The earliest form of cameras, known as camera obscura, was invented by an Iraqi scientist Ibn al-Haytham in 1021 when he wrote his Book of Optics. It used a pinhole or lens to project light from the outside of a box or room onto the opposite interior wall. Images could then be traced, as a suitable way to make and develop films was not invented until the 1800s.
Cameras actually developed quicker than film technology. Camera obscura’s started as big as rooms and then eventually evolved to handheld models. This first such practical model was made by Johann Zahn in 1685, however that was 150 years before photographic imaging processing was possible.
The first practical photographic method was invented by Louis Jacques Daguerre and Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1836 and called a daguerreotype. The method involved coating a copper plate with silver and then also treating it with iodine vapor to make it light-sensitive. Then in order to develop the plate, Daguerre and Niépce used mercury vapor and then fixed the image with salt.
