<P> The use of a lens in the opening of a wall or closed window shutter of a darkened room to project images used as a drawing aid has been traced back to circa 1550 . Since the late 17th century portable camera obscura devices in tents and boxes were used as a drawing aid . </P> <P> Before the invention of photographic processes there was no way to preserve the images produced by these cameras apart from manually tracing them . The earliest cameras were room - sized, with space for one or more people inside; these gradually evolved into more and more compact models . By Niépce's time portable box camerae obscurae suitable for photography were readily available . The first camera that was small and portable enough to be practical for photography was envisioned by Johann Zahn in 1685, though it would be almost 150 years before such an application was possible . </P> <P> The first partially successful photograph of a camera image was made in approximately 1816 by Nicéphore Niépce, using a very small camera of his own making and a piece of paper coated with silver chloride, which darkened where it was exposed to light . No means of removing the remaining unaffected silver chloride was known to Niépce, so the photograph was not permanent, eventually becoming entirely darkened by the overall exposure to light necessary for viewing it . In the mid-1820s, Niépce used a sliding wooden box camera made by Parisian opticians Charles and Vincent Chevalier to experiment with photography on surfaces thinly coated with Bitumen of Judea . The bitumen slowly hardened in the brightest areas of the image . The unhardened bitumen was then dissolved away . One of those photographs has survived . </P> <P> After Niépce's death in 1833, his partner Louis Daguerre continued to experiment and by 1837 had created the first practical photographic process, which he named the daguerreotype and publicly unveiled in 1839 . Daguerre treated a silver - plated sheet of copper with iodine vapor to give it a coating of light - sensitive silver iodide . After exposure in the camera, the image was developed by mercury vapor and fixed with a strong solution of ordinary salt (sodium chloride). Henry Fox Talbot perfected a different process, the calotype, in 1840 . As commercialized, both processes used very simple cameras consisting of two nested boxes . The rear box had a removable ground glass screen and could slide in and out to adjust the focus . After focusing, the ground glass was replaced with a light - tight holder containing the sensitized plate or paper and the lens was capped . Then the photographer opened the front cover of the holder, uncapped the lens, and counted off as many minutes as the lighting conditions seemed to require before replacing the cap and closing the holder . Despite this mechanical simplicity, high - quality achromatic lenses were standard . </P>

Who invented the first camera in the 1800s