This online exhibition makes no claim to be exhaustive but rather provides a starting point for more detailed investigations of the companies that provided the cameras, lenses, instruments, chemicals and supplies to the expanding photography industry through the nineteenth century. The simplistic classification below provides a way of better understanding the complexities involved and will improve as Luminous-Lint evolves.
 
The first manufacturers:

• Opticians - Their understanding of lenses was critical to the clarity and speed issues required.
  e.g. Vincent and Charles Chevalier (France, Paris), Bianchi (France, Paris), Peter Wilhelm Friedrich von Voigtländer (Austria), Bland & Long (GB, London), Zeiss
• Optical instrument makers - a company that could manufacture microscopes, lenses and precise scientific instruments had the necessary intellectual capacity and technical skills to manufacture the early camera equipment.
  e.g. Horne, Thornwaite and Wood (GB, London), Noël Marie Paymal Lerebours (France), and the renowned Dollond family (GB, London) who provided camera lucida and were makers of telescopes
• Chemists - Early photography required access to and an understanding of chemicals, their properties and the safety issues involved. Chemical manufacturers took advantage of the opportunities of a new market.
  e.g. Edward N. Kent (GB, London)

 
Products were distributed out by:

• Agents
• Wholesalers
• Photographic supply companies (some of whom also manufactured products) - as the market expanded niche companies that could concentrate solely on photography evolved.
  e.g. E. Anthony later E. & H.T. Anthony (USA, NY), Scovill Company and the Scovill Manufacturing Company (USA, NY) Tilford's (USA, St. Louis), Southern Stock Depot (Baltimore), Richard Walzl (USA, Baltimore), Marion & Co (USA), N.E. Sisson (USA, NY) for everything necessary for making Daguerreotypes.

 
There were specialist companies for each product sector for example:

• Camera makers: Alphonse Giroux (France, Paris), Susse Frères (France)
• Camera lens: Voigtländer (Austria)
• Photographic card stock: A.M. Collins (USA)
• Carte envelopes: Wm. H. Nixon (USA)
• Backgrounds: L.W. Seavey (USA)
• Dry plates: Cramer & Norden's (USA, St Louis)

 
Each sector of the manufacturing base in each country or region had its' own distribution networks.