Classic Camera Collectors Club
Informatif website of Frank Lakiere


HISTORICAL TIMELINE



CHAPTER 1 : From Aristotle to Eastman

CHAPTER 2 : Some important persons in the history of photography

CHAPTER 3 : Historical Timeline.





around 1000 : Al-Hazen is experimenting with the idea of a camera obscura.

1553: Giovanni Battista della Porta publicizes details on the constructie and the use of the camera obscura.

around 1600: Robert Boyle rapports about the darkening of silverchloride when it is exposed to the air. Later it will be proved that not the air but that the light is responsible.

1609: Kepler suggests the use of a lens to improve the image in the camera obscura.

1646: In his book 'Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae' Athanasius Kircher describes details of a portable camera obscura.

around 1664: Isaac Newton discovers that sunlight can be dispersed by a prism and that it consists of several colours.

around 1700: Angelo Sala discovers that silvernitrate blackens when exposed to sunlight.

around 1725: Johann Heinrich Schulze discovers that silversalts darken when exposed to light.

1756: Johan Christoph Voigtländer founds a firm that makes spectacles and microscopes in Vienna.

1777: Carl Wilhelm Scheele demonstartes that silversalts that were exposed to light can be stabilised by ammonia.

around 1795: Thomas Wedgwood makes photograms on leather that is treated with silvernitrate but he is not able to fix the images.

1807: William Hyde Wollaston invents the camera lucida.

1816: Joseph Nicéphore Niépce makes a photograph of his garden on paper but he is not able to fix the image.

1819: John Herschel discover that sodiumhyposulphite can be used as fixer.

1826: after an exposure of 8 hours in bright sunlight, NiÉpce makes the first photograph.

1829: Niépce en Daguerre decide to work together in their research.

1834: William Henry Fox Talbot makes his first 'photogenic drawings' on papaer that is made lightsensitive with silverchloride.

1839: The first photograph on paper: 'Lacock Abbey' made by Talbot.

1839: Hippolyte Bayard, a French inventor, makes the first direct-positive images on light-sensitive paper.

1839: Talbot invents the calotype process. This makes it possible to make an unlimited number of prints starting from 1 negative.

19 augustus 1839: The details of the daguerreotype process are made public in France. This day is seen as the birthday of the photography.

1840: Alexander Wolcott receives the first American patent for a camera design.

1841: Fox Talbot patents his negative/positive calotype process.

1841: Antoine Claudet starts his first photographic studio in London.

1844: Fox Talbot publishes his book 'The Pencil of Nature', the first book with real photographs.

1846: Start of the Carl Zeiss plant for optical instruments in Jena.

1849: Bavid Brewster makes the first stereoscopic viewer.

1850: Louis-Désiré Blanquart-Evrard invents a process to make albumine prints.

1851: Frederick Scott Archer introduces the collodium wet plate process. That process will be dominant for the next 40 years.

1852: Details on the ambrotype process are published.

1853: The tintype process (also called Ferrotype) is introduced.

1854: A.A. Disdéri takes apatent on a technique to make the so-called 'cartes de visite'.

1855: Roger Fenton makes photographs of the Krimean war.

1858: Nadar makes the first aireal photo from out of a balloon.

1859: Sutton takes a patent on his panoramic camera

1860: Matthew Brady makes photographs of Abraham Lincoln during his first presidential campaign.

1861: Nadar (Gaspard Felix Tournachon) makes the first photos with arteficial light.

1861: Matthew Brady begins with his series of photos on the American Civil War.

1866: Carl Zeiss contacts Ernst Abbe to discuss several optical problems. The result is that Abbe becomes the director of Zeiss Optical Werke.

1868: Abbe designs the first apochromatic lenssystem for microscopes.

1870: William Henry Jackson makes photographs of Yellowstone. After that he tries to persuade the American Senate to save Yellowstone as a wilderness. And so this becomes the first national park of the USA.

1871: Richard Maddox invents the dry-plate process by using silverbromide. This technique makes photography technically a lot easier.

1872: Eadward Muybridge start his study of the movement.

1873: Willis takes a patent on the het platinotype process in Engeland.

1878: Muybridge makes his photographic series: 'horse in motion'.

1879: George Eastman invents a machine to pour gelatine-emulsion on glassplates. From now on the massproduction of photographic plates is possible.

1881: Foundation of the Eastman Dry Plate Company

1888: The name KODAK is born together with the first Kodak rollfilm camera.

1891: Production of the first Daylight Loading Filmcassette.

1893: Edison takes a patent on his 'Kinetoscope'.

1894: De gebroeders Lumière invent the Cinématoscope.

1895: Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovers the X-Rays.





1900: Introduction of the first Kodak Brownie: the price is 1 dollar 19 cent for 1 roll of film.

1902: Stieglitz founds the Photo-Secession group and publishes the magazine 'Camera Work'.

1904: Louis Lumière patents his Autochrome process.

1905: New York sees the start of the Gallery 291.

1912: Introduction of the Kodak Vest Pocket camera

1914: Introduction of the first cameras with 35mm film.

1919: Start of the Bauhaus movement by Walter Gropius

1921: Man Ray produces his first 'rayograms' in Paris

1924: Introduction of the first Leica 35mm camera, made by Barnack.

1927: Edward Weston makes his series of photos of shells.

1927: The invention of the flashlight by Paul Vierkoetter

1928: The first Rolleiflex!!

1930: Ansel Adams stops his carreer as a musician and begins his life as a photographer.

1931: Bill Brandt works as assistant for Man Ray.

1932: In San Francisco the f64 group is founded by Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Cunningham,...

1933: Brassai makes his photos of Paris by night ('Paris de Nuit').

1935: Kodak produces the first colorfilm : the Kodachrome.

1936: The start of 'Life' but also Bill Brandt with 'The English at Home' and Robert Capa with 'Moment of Death'

1940: Ilford produces multigrade photopaper.

1941: Kodak introduces the popular Kodacolor negativefilm.

1942: Ansel Adams 'Moonrise, Hernandez'.

1945: Weegee publices 'Naked City'.

1947: the first Polaroid Land instant camera.

1947: foundation of the Magnum agency.

1948: the first Nikon 35mm camera

1948: Ansel Adams publishes details of his zone-system, a technique that should lead to a better understanding and greater control over the lighting of a scene and the development of negatives.

1950: Xerox introduces the first photocopy machines.

1952: Pentax introduces the first Japanese Single Lens reflex : the Asahiflex

1954: Introduction of the high snsitive B/W film Tri-X by Kodak.

1959: Invention of the zoomlens by Voigtländer

1960: The making of the first hologram.

1963: Kodak introduces the 126 filmcassettes

1968: Kodak produces photopaper with a plastic base.

1972: Polaroid introduces the SX-70 SLR and a new instant film.

1972: Kodak makes the little Instamatic 110 cameras with the small 110 cassettes.

1981: The first digital camera by Sony : the Mavica

1982: Kodak introduces the Disc camera. Not a very big success uit !!

1992: The Photo CD

1996: The Advanced Photo System (APS) system : easy loading, smaller format than 35mm film, digital information on the film,... This system was designed to replace the 35mm system.