The history of the camera can be traced much further back than the introduction of photography. Cameras evolved from the camera obscura, and continued to change through many generations of photographic technology, including daguerreotypes, calotypes, dry plates, film, and digital cameras. The Land Camera caught on despite its relatively high price and the Polaroid lineup had expanded to dozens of models by the 1960s. The first Polaroid camera aimed at the popular market, the Model 20 Swinger of 1965, was a huge success and remains one of the top-selling cameras of all time. The camera obscura was popular as an aid for drawing and painting from the 1600s to the 1800s. Portable set-ups were devised in the 17th century. For example, Kepler had built a portable tent, and outfitted the camera obscura with a lens by 1620. This set-up remained popular up to the early 1800s. The word camera comes from camera obscura, which means dark chamber and is the Latin name of the original device for projecting an image of external reality onto a flat surface. The history of the camera is long and complex. Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre invented the first photographic device in 1836. George Eastman popularized photographic film in 1885. However, camera like devices appeared years earlier. The Camera Obscura. The first known instance of people being aware of photography theory was in 5th century China.  Photographic cameras were a development of the camera obscura, a device possibly dating back to the ancient Chinese and ancient Greeks, which uses a pinhole or lens to project an image of the scene outside upside-down onto a viewing surface. An Arab physicist, Ibn al-Haytham, published his Book of Optics in 1021 AD. The Land Camera caught on despite its relatively high price and the Polaroid lineup had expanded to dozens of models by the 1960s. The first Polaroid camera aimed at the popular market, the Model 20 Swinger of 1965, was a huge success and remains one of the top-selling cameras of all time. Modern History. When you think of photography, you may think of it as a fairly modern invention. On the contrary, photography began with the camera obscura as early as the 10th century AD, and some evidence seems to indicate that Aristotle was familiar with this technique as early as the 4th century BC. The camera obscura was a darkened room with a tiny hole in one wall with a white screen on the opposite wall. In the early 1800s, the camera obscura had become a portable, light-tight box that contained materials and chemicals that would momentarily record the image through the lens. Cameras created in the 1800s were often crafted for looks as well as functionality. Camera Designs-Cameras before 1900. | | | Cameras before 1900 It is one of the intriguing things about the history of photography that cameras existed before photography had been invented. For several centuries artists had used a portable camera obscura to help them draw scenes accurately. Camera: Artist's Camera Obscura.  Instant photography had been invented by 1950 and Polaroid was able to develop the cameras needed to capture this segment of the market. Kodak developed its own instant photography products but was sued by Polaroid and ended up having to pay that company $909 million in 1990. As we discussed in our recent coverage of the Evolution of Digital Cameras, the digital camera was invented during the mid-1970s by Steve Sasson, an electrical engineer working at Kodak. What Sasson did was to build a system of electronic components that could capture an image and display it on a screen. Celluloid film followed in 1889. By the turn of the century, the Kodak Brownie camera had been invented, making it possible for the average person to take candid photos of friends and family. This ushered in a new era of photography that continually evolves, even today with digital cameras. The First Camera Invented. The first camera invented by Mr. Wolcott in 1841 received U.S. patent number 1,582. This camera could take candid photos and Mr. Wolcott used the daguerreotype process to reproduce the images on paper. The first camera invented was made by Alexander Wolcott. His camera design was patented on May 8, 1840. His invention made it possible for candid photos to be taken and not fade away with time. Mr. Wolcott also has the distinction of opening the earliest photography shop (known as a daguerran parlor) in New York. The First Camera Invented. The first camera invented by Mr. Wolcott in 1841 received U.S. patent number 1,582. This camera could take candid photos and Mr. Wolcott used the daguerreotype process to reproduce the images on paper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_camera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera http://www.whoinventedit.net/who-invented-the-very-first-camera.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_camera http://fiberq.com/cam/index.html http://www.ted.photographer.org.uk/camera_designs_1.htm http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2014/11/01/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-company-that-invented-digital-cameras/id=51953/ http://photography.lovetoknow.com/First_Camera_Invented http://photography.lovetoknow.com/First_Camera_Invented
what if the camera had been invented earlier