1820 Camera Obscura

Essentially a portable box

with a pinhole on one side
and a translucent paper on
the opposite wall, the
Camera Obscura was the
forerunner of the modern
camera.

1834 Mousetrap Camera

Referred to as Mousetrap Cameras,
these simple wood box cameras
with brass barrel single lens and
sliding wood plate to hold the
silver chloride-sensitized paper
were the brainchild of William
Henry Fox Talbot

1839 Daguerreotype
Named after Louis Daguerre and his
early photographic technique where
the image is exposed directly onto a
mirror-polished surface of silver
bearing a coating of silver halide
particles deposited by iodine vapor.

1851 Lewis
This was the first camera to use
an internal bellows from lens to
glass plate.
 1889 Eastman Kodak
With his first Kodak, Eastman revolutionized
the photography industry by putting the camera
in the hands of the amateurs. It came preloaded
with enough film for 100 pictures and the user
would send the whole camera back to eastman
for processing.

1893 Kombi
The first camera to combine the taking
and viewing of photographs in the same
instrument, the Kombi was the first
miniature roll film camera and the first to
use film manufactured by Kodak solely
for use in a non-Kodak camera.

1900 Brownie
With the Brownie, a simple and very
inexpensive box camera that introduced the
concept of the snapshot, Eastman took mass-
market photography to another level. The 'Box'
Brownie was very popular and various models
remained on sale until the 1960s.

1914 Leica
The first use of the modern 24x36mm
frame came courtesy of Oscar Barnack,
employed by German microscope
manufacturer Leitz. The camera used
sprocketed 35mm movie film and was
put into production as the Leica,
standing for Leitz Camera.
1928 RolleiFlex Original
Manufactured by Franke and Heidecke, this small
TLR camera called the RolleiFlex Original and was
to become the template for all TLR cameras that
followed.

1960 Mec 16
With a built-in TTL metering system, the Mec-
16 camera made photographic history. It also
came with a new, built-in Gossen selenium
meter and sported a Rodenstock f2.0 lens
making it one of the fastest subminis ever
made. The lens focused from 1 foot to infinity.
Shutter speeds of B, 1/30 - 1/000. A set of
seven filters was also available.

1963 Kodak Instamatic

The Kodak Instamatic camera, for double
film-cartridges and automatic film speed
reading comes on the scene with a swing.

1977 Konica C35AF

The C35AF was the world's first production
autofocus camera.
 1981 Mavica
The Sony mavica recorded images on two-inch
floppy disks and played them back on a TV set
or Video monitor. The shutter would allow it to
freeze frames within the limits set by twin-field
interlace making up the complete frame. The
Mavica was a single lens reflex with
interchangeable lenses.

1991 Kodak DCS-100

The Kodak DCS-100 is the first digital SLR. The
camera consisted of a modified Nikon F3. Captured
photos are stored on a separate digital storage unit
(DSU) that connects to the camera winder via an
interconnect cable.

2003 Olympus E-1

The Olympus E-1 introduced Four-Thirds
standard for compact digital SLRs and is
dedicated to the special requirements of digital
SLR photography, presenting new benchmarks
for professional image quality and performance.

2005 Canon EOS 5D

The first consumer-priced full-frame digital SLR,
The Canon EOS 5D, sported a full frame sensor
and enough resolution to create very high resolution
images and balance the speed of the camera and the
speed of capture with a burst rate up to 60fps for its
JPEG Large capture setting.

2008 Nikon D90

The D90 is notable for being the
first DSLR to offer video recording
and is on the increasingly long list of
DSLRs to include Live View
(framing via viewfinder) - options
until now usually only associated
with compact digital cameras.