Historical Timeline    

Excerpted from "Timeline of Photography" at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film website.
 

"CAMERA TUTORIAL"

The World's First Photograph

  "World's Earliest Photo (?)"

Niepce     Daguerre

     1760          Tiphaigne de la Roche predicts photography in Giphantie.

     1777          Carl Wilhelm Scheele proves ammonia stabilizes darkened silver salts.

     1802          Thomas Wedgwood, following the experiments of Schulze and Scheele, 
                             produces silhouettes by use of silver nitrate but is unable to fix the images.

     1806          William Hyde Wollaston invents the camera lucida.

     1816          Joseph Nicéphore Niépce's attempts at photography he called heliography,
                            (sundrawing) records a view from his workroom window on paper sensitized
                            with silver chloride, but he is only partially able to fix the image.

     1816          Niépce achieves his first photographic image with a camera obscura.

     1819          Sir John Herschel discovers the photographic fixative, hyposulfite of soda.

     1822          Niépce succeeds in obtaining a photographic copy of an engraving
                            superimposed on glass.

     1826          Niépce, using a camera, makes a view from his workroom window on a pewter
                            plate.

     1827          Charles Wheatstone describes a moving shutter.

     1829          Niépce and Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre form a 10-year partnership to
                            develop photography.

     1835          Talbot photographs window at Lacock Abbey.

     1837          Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (portrait shown) creates his first
            daguerreotype.

     1839          The daguerreotype is publicly announced at the Academy of Sciences in Paris.

                            Giroux Daguerreotype camera is introduced; first commercially-manufactured
                            camera.

                            Alexander Wolcott receives first American patent in photography for his
                            camera.

    1840's        American photographers Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes
                             become known for their distinctive daguerreotype portraits. Well-known
                             American figures of the day, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Daniel Webster,
                             and Oliver Wendell Holmes are photographed by Southworth and Hawes.

     1835          William Henry Talbot patents the Calotype process.

     1843          Anna Atkins produced the first photographically illustrated album entitled:
                            British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions.

     1847          Louis Désiré Blanquard-Evard improves Talbot's Calotype process and sets up
                            a photographic printing establishment.

     1848          Claude Felix Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor uses albumen on glass plates for
                            negatives.

     1849          Stereophotography, which uses a double lens camera to produce two views that 
           together produce a three- dimensional view, is developed.

     1850          Albumen printing paper is introduced by L. D. Blanquart-Evrard.

     1851          Talbot makes first instantaneous photographs using electric spark illumination.

                             Frederick Scott Archer publishes wet-collodion process.

     1852          Talbot patents photoglyphic engraving which produces printable steel plates.

     1854          George Eastman born July 12, 1854, in Marshall, NY.

                            Ambrotype, a positive collodion image, is patented in US.

     1855          Ferrotype process (tintypes) is introduced to US.

     1859         Sutton panoramic camera is patented.

     1860          Abraham Lincoln is photographed during his first presidential campaign by
                            Mathew Brady.

                            Abraham Lincoln is elected 16th president of the United States.

     1861         Oliver Wendell Holmes invents popular stereoscope viewer.

                            James Clerk Maxwell's On the Theory of the Three Primary Colours.

                            Chambre Automatique de Bertsch; first sub-miniature camera.

     1861-65     Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and others document the Civil War

     1865          Dubroni-In-Camera processing. The plates were sensitized, developed, and
                            fixed within the camera inside a glass bottle that was part of the camera body.

     1869          Louis Ducos du Hauron's Colors in Photography describes the principle of
                            color photography.

     1871          Richard Leach Maddox invents the gelatin dry plate silver bromide process.

     1877          Eadweard Muybridge experiments with multiple cameras to take successive
                            photographs of horses in motion. He continued his photographic studies of
                            motion, including human movements, from 1884-1887 at the University of
                            Pennsylvania.

     1877-78    George Eastman begins to take an interest in photography and takes lessons
                            from George Monroe, a local photographer, for $5 to learn the process. He
                            purchases his first photographic outfit for $49.

     1878          George Eastman begins to simplify the complicated wet plate process.

     1879          George Eastman invents an emulsion-coating machine which enables the
                            mass-production of photographic dry plates.

     1880          George Eastman begins to commercially manufacture dry plates.

     1881          Eastman Dry Plate Company is founded.

     1882          George Eastman begins experimenting with different emulsion support bases
                            other than glass. With William Walker, a research person at Eastman's
                            company, they devise a roll film holder, a flexible film and a machine to produce
                            the film. The film is layered with gelatin emulsions on paper backing, which is
                            stripped away after development.

                            French physiologist Étienne-Jules Marey invents the chronophotographic gun,
                            a camera shaped like a rifle that records twelve successive photographs per
                            second.

     1884          Stebbing Automatic Camera is the first production camera to use roll film.

     1885          EASTMAN American Film is introduced as the first transparent film negative.

     1888          First motion picture films are made on sensitized paper rolls taken with a
                            camera by Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince.

     1888          The name Kodak is born and the KODAK Camera is placed on the market. It
                             is loaded with 100 exposures on a film roll for $25. It is simply operated: Pull
                             the string to cock the shutter, press the button to expose the film, and turn the
                             key to advance the film. The advertising slogan is: "You press the button and
                             we do the rest". After all the film is exposed, the camera and the film are sent
                             back to the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Co. in Rochester for developing. The
                             Kodak camera-fixed focus, 57mm lens, f/9, sharp from 3 1/2 ft. to infinity.

     1889          Kodak #2 is introduced.

                             The first commercial transparent roll film, perfected by Eastman and his
                              research chemist, is put on the market. The availability of this flexible film
                              makes possible the development of Thomas Edison's motion picture camera in
                              1891. A new corporation, The Eastman Company is formed, taking over the
                              assets of the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company.

                              Development of motion-picture roll film.

     1890          Charles Driffield and Ferdinand Hurter publish their work on emulsion
                            sensitivity and exposure measurement.

     1891          W. K. L. Dickson and Thomas A. Edison patent the Kinetoscope, a type of
                             viewing device in which a film loop ran on spools between an incandescent lamp
                             and a shutter for individual viewing.

     1892          Frederick Ives develops first complete system for natural color photography.

     1893          Fred Ott sneezing in Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze, January 7, 1894,
                            filmed at the "Black Maria," a motion picture studio that rotates on tracks to
                            follow the light of the sun built by Edison in West Orange, NJ.

                            Thomas Alva Edison commissions W.K.L.Dickson to invent a motion-picture
                            camera in 1887. Dickson's contribution to motion-picture and projection
                            technology was a device to ensure intermittent but regular motion of the film
                            strip and regularly perforated celluloid film strip to ensure precise
                            synchronization between the film strip and the shutter. Dickson's camera is
                            patented as the Kinetograph in 1893.

     1894          Edison opens the first Kinetoscope parlor in New York City.

     1895          The Pocket KODAK Camera is announced.

                             The birth of cinema: In Berlin, Max and Emil Skladanowsky show a 15-minute
                             public program of films made using their Bioscop.

                             First advertised public screening of films at LeGrand Café, Paris. The Lumière
                             brothers' Arrival of a Train at a Station, one of the many actuality films or
                             documentary views they made is screened.

     1899          Pascal - First roll film spring wind motor advance.

     1900          First mass-marketed camera, the Brownie, costs $1.

     1906          Screen aspect ratio of 1.33 : 1 established as an international viewing standard.

     1906-08     George Albert Smith and Charles Urban develop first commercially successful
                             photographic colour process; Kinemacolor.

     1912          Vest Pocket Camera is introduced.

                             First Model Speed Graphic is introduced.

     1914          First 35mm still cameras are developed.

     1919          Lee de Forest, in collaboration with Theodore Case and E. I. Sponable, develop
                            an optical sound-on-film process patented as Phonofilm.

     1922          Successful subtractive process for two-color film introduced by Herbert
                            Kalmus' Technicolor Corporation. Uses a special camera and procedure to
                            produce two separate positive prints that are then cemented together into a
                            single print. Used in films: Toll of the Sea (1922) and Douglas Fairbank's The
                            Black Pirate (1926).

     1924-45     Ernst Leitz designs and markets the 35mm Leica cameras.

     1929          Motion picture cameras are standardized to run at a speed of 24 frames per
                            second to ensure consistent sound synchronization.

     1931          Harold Edgerton invents a repeatable short-duration electronic flash, which
                            captured stop-action images that were beyond the perceptive capacity of the
                            eye.

     1932          Technicolor, a three-color system, is introduced.

                             Ansel Adams founds Group f.64 dedicated to straight photography. Group f.64
                             photographers use large cameras and small apertures to record nature's light.

                             First light meter with photoelectric cell is introduced.

     1941          Eastman Kodak introduces KODACOLOR negative film.

     1946          Eastman Kodak introduces KODAK Ektachrome, the company's first color film
                            processable by the photographer.

     1947          Dennis Gabor describes the principles of holography.

     1948          First 35mm Nikon camera is introduced.

                            Edwin Land markets the Polaroid camera.

     1951          After decades of research, acetate film stock is developed and becomes the
                            industry standard, replacing unstable and highly flammable cellulose nitrate.

     1954          Eastman Kodak introduces high speed black-and-white Tri-X film.

     1961          Eastman Kodak introduces faster Kodachrome II color film.

     1963          126 Cartridge / Instamatic Cameras are introduced.

                            Polaroid introduces instant color film.

     1968          Photograph of Earth from the moon.

     1972          Pocket Instamatic Camera-110 is introduced.

     1976          Canon AE-1 first 35mm camera with built in microprocessor is introduced.

     1978          Konica introduces first point-and-shoot, autofocus camera.

     1984          Canon demonstrates first electronic still camera.

     1987          Eastman Kodak announces the 1.4 megapixel CCD for digital cameras.

                            Both Kodak and Fuji introduce novel disposable cameras, such as the Kodak
                            Fling.

     1988          Eastman Kodak announces a 4 megapixel CCD.

     1990          Kodak announces the development of its Photo CD system.

     1996          Advanced Photo System (APS) is introduced, a new system of photography
                            integrating a 24-mm film format, cameras, and photofinishing equipment.
                            Features of the system include: leaderless cassette, easy loading and
                            unloading, smaller cameras, three print formats - standard, moderate
                            wide-angle, and panoramic - interchangeable on the same roll of film.