics, office and medical electronics, biotechnology, and chemicals. The offerings from the ...
,
AgfaPhoto AgfaPhoto GmbH is a European photographic company, formed in 2004 when Agfa-Gevaert sold their Consumer Imaging division. Agfa (the former parent company, which merged with film manufacturer Gevaert in 1964) had for many years been well known ...
, and
Konica was a Japanese manufacturer of, among other products, film, film cameras, camera accessories, photographic and photo-processing equipment, photocopiers, fax machines and laser printers, founded in 1873. The company merged with Japanese peer M ...
introduce the
Advanced Photo System Advanced Photo System (APS) is a discontinued film format for still photography first produced in 1996. It was marketed by Eastman Kodak under the brand name Advantix, by FujiFilm under the name Nexia, by Agfa under the name Futura and by ...
(APS). * 1997 – first known publicly shared picture via a cell phone, by
Philippe Kahn Philippe Kahn (born March 16, 1952) is an engineer, entrepreneur and founder of four technology companies: Borland, Starfish Software, LightSurf Technologies, and Fullpower Technologies. Kahn is credited with creating the first camera phone, ...
. * 2000 –
J-SH04 The J-SH04 was a mobile phone made by Sharp Corporation and released by J-Phone ( SoftBank Mobile). It was only available in Japan, and was released in November 2000. It was Japan's first phone with a built-in, back-facing camera. It has a 110,0 ...
introduced by J-Phone, the first commercially available mobile phone with a camera that can take and share still pictures. * 2005 – AgfaPhoto files for bankruptcy. The production of Agfa brand consumer films ends. * 2006 –
Dalsa Teledyne DALSA (formerly DALSA Corporation) is a Canadian company specializing in the design and manufacture of specialized electronic imaging components (image sensors, cameras, frame grabbers, imaging software) as well as specialized semiconduc ...
produces a 111 megapixel CCD sensor, the highest resolution at that time. * 2008 – Polaroid announces it is discontinuing the production of all instant film products, citing the rise of digital imaging technology. * 2009 ** Kodak announces the discontinuance of Kodachrome film. ** FujiFilm launches world's first digital 3D camera with 3D printing capabilities. * 2011 – Lytro releases the first pocket-sized consumer light-field camera, capable of refocusing images after they are taken. * 2018 – Kodak resumes the production of
Ektachrome Ektachrome is a brand name owned by Kodak for a range of transparency, still, and motion picture films previously available in many formats, including 35 mm and sheet sizes to 11 × 14 inch size. Ektachrome has a distinctive look that ...
film.


See also

*
Timeline of historic inventions The timeline of historic inventions is a chronological list of particularly important or significant technological inventions and their inventors, where known. Paleolithic The dates listed in this section refer to the earliest evidence of an i ...
*
List of inventions named after people This is a list of inventions followed by name of the inventor (or whomever else it is named after). For other lists of eponyms (names derived from people) see Lists of etymologies. The list A to F * Abney level – William de Wivelesl ...
*
Computational photography Computational photography refers to digital image capture and processing techniques that use digital computation instead of optical processes. Computational photography can improve the capabilities of a camera, or introduce features that were no ...
*


Notes


External links


The Photo History Timeline Collection


— Illustrated historical essay about early photography


The Digital Camera Museum with accurate history section and many rare items

The Fascinating Timeline of Photography Technology
{{photography subject *Timeline
Photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...