16th Century
* 1558: Giovanni della Porta describes the camera obscura in his book Magiae Naturalis. The camera obscura is a dark room with a small hole in one wall, which allows light to enter and project an image of the outside world onto the opposite wall.
17th Century
* 1685: Johann Zahn publishes Oculus Artificialis Teledioptricus Sive Telescopium, which describes a camera with a lens.
18th Century
* 1727: Johann Heinrich Schulze experiments with silver compounds and finds that they are sensitive to light.
* 1793: Nicéphore Niépce begins experimenting with light-sensitive materials.
19th Century
-1826: Joseph Nicéphore Niépce creates the first permanent photograph, by fixing a bitumen-coated pewter plate to a camera.
-1829: Louis Daguerre begins his experiments with photography, using a silver-plated copper plate and exposing it to light in a camera obscura.
-* 1837: Daguerre and Niépce form a partnership and announce the invention of the daguerreotype, the first commercially successful photographic process. The daguerreotype produced detailed images on silver-coated copper plates.
-* 1841: William Fox Talbot introduces the calotype process, which uses paper coated with silver iodide to produce a negative image that could then be used to make multiple prints.
- 1851: Frederick Scott Archer introduces the wet plate collodion process, which made it possible to create sharp, detailed photographs relatively quickly.
-1870: Eastman Kodak company founded.
-1884: George Eastman introduces the first roll film camera, the Kodak Camera, which made photography more accessible to the general public.
20th Century
- 1900: The Brownie camera is introduced, making photography even more affordable and accessible.
-1925: Oskar Barnack develops the first Leica 35mm camera, which revolutionizes photography by making it possible to capture candid and action shots with a portable camera.
-1947: Edwin Land introduces the Polaroid Land Camera, which produces instant photographs.
-1959: The first SLR (single-lens reflex) camera with a built-in exposure meter is introduced.
-1960: Polaroid unveils the first instant color camera.
-1975: The first digital camera is developed by Kodak engineer Steven Sasson.
-1989: The first commercially successful digital camera, the Kodak DCS 100, is introduced.
-21st Century
-2000: The first camera phone, the Kyocera Visual Phone, is introduced.
-2010: Digital cameras surpass film cameras in sales for the first time.
-2012: Instagram app reaches one billion active users.
-2019: The first 8K camera, the RED Weapon 8K, is introduced.