A Catalogue of Useless Facts

Daguerreotypes

Daguerreotypes
- history / technology -

​​​​Daguerreotypy, the first mainstream method of photography, was originally introduced in 1839. A silver-plated metal sheet was made light-sensitive by a combination of iodine, bromine, and chlorine. The sheet was then exposed to the desired subject through a lense, and further developed with mercury fumes.

Unlike previous methods that demanded exposure times of nearly eight hours, a daguerreotype could be produced in only thirty minutes. The resulting daguerreotype images were fragile, capable of capturing extremely fine details (surpassing the resolution of some modern digital cameras), and even appeared slightly three-dimensional depending on the viewing angle.

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Sources ▼

https://www.photohistory-sussex.co.uk/dagprocess.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype