Long exposures
Niépce's oldest photograph, a view from a window, took hours to expose. The daguerreotype cut the time to minutes. A big leap came in 1840 with the portrait lens designed by Jozef Petzval from Spišská Belá: with it, sitting still for a few dozen seconds was enough.
Photography for everyone
In 1888 George Eastman launched the Kodak camera with a roll of film. Once you had taken your pictures, you sent the camera to the factory and got back your photos along with a reloaded camera. Then came 35 mm film, colour film and the Polaroid.
The digital era
In 1975 Kodak engineer Steven Sasson built the first digital camera. It weighed 3.6 kg and took 23 seconds to record a 0.01-megapixel photo onto a cassette tape. Kodak underestimated digital photography and went bankrupt in 2012. Today most people take photos with their phones.