Louis Daguerre publicly introduces his daguerre process, which produces highly detailed permanent photographs on silver-plated sheets of copper. At first, it requires several minutes of exposure in the camera, but later improvements reduce the exposure time to a few seconds. Photography suddenly enters the public consciousness and Daguerre's process is soon being used worldwide. Taken one spring morning in 1838 from the window of the Diorama. This is also the first photo containing a person.

This is the oldest surviving camera photograph. It was created by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 or 1827 at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France, and shows parts of the buildings and surrounding countryside of his estate, Le Gras, as seen from a high window.

George Eastman sold his first camera, the Kodak and consisted of a box camera with 100 exposures. Eastman also came up with the name Kodak, because he believed products should have their own identity, free from association with anything else.

This camera was launched to target new hobbyist photographers-children-and with its $1 price tag, it also became a favorite of servicemen.

Edmond Becquerel makes the first full-color photographs, but they are only laboratory curiosities: an exposure lasting hours or days is required and the colors are so light-sensitive that they sometimes fade right before the viewer's eyes while being examined, their colors persisting only if kept in total darkness.

James Clerk Maxwell presents a projected additive colour  image of a multicolored ribbon, the first demonstration of color photography by the three-color method he suggested in 1855. It uses three separate black-and-white photographs taken and projected through red, green and blue color filters. The projected image is temporary but the set of three "color separations" is the first durable color photograph.

Lytro releases the first pocket-sized consumer light-field camera, capable of refocusing images after being taken.