Photography

It will be found, undoubtedly, that my framed drawings, made on pewter plates are too weak in tone. This defect arises principally from the light not contrasting sufficiently with the shadows, owing to the metallic reflection. It would be easy to remedy this by giving more whiteness and brightness to the parts representing the effects of light, and by getting the impressions of this fluid upon the silver plate, well polished and burnished; for then the contrast between the white and black would be so much more marked, and the latter color, rendered more intense by means of some chemical agent, would lose that brilliant reflection which hampers vision, and produces a kind of incongruous effect.

http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/firstphotograph/history/#top

A camera obscura device without a lens but with a very small hole is sometimes referred to as a "pinhole camera", although this more often refers to simple (home-made) lens-less cameras in which photographic film or photographic paper is used.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura

 Camera obscuraThe oldest known record of this principle is a description by Han Chinese philosopher Mozi (ca. 470 to ca. 391 BC). Mozi correctly asserted that the camera obscura image is inverted because light travels in straight lines from its source. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera

 In his 1637 book Dioptrique French philosopher, mathematician and scientist René Descartes suggested placing an eye of a recently dead man (or if a dead man was unavailable, the eye of an ox) into an opening in a darkened room and scraping away the flesh at the back until one could see the inverted image formed on the retina.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura

Charles Chevaliercamera had a faster lens, bringing exposure times down to 3 minutes, and a prism at the front of the lens, which allowed the image to be laterally correct.