Interested in the history of cameras and what they were like when they were outset invented? Here's a comprehensive history of the photographic camera, from the Camera obscura to the smartphone in your pocket.

If you're looking for equipment yourself just not certain how to get it, check out our folio on camera equipment here.

History of camera

The first camera: Camera obscura (11th-17th)

The Camera Obscura was the ancient predecessor to our modern cameras. This was a device written near by Aristotle (more two,300 years agone!)

However, a photographic camera as we know it needs to produce an prototype on film, paper, digitally, etc. Aristotle'due south camera obscura just created light and was unable to preserve an prototype.

Now let's flash forrard to the 1820s when Nicéphore Niépcé adapted this model.

The get-go photograph always taken with Niépcé (18th-19th)

In around 1826 or 1827, Niépcé created a camera that could produce indistinct yet permanent images. The first photograph he took was a view from a window, but you lot wouldn't know this by looking at it since the image is so blurry.

How did he do this?

Well, Niépcé experimented with a lot of unlike plates, like paper, metal, and others. He coated these plates in some kind of cobblestone and watched how they were affected by sunlight. Somewhen, he settled on a pewter plate, slid it into the back of his camera obscura, and produced the first-e'er photograph!

old camera

The invention of daguerreotypes and calotypes

Niépcé's photographic camera was not commercially successful since he kept his process a cloak-and-dagger. In 1829 however, he went into partnership with Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre to refine the procedure into something that would be commercially successful. Unfortunately, Niépcé died in 1833, so he didn't experience any of the success that Daguerre subsequently gained.

The photographic camera that Daguerre produced was a huge hit. It captured images quickly and in incredible detail, and many 'daguerreotypes' still exist today in museums and galleries.

Henry Play a joke on Talbot invented the get-go calotype in 1840, another type of photo camera. This one required high-quality lenses and plates to apply.

First consumer camera: Eastman's "Kodak"

Over the years after the invention of the camera, many developments in plates were fabricated. Eventually, photographers started to print on newspaper. (At this bespeak, though, photography was still very much for professionals.)

In 1888, George Eastman invented the outset Kodak camera. This one was much more accessible and meant more people could brainstorm capturing their experiences through photography. It made casual photography possible and was the first to use celluloid film!

kodak eastman

The 35mm for still cameras

In the 1910s, High german engineer Oskar Barnack experimented and used 35mm cine film for still cameras. This somewhen developed into the showtime 35mm film photographic camera.

Information technology was an immediate success, and 35mm became the format for quality cameras.

The first digital camera: Polaroid is invented

The first-ever Polaroid camera was made by Edwin Land in 1948 and was revolutionary every bit a photo could exist taken and and so be printed in but a few minutes.

The offset digital camera (using an image sensor instead of film) was fabricated by Steven Sasson in 1975. Still, digital photography as nosotros know it did not sally until 1991 with the Kodak Digital Camera System. By the mid-1990s, digital cameras had taken off and were beingness manufactured globally.

TLRs and SLRs

The start reflex photographic camera made for everyday use was made in the 1920s, called the Franke & Heidecke Rolleiflex medium format TLR (meaning Twin Lens Reflex).

But the first-ever unmarried-lens reflex camera with an instant return mirror was fabricated in 1948 in Hungary; the Gamma Duflex.

SLRs would have to wait until mail-Earth War Two to become the near pop for everyday employ.

DLSRs and smartphones take over

In 2000, the Japanese company "Sharp" introduced the get-go-ever photographic camera phone to the earth. But with the introduction of Apple'south iPhone in 2007, digital camera phones have shifted into new realms. Now, virtually people will take photographs on their phones every day.

Many photographers will still use DSLR cameras nowadays because of their meaty nature and ease of use.

Photography today

Photographers today have all of the engineers and inventors to thank for all the images they can take nowadays. Every bit the picture show adult, video cameras became more accessible to people. Many more formats and developments have occurred since.

Today, anyone can take a photograph anywhere if they are a professional person photographer or non. We no longer have to expect for the film to develop or spend hours experimenting with different moving picture plates. We tin can take high-quality images with a pocket-size smartphone in our pockets.

So next time y'all have a quick snap with your phone, remember the hours of piece of work our predecessors put into developing and adapting cameras to what we take today.

Rent or subscribe to your next camera

So now y'all're clued upward on the history of cameras. Want to become some equipment and go shooting?

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Get-go Photographic camera FAQ

Did cameras exist in the 1800s?

Cameras didn't exist in the style we may sympathise them before the 1820s. Aristotle had his camera obscura, but this didn't produce a permanent image. The beginning camera to produce an obscured permanent image was invented in the 1820s.

Who invented the first photographic camera?

The first camera was invented by Nicéphore Niépcé.

When was the first camera invented?

Niépcé attempted his partially successful photo of a camera image around the 1816 mark.