Answer Many would say that George Eastmann invented the camera(roll-film camera) in 1888.( But actually, somebody else made the camera first--that is, first camera that was small and portable enough to be practical for photography was built by Johann Zahn in 1685.)
Some say the first 'camera' was designed before Columbus. It was by simple deduction that an artist noticed a faint image on the opposing wall of a small building where a small hole was in the lighted side of the building. He worked on a lens that could be placed in a similar hole of another building and he noticed that the image on the opposite wall was rather clear, color and all, although upside down. He then proceeded to use oil paints that were in use to paint portaits at the time. He simply mixed the oils to match the colors and painted directly onto the image he was looking at. Todays cameras do the same thing minus the oil paint. Film cameras have replaced the oils with both silver halide salts and dyes. Digital cameras simply use super miniature diodes that are photo etched onto silicone slices (chips)and translates different ranges of the color spectrum into binary or machine language digital code.
Here is more of the camera's complication history of invention:
5th-4th Centuries B.C.�Chinese and Greek philosophers describe the basic principles of optics and the camera.
1664-1666 Isaac Newton discovers that white light is composed of different colors.
1727 Johann Heinrich Schulze discovered that silver nitrate darkened upon exposure to light. 1794 First Panorama opens, the forerunner of the movie house invented by Robert Barker.
1814 Joseph Nic�phore Ni�pce achieves first photographic image with camera obscura - however, the image required eight hours of light exposure and later faded.
1837 Daguerre�s first daguerreotype - the first image that was fixed and did not fade and needed under thirty minutes of light exposure.
1840 First American patent issued in photography to Alexander Wolcott for his camera.
1841 William Henry Talbot patents the Calotype process - the first negative-positive process making possible the first multiple copies.
1843 First advertisement with a photograph made in Philadelphia.
1851 Frederick Scott Archer invented the Collodion process - images required only two or three seconds of light exposure.
1859 Panoramic camera patented - the Sutton.
1861 Oliver Wendell Holmes invents stereoscope viewer.
1865 Photographs and photographic negatives are added to protected works under copyright.
1871 Richard Leach Maddox invented the gelatin dry plate silver bromide process - negatives no longer had to be developed immediately.
1880 Eastman Dry Plate Company founded.
1884 Eastman invents flexible, paper-based photographic film.
1888 Eastman patents Kodak roll-film camera.
1898 Reverend Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film.
1900 First mass-marketed camera�the Browning.
1913/1914 First 35mm still camera developed.
1927 General Electric invents the modern flash bulb.
1932 First light meter with photoelectric cell introduced.
1935 Eastman Kodak markets Kodachrome film.
1941 Eastman Kodak introduces Kodacolor negative film.
1942 Chester Carlson receives patent for electric photography (xerography).
1948 Edwin Land markets the Polaroid camera.
1954 Eastman Kodak introduces high speed Tri-X film.
1960 EG&G develops extreme depth underwater camera for U.S. Navy.
1963 Polaroid introduces instant color film.
1968 Photograph of the Earth from the moon.
1973 Polaroid introduces one-step instant photography with the SX-70 camera.
1977 George Eastman and Edwin Land inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
1978 Konica introduces first point-and-shoot, autofocus camera.
1980 Sony demonstrates first consumer camcorder.
1984 Canon demonstrates first electronic still camera.
1985 Pixar introduces digital imaging processor.
1990 Eastman Kodak announces Photo CD as a digital image storage medium.
Answer george eastmann
source wiki. answer.com
