Historically photographic theories were investigated, questioned and tired since the Fifth Century based on Pinhole (lenses photography) principles by the Chinese philosopher Mo Tsu (478~392 B.C.)

In England, amateur scientist and pioneer in photography was W.H.F. Talbot (1800-1877) working on his own printing processes, at first perfected the 'sunlight exposure' (originally developed by Wedgwood in 1800 to record 'shadows of objects') and by the use of silver salts and sensitized paper achieved correct tone values and gave positive and permanent picture. Talbot patented this process as - 'Colotype' in 1841 and in 1844 - 1846 printed first ever in the world book of colotypes - photographic illustrations (images). Tolbot continued to perfect his printing processes until the end of his life were in 1852 he patented his 'Photographic Engraving Process', in ink for which in 1862 he was awarded with a medal by The International Exhibition in London.

Tolbots 'Colotype' process with its early imperfection and 'Daguere's' process with its outstanding image capture quality, encouraged other professionals colotypists, artist and scientists to experiment and carry on with the chemical printing processes, which takes as in to a period known as 'Wet Plate Era', when in 1851 Frederic Scott Archer (1813-1857), discovered 'Collodion' printing method (by the use of collodium to bind light-sensitive salts to glass plates and negative/positive process with plates being prepared, exposed and developed before the collodion dried out). The wet plate printing process was cheaper to use, not patented, so anyone could use it without a fee, known as Ambotype but still difficult and time consuming.

In the 1880's the 'Pictorialist' Impressionist movement contributed to popularization of Pinhole cameras sometimes also called 'photominibuses' (equivalent to our disposal cameras today), which were sold in Europe, Japan and United States.