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impermenant
Nicéphore Niépce abandons silver halide photography as hopelessly impermanent and tries using thin coatings of Bitumen of Judea on metal and glass. He creates the first fixed, permanent photograph, a copy of an engraving of Pope Pius VII, by contact printing in direct sunlight without a camera or lens. It is later destroyed; the earliest surviving example of his "heliographic process" is from 1825. -
Silver chloride camera negatives
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. -
Mercury
Louis Daguerre creates images on silver-plated copper, coated with silver iodide and "developed" with warmed mercury; Daguerre is awarded a state pension by the French government in exchange for publication of methods and the rights by other French citizens to use the Daguerreotype process.
1841: Talbot patents his process under the name "calotype". -
full color photographs
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. -
Motion pictures
Louis Le Prince makes Roundhay Garden Scene, believed to be the first motion picture on film ever made. -
Auto Chrome
The Autochrome plate is introduced and becomes the first commercially successful color photography product. -
35 mm motion picture film
Kodak announces a 35 mm "safety" motion picture film on an acetate base as an alternative to the highly flammable nitrate base.The motion picture industry discontinues its use after 1911 due to technical imperfections. -
First feature film
Becky Sharp, the first feature film made in the full-color "three-strip" version of Technicolor, is released. -
Polaroid picture
Edwin H. Land introduces the first Polaroid instant camera. -
Nikon
1959: Nikon F introduced -
Nixon
Nicholas Nixon takes his first annual photograph of his wife and her sisters: "The Brown Sisters"; Steve Sasson at Kodak builds the first working CCD-based digital still camera -
Solo color photographs
First solo show of color photographs at the Museum of Modern Art, William Eggleston's Guide -
NIKON
Kodak DCS-100, first digital SLR, a modified Nikon F3 -
CD
Photo CD created by Kodak -
photoshop
Adobe Photoshop released. -
Cell Phone pictures
J-SH04 introduced by J-Phone, the first commercially available mobile phone with a camera that can take and share still pictures. -
Polaroid goes bankrupt
Polaroid goes bankrupt -
Canon
Canon EOS 5D, first consumer-priced full-frame digital SLR, with a 24x36mm CMOS sensor for $3000; Portraits by Rineke Dijkstra -
Discontinue instant film
Polaroid announces it is discontinuing the production of all instant film products, citing the rise of digital imaging technology. -
Pocket Sized Lightfeild Camera
Lytro releases the first pocket-sized consumer light-field camera, capable of refocusing images after being taken.
