| 1840 | North America • USA | Alexander S. Wolcott and John Johnson open the world's first Daguerreian Parlor in New York. (March 1840) |
| 1840 | Europe • Austria | First lens designed specifically for photographic purposes by Hungarian-born Józeph Petzval (1807-1891). |
| 1840 | Europe • Great Britain | John Herschel successfully fixes sensitized paper using his 1819 discovery of hyposulphite of soda dissolved in silver salts still used today called hypo. |
| 1840 | North America • USA
| John William Draper (1811-1882) takes the first Daguerrian plate showing the solar spectrum. |
| 1841 | Europe • Great Britain | Henry Fox Talbot patents the calotype process. It is a negative-positive process that has advantages over the Daguerreotype positives of which there was only ever a single copy. Calotypes were also called Talbotypes though the inventor never approved of this. (February 1841) |
| 1841 | Europe • Great Britain | Henry Collen opens the first Calotype studio in London under a license from Henry Fox Talbot and uses the portraits as a starting point for miniatures. (August 1841) |
| 1841 | Europe • Ireland | The first Daguerreotype studio in Ireland opens in Dublin above "the Rotunda". It was probably under the auspices of Richard Beard but this is not certain. On 23rd April 1842 an advertisement appeared announcing that Le Chevalier Alexander Doussin Dubreuil had commenced practice at this address. (23 October 1841) |
| 1842 | Europe • France | Excursions Daguérriennes, by Lerebours is published; it is the first travel book illustrated with engravings from original daguerreotypes. |
| 1842 | Europe • Germany
| The Hamburg Fire is photographed by Carl Ferdinand Stelzner (1805-1894), a painter of miniatures, and Hermann Biow (?-1850). It is the first news event photographed. (5 May 1842) [Read about] |
| 1842 | Europe • Great Britain
| Richard Beard opens his public portrait studio for Daguerreotypes on the roof of the Royal Polytechnic Institution in London. (23 March 1842) |
| 1843 | Europe • Scotland
| The partnership of Hill & Adamson (David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson) forms in Scotland. They jointly produce outstanding portraits until the premature death of Adamson in 1848.
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| 1844 | North America • USA
| Mathew Brady (1823–1896) establishes a photographic studio in Washington.
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| 1844 | Europe • Great Britain
| Henry Fox Talbot publishes the first part of The Pencil of Nature which is one of the first books containing photographs. It comes out in an installment of six parts between 1844 and 1846 and contains 24 photographs in total.
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| 1844 | Asia • China
| Jules Itier (1802-1877) with the French customs service on a commercial mission to China takes what may be the earliest photographs of Macao [Macau] and wrote:
"I spent the last two days capturing the most interesting features of Macau on daguerreotype; the people on the streets respond with greatest kindness to all my demands, and many Chinese allowed photographs to be taken of them, but I had to show them the inside of the apparatus and the object reflected on the polished glass."
As the head of the French trade commission in China he takes a Daguerreotype of the signing of the Sino-French peace treaty. (24 October 1844) |
| 1845 | Europe • Great Britain
| Henry Fox Talbot publishes Sun Pictures in Scotland that includes locations associated with the novelist Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). [Read about] |
| 1845 | North America • USA | Langenheim & Langenheim , the two brothers William and Frederick, take a panorama of Niagara Falls using five separate Daguerreotypes. (July 1845) |
| 1845 | Europe • France
| Armand Hippolyte Fizeau (1819-1896) working with Léon Foucault (1819-1868) takes the first photograph of the sun. |
| 1847 | Europe • Great Britain | The Calotype Club is founded in London with Roger Fenton (1819-1869) and P.H. Delamotte (1820-1889) amongst the members. Roger Fenton assured his fame later through his work during the Crimean War (1854-1856) and Philip Henry Delamotte documented the building of the Crystal Palace in London and the Great Exhibition of 1851. |
| 1847 | North America • USA | The African-American photographers Glenalvin and Wallace Goodridge establish their daguerreotype studio in York, Pennsylvania.
Enterprising Images: the Goodridge Brothers, African American Photographers, 1847-1922
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| 1849 | Middle East
| Maxime Du Camp (1822–1894) sets out on an official mission to photograph the sites and monuments of Egypt, Palestine and Syria. |
