Thanks useful information: 
I wonder how many of us, have ever looked at the history behind this wonderful activity we all partake of.
I thought re-producing this here (with additions from many sources), might be of interest to members:
A Timeline of Photography.
- ancient times: Camera obscuras used to form images on walls in darkened rooms; image formation via a pinhole
- 16th century: Brightness and clarity of camera obscuras improved by enlarging the hole inserting a telescope lens
- 17th century: Camera obscuras in frequent use by artists and made portable in the form of sedan chairs
- 1664-1666: Isaac Newton discovers that white light is composed of different colours.
- 1727: Professor J. Schulze mixes chalk, nitric acid, and silver in a flask; notices darkening on side of flask exposed to sunlight. Accidental creation of the first photo-sensitive compound.
- 1800: Thomas Wedgwood makes "sun pictures" by placing opaque objects on leather treated with silver nitrate; resulting images deteriorated rapidly, however, if displayed under light stronger than from candles.
- 1816: Nicéphore Niépce combines the camera obscura with photosensitive paper
- 1826: Niépce creates a permanent image (see below for image)
- 1834: Henry Fox Talbot creates permanent (negative) images using paper soaked in silver chloride and fixed with a salt solution. Talbot created positive images by contact printing onto another sheet of paper.
- 1837: 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.
- 1838: Boulevard du Temple, Paris, Ille arrondissement, Daguerreotype. The purportedly first picture of a living person. (see below for image)
- 1839: introduction of the word "photography" (Sir John F.W. Herschel)
- 1840: First American patent issued in photography to Alexander Wolcott for his camera
- 1841: Talbot patents his process under the name "calotype".
- 1844: Friedrich von Martens built a camera containing a swivelling lens that could take a panorama over an arc of 150 degrees.
- 1851: Frederick Scott Archer, a sculptor in London, improves photographic resolution by spreading a mixture of collodion (nitrated cotton dissolved in ether and alcohol) and chemicals on sheets of glass. Wet plate collodion photography was much cheaper than daguerreotypes, the negative/positive process permitted unlimited reproductions, and the process was published but not patented.
- 1853: Nada (Felix Toumachon) opens his portrait studio in Paris
- 1854: Adolphe Disderi develops carte-de-visite photography in Paris, leading to worldwide boom in portrait studios for the next decade
- 1855: Beginning of stereoscopic era
- 1855-57: Direct positive images on glass (ambrotypes) and metal (tintypes or ferrotypes) popular in the US.
- 1856: John B. Dancer, an English optical instrument maker, patented a device that took two pictures simultaneously, through two lenses set slightly apart.
- 1859: Panoramic camera patented - the Sutton.
- 1861: Scottish physicist James Clerk-Maxwell demonstrates a colour photography system involving three black and white photographs, each taken through a red, green, or blue filter. The photos were turned into lantern slides and projected in registration with the same color filters. This is the "colour separation" method. Oliver Wendell Holmes invents stereoscope viewer.
- 1861-65: Mathew Brady and staff (mostly staff) covers the American Civil War, exposing 7000 negatives.
- 1865: Photographs and photographic negatives are added to protected works under copyright.
- 1868: Ducas de Hauron publishes a book proposing a variety of methods for colour photography.
- 1870: Center of period in which the US Congress sent photographers out to the West. The most famous images were taken by William Jackson and Tim O'Sullivan.
- 1871: Richard Leach Maddox, an English doctor, proposes the use of an emulsion of gelatin and silver bromide on a glass plate, the "dry plate" process.
- 1877: Eadweard Muybridge, born in England as Edward Muggridge, settles "do a horse's four hooves ever leave the ground at once" bet among rich San Franciscans by time-sequenced photography of Leland Stanford's horse.
- 1878: Dry plates being manufactured commercially.
- 1880: George Eastman, age 24, sets up Eastman Dry Plate Company in Rochester, New York. First half-tone photograph appears in a daily newspaper, the New York Graphic.
- 1885: George Eastman invented roll film, the basis for the invention of motion picture film, as used by early film makers and Thomas Edison.
- 1888: First Kodak camera, containing a 20-foot roll of paper, enough for 100 2.5-inch diameter circular pictures. George Eastman registered Kodak as a trademark and coined the phrase "You Press The Button and We Do The Rest"
- 1889: Improved Kodak camera with roll of film instead of paper
- 1890: Jacob Riis publishes How the Other Half Lives, images of tenement life in New York City
- 1898: Reverend Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film.
- 1900: Kodak Brownie box roll-film camera introduced
- 1901: Kodak introduced the 120 film.
- 1902: Alfred Stieglitz organises "Photo Secessionist" show in New York City; Arthur Korn devises practical photo-telegraphy technology (reduction of photographic images to signals that can be transmitted by wire to other locations); Wire-Photos in wide use in Europe by 1910, and transmitted inter-continentally by 1922. Frank Hurley OBE he bought his first camera (aged 17), a 15 shilling Kodak Box Brownie which he paid for at the rate of a shilling per week. He taught himself photography and set himself up in the postcard business.
- 1903: The inaugural issue of Camera Work dated January 1903 even though it mailed on 15th Dec 1902 and known for its many high quality photogravures was published by Arthur Stieglitz from 1903 - 1917
- 1904: Edward Steichen began experimenting with colour photography and was one of the first to use Autochrome Lumiere in America.
- 1905: Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen open the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession (called "291") in New York City.
- 1906: Availability of panchromatic black and white film and therefore high quality color separation color photography. J.P. Morgan finances Edward Curtis to document the traditional culture of the North American Indian.
- 1907: First commercial colour film, the Autochrome plates, manufactured by Lumiere brothers in France. Pigeon photography invented.
- 1908: Kinemacolour, a two colour process that is the first commercial "natural colour" system for movies in introduced.
- 1909: Lewis Hine hired by US National Child Labor Committee to photograph children working mills
- 1910: James (Frank) Hurley who was recognised as a pioneer in Polar photography and embellished images to maximise visual impact by way of composite printing, mounted his first exhibition in Sydney.
- 1911: Max Dupain born http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Dupain
- 1912: Vest Pocket Kodak using 127 film.
- 1913: Kinemacolor, the first commercial "natural colour" system for movies is invented.
- 1914: Oscar Barnack, employed by German microscope manufacturer Leitz, develops camera using the modern 24x36mm frame and sprocketed 35mm movie film; Kodak introduced the Autographic film system
- 1915: 68 aerial photographs of Gallipoli are taken when aerial photography was still very experimental.
- 1916: Alvin Langdon Coburn's Vortographs: deliberate abstractions. Paul Strand's photographs emphasize abstract and objective qualities.
- 1917: Nippon Kogaku K.K., which will eventually become Nikon, established in Tokyo. Frank Hurley OBE joined the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) as an honorary captain and captured many stunning battlefield scenes during the Third Battle of Ypres. In keeping with his adventurous spirit, he took considerable risks to photograph his subjects, also producing many rare colour photographs of the conflict. His period with the AIF ended in March 1918. Hurley also served as a war photographer during World War II.
- 1918: Photographer on the Hook of a Crane. http://www.zazzle.com.au/crazy_photo...72247935149544
- 1919: Asahi Kogaku Goshi Kausha founded by Kumao Kajiwara (later Pentax)
- 1920s: Yasujiro Niwa invented a device for phototelegraphic transmission through cable and later via radio
- 1920: The Bartlane facsimile system was named for Harry G. Bartholomew and Maynard D. McFarlane and was developed in Great Britain. It was one of the first applications of digital images as digitized newspaper pictures were sent by submarine cable between London and New York.
- 1921: Man Ray begins making photograms ("rayographs") by placing objects on photographic paper and exposing the shadow cast by a distant light bulb; Eugene Atget, aged 64, assigned to photograph the brothels of Paris
- 1922 : Kodak introduces 16mm reversal film on cellulose acetate base.
- 1923: Doc Harold Edgerton invents the xenon flash lamp and strobe photography. Ashai Optical manufactures "AOCO," the first projection lens for movies produced in Japan
- 1924: Leitz markets a derivative of Barnack's camera commercially as the "Leica", the first high quality 35mm camera.
- 1925: André Kertész moves from his native Hungary to Paris, where he begins an 11-year project photographing street life; Leica introduced the 35mm format to still photography; John Logie Baird successfully transmits the first television picture with a greyscale image: the head of a ventriloquist's dummy nicknamed "Stooky Bill" in a 30-line vertically scanned image, at five pictures per second. Lewis Morley born http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Morley
- 1926: First underwater colour photo (Charles Martin & W.H. Longley)
- 1927: The 79 year old Associated Press launches a photo service, however pictures are delivered by rail or in rare cases by air. Portfolio of work "Parmellian Prints of the High Sierra" by Ansell Adams is produced, the work imitates impressionist painting with soft misty effects that suppress detail. General Electric invents the modern flash bulb.
- 1928: Albert Renger-Patzsch publishes The World is Beautiful, close-ups emphasising the form of natural and man-made objects; Rollei introduces the Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex producing a 6x6 cm image on rollfilm.; Karl Blossfeldt publishes Art Forms in Nature
- 1929: Eastman Kodak introduces 16mm film with motion picture camera and projectors for home use
- 1930: Flashbulbs were patented by Johannes Ostermeier, they had aluminium foil in place of magnesium. Similar bulbs were introduced 7 weeks earlier by General Electric.
- 1931: Development of strobe photography by Harold ("Doc") Edgerton at MIT
- 1932: Inception of Technicolor for movies, where three black and white negatives were made in the same camera under different filters; Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Willard Van Dyke, Edward Weston, et al, form Group f/64 dedicated to "straight photographic thought and production".; Henri Cartier-Bresson buys a Leica and begins a 60-year career photographing people, he captures his most famous image, Behind the Gare St. Lazare, which is widely considered the greatest photo of the 20th Century. On March 14, George Eastman, aged 77, writes suicide note--"My work is done. Why wait?"--and shoots himself. First light meter with photoelectric cell introduced.
- 1933: Brassaï publishes Paris de nuit. Canon release their first rangefinder camera, the Canon RF, which was a Leica copy, and accommodated a Nikkor 50mm lens.
- 1934: Fuji Photo Film founded. By 1938, Fuji is making cameras and lenses in addition to film.
- 1935: Farm Security Administration hires Roy Stryker to run a historical section. Stryker would hire Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, et al. to photograph rural hardships over the next six years. Roman Vishniac begins his project of the soon-to-be-killed-by-their-neighbours Jews of Central and Eastern Europe.
- 1936: Development of Kodachrome, the first color multi-layered color film; development of Exakta, pioneering 35mm single-lens reflex (SLR) camera; ‘The Kwanon’, Japan’s first 35 mm focal plane-shutter camera, was produced in prototype form. The first Argus camera, known as the Model A, was manufactured in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was a success as the first low-cost, easy-to-use 35mm film camera in the world. Thirty thousand cameras were sold in the first week at $12.50 each. Worldwide sales of this model continued until 1950.
- 1937: Max Dupain takes his iconic image "Sunbaker" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunbaker
- 1938: The Kodak Super Six-20 was the first still camera with autoexposure. It was very expensive for that era and relatively few were sold. Production: 1938-1944, 719 manufactured. 620 roll film. Asahi Optical Co., Ltd. is established
- 1939: Agfacolor negative-positive colour material, the first modern "print" film; The View-Master stereo viewer is introduced
- 1940: Victor Hasselblad established a camera workshop in Gothenburg called Ross AB in a shed at an automobile shop near a junkyard and working in the evenings in cooperation with an auto mechanic from the shop and his brother, began to design the HK7 camera
- 1941: Hasselblad had over twenty employees and the Swedish Air Force asked for another camera, one which would have a larger negative and could be permanently mounted to an aircraft; this model was known as the SKa4
- 1942: Kodacolor, Kodak's first "print" film; Karl Erik Hasselblad died and Victor took control of the family business. During the war, in addition to the military cameras, Hasselblad produced watch and clock parts, over 95,000 by the war's end. Chester Carlson receives patent for electric photography (xerography).
- World War II:
- Between 1941 and 1945, Hasselblad delivered 342 cameras to the Swedish military
- Continued development of multi-layer colour negative films
- Margaret Bourke-White, Robert Capa, Carl Mydans, and W. Eugene Smith cover the war for LIFE magazine
- 1943: French fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier born http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Demarchelier
- 1944: 6th of June Robert Capa swam ashore with the second assault wave on Omaha Beach. He was armed with two Contax II cameras mounted with 50 mm lenses and several rolls of spare film. Capa took 106 pictures in the first couple of hours of the invasion. However, a staff member at Life in London made a mistake in the darkroom; he set the dryer too high and melted the emulsion in the negatives in three complete rolls and over half of a fourth roll. Only eleven frames in total were recovered.
- 1945: The Dancing Man is the name given to the man who was filmed dancing on the street in Sydney, Australia, after the end of World War II. On 15 August 1945, a reporter took note of a man's joyful expression and dance and asked him to do it again. The man consented and was caught on motion picture film in an Australian edition of the newsreel Movietone News. The film and stills from it have taken on iconic status in Australian history and culture, and symbolise victory in the war. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Man
- 1946: First photo taken from space
- 1947: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, and David Seymour start the photographer-owned Magnum picture agency; Dennis Gabor invents holography; Edgerton develops the Rapatronic camera for the U.S. government; Kwanon is renamed Canon Camera Co., Inc
- 1948: Hasselblad in Sweden offers its first medium-format SLR for commercial sale; Pentax in Japan introduces the automatic diaphragm; Edwin H. Land introduces the first Polaroid instant image camera; Polaroid sells instant black and white film
- 1949: East German Zeiss develops the Contax S, first SLR with an un-reversed image in a pentaprism viewfinder
- 1950: Kodak introduces a new multi-layered film stock in which emulsions sensitive to red, green, and blue are bonded together on a single roll; patented as Eastmancolor. Polaroid introduces a "electric eye shutter" that will automatically select shutter speeds 1/10 +1/1000 for fixed F5.4 lens. They also contract US Time Corp to produce Polaroid Land Cameras.
- 1951: Bing Crosby Laboratories introduced the video tape recorder which recorded electrical impulses on magnetic tape.
- 1952: Asahiflex I (Pentax) is the first Japanese 35mm SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera. It has a cloth curtain focal plain shutter and shutter speeds range from 1/20 to 1/500 sec. (plus Bulb); The 3-D film craze begins with Bwana Devil, a low-budget polarized 3-D film, premieres in late November and starts a brief 3-D craze that begins in earnest in 1953 and fades away during 1954.
- 1953: Hasselblad release the 1000F
- 1954: Until the introduction of the Asahiflex II, professional photographers prefer 35mm rangefinder cameras over SLRs. One of the main reason that SLR cameras do not yet gain popularity is because of the "mirror blackout" problem. When the shutter release is pressed, the mirror swings up to allow the film to capture the image. The mirror remains in this up position and has to be manually brought down. This "lag" means that rapid shooting is not possible with a SLR. The Asahiflex II has the world's first instant return mirror system. Soon, all SLRs also have one, and the popularity of SLRs among professional photographers soars; Leica M Introduced; Hasselblad 1000F mated to the ground breaking new 38 mm Biogon lens designed by Dr. Bertele of Zeiss to produce the SWA (Super Wide Angle), promoted at Photokina that year. Kodak Tri-X 400 first introduced. A fast black and white film with relatively fine grain that became the favourite for photojournalists and reportage photographers throughout the world.
- 1955: Edward Steichen curates Family of Man exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art
- 1956: Anne Geddes is born in Queensland, Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Geddes
- 1957: Pentax with the use of a pentaprism in the viewfinder of the Asahi Pentax SLR. Before that, you held your camera at waist level and looked straight down into an open viewfinder. The pentaprism allows eye-level viewing and provides an upright and laterally correct image. It is also the first time that the name Pentax (PENTAprism refleX) is used on a camera; First digital image produced on a computer by Russell Kirsch at U.S. National Bureau of Standards (now known as the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST); Hasselblad release the 500C which influences their cameras for the next 40 years
- 1958: Edward Weston dies at age 71, he had used large format cameras with small apertures to create a new aesthetic. The Trinidad Island UFO photographic case which was observed by 47 witnesses; Mr. Baruana took 6 photos at f/8 1/125 of the UFO that was estimated to be moving at 600 -700kph the photos were declared authentic by the Brazilian Navy.
- 1959: Pentax K released with a semi-automatic diaphragm; Nikon F introduced. AGFA introduces the first fully automatic camera, the Optima.
- 1960: Garry Winogrand begins photographing women on the streets of New York City. EG&G develops extreme depth underwater camera for U.S. Navy.
- 1961: Canon creates an outstanding Rangefinder camera, the Canon 7, and the Canon lens 50mm 10.95 in a special bayonet mount
- 1962: NASA began to use Hasselblad cameras on space flights
- 1963: First color instant film developed by Polaroid; Instamatic released by Kodak; first purpose-built underwater introduced, the Nikonos. Lewis Morley takes his iconic image of Christine Keeler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CKeeler1.jpg. Cibachrome (a dye destruction positive-to-positive photographic process), now known as Ilfochrome, was first marketed by Ciba-Geigy Corporation of Switzerland.
- 1964: Pentax Spotmatic with the world's first TTL (through-the-lens) exposure metering system. Instead of using their separate exposure meters to take light readings, then dialing the settings into their cameras, photographers can now let the camera's internal exposure meter take the reading through the lens (i.e. using the same light that is going to strike the film)
- 1965: Introduction of Super 8, a new amateur format, Kodak Instamatic M2 known as the "Brick" the M2 is an example of an inexpensive Super 8 movie camera. Canon release the first SLR with a stationary mirror, the Pelix, copied by Sony in the A55
- 1966: The world's first view of Earth taken by a spacecraft from the vicinity of the Moon. The photo was transmitted to Earth by the United States Lunar Orbiter I and received at the NASA tracking station at Robledo De Chavela near Madrid, Spain.
- 1967: Sony introduces the first portable VTR, the DV-2400
- 1968: Hasselblad 500EL electric cameras were used for the first time on Apollo 8
- 1969: Three Hasselblad 500EL cameras were carried on Apollo 11. Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith invented the first successful imaging technology using a digital sensor, a CCD (Charge-Coupled Device). The CCD technology makes use of the photoelectric effect, as theorised by Albert Einstein and for which he was awarded the 1921 year's Nobel Prize. By this effect, light is transformed into electric signals. The challenge when designing an image sensor was to gather and read out the signals in a large number of image points, pixels, in a short time. Asahi Pentax releases the Asahi Pentax 67. A medium format camera shooting 6x7 format on 120/200 roll films. Modelled on a 35mm SLR only bigger. Like a 35mm SLR on steroids.
- 1970: William Wegman begins photographing his Weimaraner, Man Ray.
- 1971: the Pentax ES SLR camera, the world's first SLR camera with a TTL aperture-priority AE control was introduced. Pentax also introduced the Super-Multi Coating (SMC) system for the Asahi Optical Takumar lens series; Canon release the F-1, a top-end SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera, and FD lenses are introduced
- 1972: 110-format cameras introduced by Kodak with a 13x17mm frame. Texas Instruments patented a film-less electronic camera
- 1973: C-41 color negative process introduced, replacing C-22. Polaroid introduces one-step instant photography with the SX-70 camera.
- 1974: Anne Geddes starts taking photographs
- 1975: 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
- 1976: First solo show of colour photographs at the Museum of Modern Art, William Eggleston's Guide; Victor Hasselblad sold Hasselblad AB to a Swedish investment company, Säfveån AB. When he died in 1978, he left much of his fortune to the Hasselblad Foundation
- 1977: Cindy Sherman begins work on Untitled Film Stills, completed in 1980; Jan Groover begins exploring kitchen utensils. George Eastman and Edwin Land inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
- 1978: Hiroshi Sugimoto begins work on seascapes.
- 1979: Nikon EM was intended to compete in the price range of the Canon AE-1 and Olympus OM-10.
- 1980: Elsa Dorfman begins making portraits with the 20x24" Polaroid. Nikon releases the Nikon F3; Nikon's first electronic professional camera with semi automatic mode, aperture priority. Also the first Nikon camera to feature the famous red stripe still seen today. Styled by Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro who made is name designing cars especially Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Maserati.
- 1981: Pentax introduced the first through-the-lens autofocus camera, the Pentax ME-F. Sony demonstrates Mavica "still video" camera.
- 1982: Ken Duncan leaves Sydney to travel Australia and to photograph its famed landscapes. In five years he produced more than 80,000 images. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Duncan
- 1983: Kodak introduces disk camera, using an 8x11mm frame (the same as in the Minox spy camera)
- 1984: Pentax produced the world's first multi-mode medium format camera the Pentax 645
- 1985: Steve McCurry takes and publishes the Afghan Girl, and unknown 12yo subject until she was formally identified in early 2002; Minolta markets the world's first autofocus SLR system (called "Maxxum" in the US); In the American West by Richard Avedon is published
- 1986: The TIFF format is defined by Aldus (later acquired by Adobe). Kodak scientists invented the world's first megapixel sensor, capable of recording 1.4 million pixels that could produce a 5x7-inch digital photo-quality print
- 1987: Pentax introduced the SF-1 an autofocus camera with the world's first AF SLR with a built-in auto flash; The popular Canon EOS system introduced, with new all-electronic lens mount, CompuServe define the GIF standard
- 1988: Sally Mann begins publishing nude photos of her children. Anne Geddes’ image of Gemma, a little girl standing in a tutu, taken in her Melbourne garage studio, became her first published photograph
- 1989: Konica’s Kanpai was the world's first voice activated camera and would automatically swivel on its built-in tripod to take snapshots wherever it heard a burst of sound like laughter or cheers. The original 1989 model was red, later models were black.
- 1990: Adobe Photoshop released. Eastman Kodak announces Photo CD as a digital image storage medium.
- 1991: Kodak DCS-100, first digital SLR, a modified Nikon F3
- 1992: Max Dupain dies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Dupain. JPEG standard defined.
- 1993: Sebastiao Salgado publishes Workers; Mary Ellen Mark publishes book documenting life in an Indian circus
- 1994: SanDisk specify and produce CompactFlash (CF) cards. The new head of Eastman Kodak, George M.C. Fisher, announced a major shift in the industry giant’s direction: Kodak would sell its diversified non-photographic operations and concentrate only on photography in both its traditional chemical-based and emerging electronic aspects.
- 1995: Material World, by Peter Menzel published; Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis, began developing GIMP in 1995 as a semester-long project at the University of California, Berkeley
- 1996: Hasselblad was sold, with the new owners being UBS, Cinven, and the Hasselblad management; The first public release of GIMP (0.54) was made in January. PNG format defined as an open standard to replace GIF.
- 1997: Rob Silvers publishes Photomosaics
- 1998: ISO standard 12232:1998 is released 'Photography -- Electronic still-picture cameras -- Determination of ISO speed'. Kenwood VC-H1 combined an image-scan converter, CCD camera and LCD monitor into a single battery-operated unit. It could be connected to a transceiver to send and receive color images over the air.
- 1999: Nikon D1 SLR, 2.74 megapixel for $6000, first ground-up DSLR design by a leading manufacturer; SanDisk, Matsushita, and Toshiba first agreed to develop and market the SD (Secure Digital) Memory Card. Asahi Optical Co., Ltd., PENTAX Corporation's parent company, celebrates its 80th Anniversary
- 2000: Camera phone introduced in Japan by Sharp/J-Phone
- 2001: Polaroid goes bankrupt and reorganises under Chapter 11 provisions; Canon release the 1D
- 2002: Nikon release the D100; The Afghan Girl identified as Sharbat Gula and re-photographed by Steve McCurry for National Geographic. Introduction of the Foveon sensor. Canon 1Ds, the first 35mm sensor professional DSLR.
- 2003: Four-Thirds standard for compact digital SLRs introduced with the Olympus E-1; Canon Digital Rebel introduced for less than $1000. Pentax introduce the *ist D; Nikon releases the D90, the first DSLR to shoot HD video
- 2004: Kodak ceases production of film cameras, this event signifies a consumer quantum jump from film to digital; Eastman Kodak Company is removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average index on April 8, having been listed for the past 74 years
- 2005: Canon EOS 5D, first consumer-priced 35mm digital SLR, with a 24x36mm CMOS sensor for $3000. AgfaPhoto files for bankruptcy. Production of Agfa brand consumer films ends.
- 2006: Sony absorb Konica/Minolta; Dalsa produces 111 megapixel CCD sensor, the highest resolution at its time. www.AusPhotography.net.au founded. Pentax go back to the K naming standard releasing the K10D and K100D
- 2007: Adobe release Lightroom, Nikon release D40X and D300, Canon 1Ds Mk III. Rick takes over www.AusPhotography.net.au.
- 2008: Apple release the iPhone 3g with camera; Canon Release the 5D mk II; Pentax release the K20D, K200D and K-m; Polaroid announces it is discontinuing the production of all instant film products, citing the rise of digital imaging technology. Panasonic Lumix G1, the first DSLM camera (where M is for 'mirrorless'). Steve Parish awarded an OA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Parish October The Impossible Project saved the last Polaroid production plant for integral instant film in Enschede (NL) and started to invent and produce totally new instant film materials for traditional Polaroid cameras.
- 2009: Kodak cease production of Kodachrome film, this is a significant milestone in the global transition to digital photography; In January, Kodak post a quarterly loss and plan to cut up to 4,500 jobs; Leica introduce the M9, the first 24x36mm rangefinder camera; Pentax release the K-7 & K-x both with HD video; Nikon release the D300s & D3s both with HD video; Canon release the 7D with HD video; Sony release the A850; Technology convergence is significant with the availability of HD video on DSLR cameras and advances in phone camera technologies; Patriarch Partners LLC won an auction for Polaroid Corporation's assets including the company's name, intellectual property, and photography collection. November www.AusPhotography.net.au introduces an automated competition system, a first for photography forums.
- 2010: Pentax release the 645D 40Mpx medium format DSLR, a first for the big 5 (CNPSO); Adobe release Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom V3; Polaroid partner with Lady Gaga, appointing her as Creative Director for the company; Sony release the A55 with fixed, pellicle-type semi-translucent mirror, Electronic viewfinder with 1.44 million dot resolution; Canon announce an APS-H CMOS 120Mpx sensor. Many new models released by manufacturers inc. Pentax K-r, K-5; Nikon D7000; Canon 60D; Sony A55, A33. In Japan 40% of new camera sales are EVIL technology. The last Kodachrome processing shop stops.
- 2011: Sigma release the 15.4MP SD1 with Foveon Sensor. Pentax are acquired by Ricoh. Pentax release the Q camera. Hasselblad are acquired by Ventizz Capital Fund. AusPhotography relocates to a dedicated virtual server. Kodak plan to restructure and put patents up for sale, also sue Apple and others re: phone cameras. Nikon release the 1 series EVIL cameras. Various camera and computer manufacturers are affected by various natural disasters including the Japansese earthquake, tsunami & consequential Fukushima nuclear incident, and Thailand floods.
- 2012: Nikon release the D4 and D800; the 75th million Nikkor lens is shipped. Canon release 5DmkIII; 1D X; 6D. Pentax Release K-01 APS-C mirrorless K mount camera; K5II/s. January 19, 2012, Eastman Kodak Company and its U.S. subsidiaries filed voluntary petitions for Chapter 11. Apple & Google partner in a bidding war for Kodak patents. Canon release the EOS-1D C. Leica announces 'M' 24MP live view full-frame CMOS rangefinder with movies.
- 2013: Pentax announces the HD Pextax DA 560mm F5.6 ED AW. Nikkor Celebrates its 80th Anniversary. Nikkor 800mm f/5.6E FL ED VR released. Steve McCurry published the last roll of Kodachrome. Kodak Ends Production Of Acetate Film Base Kodak exit Chapter 11 in a restructured form and relist on the NYSE. Ricoh/Pentax release the K-3 the first DSLR with an in-camera switchable micro-vibrate anti-aliasing filter.
- 2014: Pentax release the 645z 51Mpx CMOS Medium Format camera. Panasonic Lumix GH4, the first still photography camera with 4k video
- 2015: Dedicated camera sales decline primarily due to improved smart device cameras and the diminishing level of improvement between camera models.
- 2016: Pentax introduce the K-1 FF/35mm 36Mpx camera with GPS, Wi-Fi, 5 Axis 5 stops in body stabilisation, astro-tracer, pixel shift HD images, and other advanced features.
- 2017: Who knows?
The first photograph, by Nicéphore Niépce, from 1826. 'View from a window at Le Gras'. The first time an image had been permanently created.
Boulevard du Temple, Paris, IIIe arrondissement, Daguerreotype. The purportedly first picture of a living person. The image shows a busy street, but due to exposure time of more than ten minutes, the traffic was moving too much to appear.
The first colour photograph: Tartan Ribbon, taken by James Clerk Maxwell in 1861 (public domain)
One of the first scanned image: (Public domain image) Produced by NIST in 1957, the image shows Walden Kirsch, son of the leader of the team that developed the image scanner. This is a composite of two binary scans to produce approximate gray levels.
The first recorded attempt at building a digital camera was in 1975 by Steven Sasson, an engineer at Eastman Kodak. It used the then-new solid-state CCD image sensor chips developed by Fairchild Semiconductor in 1973. The camera weighed 3.6 kg, recorded black and white images to a compact cassette tape, had a resolution of 0.01 megapixels (10,000 pixels), and took 23 seconds to capture its first image in December 1975. The prototype camera was a technical exercise, not intended for production.
Some images are from Wikipedia -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page for license information
Other history links
- A History of Photography from its Beginnings Till the 1920s by Dr. Robert Leggat, now hosted by Dr Michael Prichard
- History of photography, by J. Monge-Najera, University of Costa Rica
- The First Photograph] at The University of Texas at Austin
- Photo Histories, the photographers' history of photography
- The Photo History Timeline Collection
- Niepce Museum
- Yosemite's First Photographers
A nifty video...
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Originally Posted by hoffy
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