1820 Camera ObscuraEssentially 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 CameraReferred 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 DaguerreotypeNamed 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 LewisThis was the first camera to use an internal bellows from lens to glass plate.

1889 Eastman KodakWith 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 KombiThe 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 BrownieWith 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 LeicaThe 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 OriginalManufactured 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 16With 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 MavicaThe 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-1The 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 5DThe 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 D90The 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.