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When did cameras start taking color photos, and how did the technology evolve over time

The first color photograph was taken in 1861 by Thomas Sutton, using the three-color method suggested by James Clerk Maxwell in 1855. However, color photography did not become common until the 1930s, when an American company named Agfa-Ansco produced a roll-type film called Colorol that could be used with snapshot cameras. Prior to this, color photography was a fragile, cumbersome, and expensive process that required a lot of extra money and time or a sponsor.

The first additive color photography processes appeared in the 1890s, based on the theory demonstrated by James Clerk Maxwell in the 1860s. These processes reproduced color by mixing red, green, and blue light and were known as additive color processes.

In 1908, physicist and inventor Gabriel Lippmann created what can be considered the first color photograph without the aid of any pigments.

The invention of color photography has been a much-debated topic, with some considering Levi Hill, an American Baptist Pastor, to have invented a method as early as 1851. Others consider the depiction of a tartan ribbon, taken some ten years later, to be the prototype. The autochrome process, invented by brothers Auguste and Louis Lumire, became the most popular way of capturing color photos until the 1930s.

The history of color photography has been a long road, from black and white film photography to the vibrant colored images we see today. It all started with the invention of the daguerreotype, a photographic process that produced a positive image on a silvered copper plate, in the mid-1830s.

Overall, the development of color photography was a gradual process that took several decades, with many inventors and scientists contributing to its development.

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