WI: Ancient Greeks invented the camera

All that was needed to invent the camera was knowledge of the camera obscura and a light sensitive substance. The Greeks knew of the camera obscura, so what if they successfully combined it with a light sensitive substance and photography was invented over 2 millennia earlier? Would this have any substantial effect on world history other than having photographs of things that happened IOTL?
 
It would depend on how much chemistry advances due.to the discovery of light-sensitive materials. Short of the advances.in chemical engineering ans chemical industry during the industrial revolution, materials might be so hard to come by that photo paper might be worth its.weight in gold. So photographs would be more expensive then paintings and probably only kings and nobles could afford to get their pictures taken. Furthermore as long as there is no real printing industry, people will not see a photograph of a ruler or a famous battle more often then they would see a painting of it. So I doubth that there would be pictures of Jesus, Saint Paul
Paul, Saint Augustine or even the Prophet Mohammed around for historical reference.

In a strange twist, i think the biggest influence of photography on pre-renaissance culture will be that it can also be used.as a photo-copy technique. Therefore prepare to see a famous painting photographed and distributed in a hundred copies and every church in Italy having their original copied Holy Madona by Michelangelo.
 
Not only light sensitive, but "fixable" so that a permanent image can be made. With Greco-Roman technology, its just barely possible (if they came up with liquid mercury) to have something like daguerotype or tintype imaging. Paper or film technology is very unlikely
 

Vixagoras

Banned
This is actually a very fascinating topic, and I was looking to do something like this in my timeline, so any further discussion of this topic would be excellent, as I am not entirely that familiar with the technology.
 
Ya. Basically there's a REASON photography came so late. Yes, you can get faint images on an asphalt surface like the very earliest photographs, but getting substances that will react to light, that you can then get to NOT react to light? That's tough. Not much point in having a 'photograph' that can only be viewed a handful of times, and that in a very dark room.

The chemistry to fix silver halides is not something you're going just stumble across.

The 'camera obscura' part is the easiest bit of the whole thing, and useless by itself.

IOTL, and in 99.9... % of all ATLs, the lens (which gives you the chance at a real camera) is going to be discovered well before any viable photo plate.
 
OK, let's be fair to the OP. IS there any way to do this?

A multistep process that uses photo resists (like used today for electronics), where you would
1) apply a thin layer of goo/resin to, say, a copper sheet
2) expose the coated metal sheet to light
3) wash the unexposed 'goo' off, leaving only the light hardened/polymerized/whatever bits
4) etch the plate with acid
5) use that plate as a lithograph

Biggest single problem is to find that miraculous 'goo' with the necessary properties - sets under light, lets the unset bits get washed off, and resists acids.

Second problem is that grayscale might be really, really difficult. Resists do a LOT better with on/off, black/white.

Third problem may be that you need a printing technology that already uses lithographs before this of any use. But this is relatively minor.

Fourth problem - you need paper, good quality paper with repeatable ink absorbtion properties to make prints.

Would such a 'black and white (few to no greys)' 'photograph' be of any use? I doubt it. But as a 'toy' (like Hero's steam engine), it might be a thing to marvel at.
 
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