Photography Through Time
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103 entries, oldest first. Filter by family, or open the timeline to see how they connect.

  1. c. 400 BCEThe camera obscura principleLight passing through a small hole into a dark room paints an upside-down image of the world outside. Every camera is still a dark chamber with a hole.Optics & lenses · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  2. c. 1011–21Ibn al-Haytham's Book of OpticsIbn al-Haytham showed by experiment that we see because light enters the eye, and used the dark chamber to prove that light travels in straight lines.Optics & lenses · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  3. c. 1286Spectacle lensesGlass grinders in northern Italy made convex lenses to wear for reading. Cheap, good glass lenses became a trade, and every camera lens descends from it.Optics & lenses · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  4. 1550–68The lens and the diaphragm in the camera obscuraCardano put a convex lens in the opening of a camera obscura for a brighter image; Barbaro added a smaller opening to make it sharper, the first aperture stop.Optics & lenses · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  5. 1604Kepler's opticsJohannes Kepler explained how the eye forms an upside-down image on the retina, used the name camera obscura, and in 1611 worked out how lenses form images.Optics & lenses · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  6. 1621Snell's law of refractionThe exact rule for how much light bends when it passes from air into glass. With it, the path of every ray through a lens could be calculated.Optics & lenses · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  7. 1685Zahn's reflex camera obscuraJohann Zahn described small, portable box camera obscuras with a lens, a 45° mirror and a ground-glass screen on top: the design of the reflex camera, 150 years before photography.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  8. 1666–1704Newton's spectrumIsaac Newton showed with prisms that white light is a mixture of colours that can be separated and recombined. Colour became something physics could measure.Colour · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  9. 1717Silver salts darken in lightJohann Heinrich Schulze showed that silver salts darken because of light, not heat, and printed words onto them with paper stencils. Silver became photography's metal.Light-sensitive chemistry · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  10. 1733–58The achromatic lensTwo lenses of different glass, crown and flint, cemented together so that red and blue light focus in the same place. It removed the colour fringes of simple lenses.Optics & lenses · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  11. 1777Scheele's experiments on silver chlorideCarl Wilhelm Scheele showed that light blackens silver chloride by turning it into metallic silver, and that violet light does it fastest.Light-sensitive chemistry · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  12. 1802Wedgwood and Davy’s sun printsThomas Wedgwood made silhouettes of leaves and paintings on paper soaked in silver nitrate, but could not stop them darkening. Humphry Davy published the method in 1802.Light-sensitive chemistry · Discovery or invention · Obsolete
  13. c. 1826–27Niépce's heliography and the oldest surviving camera photographNicéphore Niépce fixed a camera image on a pewter plate coated with bitumen, after an exposure of many hours. It is the oldest surviving photograph taken with a camera.Light-sensitive chemistry · Discovery or invention · Obsolete
  14. 1833–34Hércules Florence's photographie in BrazilWorking alone in Campinas, Brazil, the French-born artist Hércules Florence made images with silver salts and called the method 'photographie', years before the word was used in Europe.Light-sensitive chemistry · Discovery or invention · Obsolete
  15. 1839The daguerreotypeA silvered copper plate, made sensitive with iodine and developed with mercury vapour, gave a mirror-like image of astonishing detail. It was the first photographic process sold to the public.Light-sensitive chemistry · Discovery or invention · Niche today
  16. 1839The Giroux daguerreotype cameraThe first camera made for sale, built by Alphonse Giroux in Paris under contract with Daguerre and sold with the chemicals and equipment for the daguerreotype.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  17. 1819 / 1839Hypo fixer and the words of photographyJohn Herschel found that sodium thiosulfate dissolves silver salts, and in 1839 used it to make photographs permanent. He also gave photography its words: photography, negative, positive.Light-sensitive chemistry · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  18. 1840The Petzval portrait lensJoseph Petzval used mathematics to design a lens that let in about twenty times more light than the lenses of 1839, making portrait exposures short enough for people to sit for.Optics & lenses · Camera, format or product · Revived
  19. 1835–41Talbot's photogenic drawing and the calotype negativeWilliam Henry Fox Talbot made paper negatives from which any number of positive prints could be made. That negative–positive principle defined photography for 150 years.Light-sensitive chemistry · Discovery or invention · Obsolete
  20. 1842The cyanotypeJohn Herschel’s iron-based process makes Prussian-blue prints with sunlight and water, and no silver. Anna Atkins used it for the first photographically illustrated book.Light-sensitive chemistry · Discovery or invention · Niche today
  21. 1850The albumen printPaper coated with egg white and silver salts gave sharp, glossy prints from glass negatives, and became the main way photographs were printed for forty years.Prints & sharing · Discovery or invention · Niche today
  22. 1849–51The stereographTwo photographs taken a few centimetres apart and seen through a viewer, one per eye, appear in three dimensions. Millions were sold for home viewing.Prints & sharing · Camera, format or product · Niche today
  23. 1851The wet collodion processA sticky collodion film on glass, sensitised and exposed while still wet, gave sharp glass negatives in seconds. It made the daguerreotype and the calotype obsolete within a decade.Light-sensitive chemistry · Discovery or invention · Revived
  24. 1854–56The ambrotype and the tintypeThin collodion negatives that look positive against a dark backing: on glass (ambrotype) or on a black iron plate (tintype). Cheap, quick portraits for everyone.Light-sensitive chemistry · Camera, format or product · Revived
  25. 1854The carte de visiteSmall portrait prints mounted on visiting-card-sized board, made several at a time on one plate. They were cheap enough to collect, trade and send.Prints & sharing · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  26. 1861Maxwell's three-colour photographJames Clerk Maxwell showed that three photographs taken through red, green and blue filters, projected together, could rebuild a colour image. Every colour camera since uses the same idea.Colour · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  27. 1868–69Ducos du Hauron and subtractive colourLouis Ducos du Hauron worked out the methods colour photography would use: three separation negatives, and prints in cyan, magenta and yellow that subtract colours from white.Colour · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  28. 1873–1906Colour sensitising: orthochromatic and panchromatic emulsionsHermann Vogel found that dyes make silver halide sensitive to green, then red light. Plates that saw all colours made true tones in black and white, and colour film, possible.Light-sensitive chemistry · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  29. 1871–78The gelatin dry plateSilver bromide held in gelatin made plates that were factory-made, kept for months and fast enough to expose in a fraction of a second. The snapshot became possible.Light-sensitive chemistry · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  30. 1880Halftone printingBreaking a photograph into dots of different sizes let ordinary printing presses reproduce it, so photographs could appear in newspapers, magazines and books.Prints & sharing · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  31. 1872–86Scientific lens design (Abbe, Zeiss and Schott)In Jena, Ernst Abbe’s optical theory, Carl Zeiss’s workshop and Otto Schott’s new glasses turned lens making from trial and error into calculated design.Optics & lenses · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  32. 1887Magnesium flash powderA powder of magnesium and an oxidiser that burned in a blinding flash, bright enough to photograph dark interiors and people at night for the first time.Exposure, light & focus · Discovery or invention · Obsolete
  33. 1888The Kodak cameraA small box camera loaded with a hundred exposures, sold with the promise 'You press the button, we do the rest'. Developing became someone else's job, and anyone could take photographs.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  34. 1880sMechanical shutters: focal-plane and leafWith dry plates, exposures fell to fractions of a second. Two shutter types emerged: blinds that run across the film, and blades that open inside the lens.Exposure, light & focus · Discovery or invention · Niche today
  35. 1889Transparent celluloid roll filmGelatin emulsion on a thin, flexible strip of celluloid replaced glass. It made small cameras possible and, cut into strips, became cinema film.Light-sensitive chemistry · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  36. 1891Lippmann colour photographyGabriel Lippmann recorded colour with no dyes at all: light reflected from a mercury mirror formed standing waves in a fine emulsion, which replayed the colours. Nobel Prize, 1908.Colour · Discovery or invention · Obsolete
  37. 189235mm cine filmEastman's film slit to 35mm with four perforations per frame on each side, made for Edison's Kinetoscope. It became the world's cinema standard, and later the width of still-camera film.Formats & sensors · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  38. 1893The Cooke tripletDennis Taylor showed that three thin lenses, two convex and one concave, could correct the main faults of a lens. The simplest anastigmat, and the basis of many later designs.Optics & lenses · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  39. 1893Velox and gaslight paperA photographic paper fast enough to print under ordinary gas or electric light, instead of sunlight. Kodak bought it in 1899 and it made home and shop printing easy.Prints & sharing · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  40. 1900The Kodak BrownieA cardboard box camera that cost one dollar, sold with film at 15 cents a roll. Aimed at children, it made photography a hobby almost anyone could afford.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  41. 1901120 roll filmA roll of film about 6 cm wide on a spool with paper backing, introduced for the Brownie No. 2. It became the medium format and is still made today.Formats & sensors · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  42. 1902The Zeiss TessarPaul Rudolph’s four-element lens for Zeiss: sharp, compact and simple to make. Sold as the eagle eye of the camera, it was copied by almost every maker.Optics & lenses · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  43. 1907The Autochrome LumièreA glass plate covered with millions of dyed potato-starch grains acted as a mosaic of tiny colour filters. It was the first practical colour photography, and its images glow like pointillist paintings.Colour · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  44. 1912The Speed Graphic press cameraA folding 4×5 inch camera with a fast focal-plane shutter, used by most American press photographers for half a century, including for the flag raising on Iwo Jima.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  45. 1925The Leica IOskar Barnack's pocket-sized camera used 35mm cine film and a doubled 24 × 36 mm frame. It turned small-negative photography into a serious craft and fixed the format later called full frame.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  46. 1929The flashbulbMetal foil or wire sealed in a glass bulb with oxygen and fired by electricity: a bright, safe, smokeless flash, used once and thrown away.Exposure, light & focus · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  47. 1929The Rolleiflex twin-lens reflexTwo matched lenses, one to view and one to take, on a compact 120-film camera with square 6×6 frames. It set the standard for professional medium format for thirty years.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Niche today
  48. 1931Electronic flashA spark of electricity through a tube of xenon gives a flash lasting a few thousandths of a second or less, again and again. Harold Edgerton used it to freeze motion.Exposure, light & focus · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  49. 1932The photoelectric exposure meterA hand-held meter whose selenium cell turned light into a small current, so photographers could measure exposure instead of guessing from tables.Exposure, light & focus · Camera, format or product · Niche today
  50. 1925–34135 film and the 24 × 36 mm frameThe 24 × 36 mm frame on 35mm film in a light-tight cartridge became the world's standard still format, and the yardstick, as 'full frame', for every digital sensor size.Formats & sensors · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  51. 1935KodachromeThe first successful multilayer colour film: three black-and-white layers, each sensitive to one colour, turned into dyes during development. Its rich, long-lasting slides defined colour photography for decades.Colour · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  52. 1935Anti-reflection lens coatingA film of magnesium fluoride a quarter of a wavelength thick stops glass surfaces reflecting light. Lenses with many elements became bright and clear instead of hazy.Optics & lenses · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  53. 1935WirephotoPhotographs sent over telephone lines as varying electrical signals, scanned at one end and redrawn at the other, so news pictures reached papers across a country the same day.Prints & sharing · Discovery or invention · Obsolete
  54. 1936Agfacolor Neu: dye couplers in the filmAgfa put the colour-forming couplers into the three layers of the film itself, so colour film could be developed with one set of chemicals. Most later colour films worked this way.Colour · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  55. 1936The Kine ExaktaIhagee’s Kine Exakta was among the first 35mm single-lens reflexes: the photographer saw through the taking lens itself, so any lens could be focused and framed exactly.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  56. 1938Automatic exposureA light meter linked to the camera’s controls set the exposure by itself. The Kodak Super Six-20 of 1938 was the first; electronics made it universal by the 1970s and 80s.Exposure, light & focus · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  57. 1939The Argus C3A heavy, cheap, rectangular 35mm rangefinder from Ann Arbor, Michigan, nicknamed the Brick. Millions of Americans learned 35mm photography with one.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  58. 1939–40The Zone SystemA method for planning a black-and-white print from the moment of exposure, by dividing tones into eleven zones and adjusting exposure and development to place them.Exposure, light & focus · Discovery or invention · Niche today
  59. 1942–72Colour negative film and C-41Film that gives a colour negative to print from, so anyone could get colour prints back from the lab. With the standard C-41 process, it became how most people shot colour.Colour · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  60. 1948The Hasselblad system cameraA medium-format single-lens reflex in which lenses, film backs and viewfinders could all be swapped. Hasselblads became the studio standard, and went to the Moon.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Niche today
  61. 1947–48Instant photographyEdwin Land’s camera developed and printed its own picture in about a minute, by spreading a pod of chemicals between negative and paper as the film was pulled out.Light-sensitive chemistry · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  62. 1949The pentaprism eye-level viewfinderA five-sided prism above the focusing screen turned the reflex image the right way up and round, so an SLR could be used at eye level like a rangefinder.Cameras · Discovery or invention · Niche today
  63. 1954The instant-return mirrorA spring brought the SLR mirror straight back down after each exposure, so the viewfinder went black only for an instant instead of until the film was wound.Cameras · Discovery or invention · Niche today
  64. 1954The Leica M3Leica’s first M-mount camera combined a bright viewfinder and rangefinder in one window, with frame lines for each lens and a quick bayonet mount.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Niche today
  65. 1957The first digital imageRussell Kirsch scanned a photograph of his baby son into a computer as a grid of 176×176 black and white dots: the first digital picture.Digital imaging · Discovery or invention · Obsolete
  66. 1959The Nikon FA rugged 35mm single-lens reflex with interchangeable finders, motor drive and a bayonet lens mount. It made the Japanese SLR the professional standard.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  67. 1959The Olympus Pen half-frame cameraA small, cheap camera that took 72 half-frame pictures on a roll of 35mm film. Designed by Yoshihisa Maitani, it started a half-frame boom in Japan.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  68. 1959The zoom lens for still camerasA lens that changes focal length while keeping focus. The Voigtländer-Zoomar of 1959 brought it to 35mm still cameras; by the 1980s zooms were the normal kit lens.Optics & lenses · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  69. 1963The Kodak InstamaticA cheap camera loaded with a drop-in 126 film cartridge, so no one had to thread film again. More than 50 million were made.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  70. 1963Through-the-lens meteringPutting the light meter inside the SLR, behind the lens, so it measured exactly the light reaching the film, whatever the lens or filter.Exposure, light & focus · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  71. 1969The charge-coupled device (CCD)Willard Boyle and George Smith invented a chip that stores electric charge in tiny wells and passes it along like buckets in a line. As an image sensor it made digital photography possible.Digital imaging · Discovery or invention · Niche today
  72. 1972110 cartridge filmA tiny drop-in cartridge with a 13×17 mm frame that made pocket cameras possible. Popular in the 1970s and 80s, but its small negatives looked grainy when enlarged.Formats & sensors · Camera, format or product · Niche today
  73. 1972The Polaroid SX-70A folding single-lens reflex that ejected each picture, which developed in the light in front of you. Edwin Land’s most ambitious camera.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Revived
  74. 1975Sasson's digital cameraA Kodak engineer built a toaster-sized prototype that recorded a 100 × 100 pixel black-and-white image onto cassette tape in 23 seconds. It was the first self-contained digital camera.Digital imaging · Discovery or invention · Obsolete
  75. 1976The Bayer filterBryce Bayer's checkerboard of red, green and blue filters, with twice as many green, lets a single sensor record colour. Almost every digital camera and phone uses it.Digital imaging · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  76. 1976The Canon AE-1The first single-lens reflex controlled by a microprocessor, mass-produced with electronics and plastics and sold to amateurs on television. It turned the SLR into a consumer product.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  77. 1977AutofocusCameras learned to focus themselves, first with rangefinder-like sensor modules in compacts, then with phase detection inside SLRs.Exposure, light & focus · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  78. 1981The Sony MavicaAn electronic still camera that recorded TV-quality images on a small floppy disk. Not yet digital, but it announced the end of film to the industry.Digital imaging · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  79. 1982Kodak Disc filmFifteen tiny 8×10 mm frames on a rotating disc. Kodak hoped it would replace 110, but the frames were too small for good prints.Formats & sensors · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  80. 1986The first megapixel sensorKodak scientists made a CCD with 1.4 million pixels, enough for a 5×7 inch photo-quality print. The first sensor with over a million pixels.Digital imaging · Discovery or invention · Obsolete
  81. 1987Canon EOS and the electronic lens mountCanon dropped its old mount for a fully electronic one, with the focusing motor in each lens. It became the most used SLR system of the film-to-digital era.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  82. 1990Adobe PhotoshopA program for editing pictures on a computer, written by the brothers Thomas and John Knoll. It became so common that “photoshop” became a verb.Digital imaging · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  83. 1990sInkjet fine-art printingPrinters that spray tiny drops of ink became good enough for gallery prints. Photographers could print colour at home and control every step, without a darkroom.Prints & sharing · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  84. 1991The Kodak DCS 100A Nikon F3 with a 1.3-megapixel Kodak sensor, wired to a shoulder-bag hard drive. The first digital SLR sold commercially, at about $20,000.Digital imaging · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  85. 1992JPEG compressionA standard for compressing photographs to a tenth of their size or less, by discarding detail the eye barely sees. It made storing and sending pictures practical.Digital imaging · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  86. 1993The CMOS active-pixel sensorEric Fossum's team at NASA's JPL put an amplifier in every pixel of a chip made like ordinary computer chips. Cheap, fast and frugal, CMOS sensors now sit in nearly every camera and phone.Digital imaging · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  87. 1994–95Image stabilisationGyroscopes sense camera shake and move a lens element, or the sensor, to cancel it, so sharp pictures can be taken at slower shutter speeds by hand.Exposure, light & focus · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  88. 1996APS film (Advanced Photo System)A 24mm film in a drop-in cartridge, with three print shapes: H, C (classic) and P (panoramic). It faded quickly, but its 'C' frame gave its name to the APS-C digital sensor.Formats & sensors · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  89. 1999–2000The APS-C digital sensorSensors about 23.5 × 15.6 mm made digital SLRs affordable. Lenses on them see a narrower view than on 35mm film, by a 'crop factor' of about 1.5 (1.6 on Canon).Formats & sensors · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  90. 1999The Nikon D1A 2.7-megapixel digital SLR built by Nikon itself for under $6,000, much less than earlier models. It moved news photography to digital.Digital imaging · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  91. 1999–2000The camera phonePhones with built-in cameras appeared in Japan in 1999–2000 and spread worldwide. With the smartphone they became the most used cameras in history.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  92. 2002The full-frame digital sensorSensors the full size of a 35mm frame, 36 × 24 mm, let film-era lenses see exactly as they did on film. Rare and costly in 2002, full frame became the standard for serious cameras.Formats & sensors · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  93. 2003Four Thirds and Micro Four ThirdsAn open standard for a 17.3×13 mm sensor, designed for digital from the start. Its Micro version, without a mirror, started the mirrorless camera.Formats & sensors · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  94. 2004Online photo sharingWebsites and apps where people post photos, comment and follow each other turned photography into a form of conversation. Billions of pictures are shared each day.Prints & sharing · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  95. 2004Raw files and DNGRaw files keep the sensor’s data before processing, so photographers can decide on white balance and tones later. Adobe’s DNG offered an open format for them.Digital imaging · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  96. 2007The iPhoneThe first iPhone had a basic 2-megapixel camera, but its large screen, internet and, from 2008, apps turned the phone into the main camera for most people.Digital imaging · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  97. 2008The Panasonic Lumix G1The first mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera: no mirror, just a sensor feeding an electronic viewfinder, in a smaller body.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  98. 2011The Fujifilm X100A compact with a fixed 23 mm lens and an APS-C sensor, styled like a 1950s rangefinder, with a hybrid optical and electronic viewfinder and real dials.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  99. 2013The Sony α7The first full-frame mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras: full-frame sensors in small bodies with electronic viewfinders. Within five years Canon and Nikon followed.Cameras · Camera, format or product · Obsolete
  100. 2013–18Computational photographyPhones began to take many frames for each picture and merge them in software, reducing noise, widening dynamic range and simulating background blur. The photograph became a calculation.Digital imaging · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  101. 2010s–The film revivalAfter digital nearly killed it, film came back: new instant film, reissued slide films, new film cameras, and a generation of photographers born after film went out.Light-sensitive chemistry · Camera, format or product · Still in use
  102. 2017Stacked and global-shutter sensorsPlacing memory and processing layers directly under the pixels lets the sensor read out very fast, nearly ending the distortions of electronic shutters.Digital imaging · Discovery or invention · Still in use
  103. 2022Generative AI and Content CredentialsSoftware that makes photo-realistic pictures from a text prompt blurred the line between photograph and image. Content Credentials try to record where a picture came from.Digital imaging · Discovery or invention · Still in use