Religious circles were disturbed by this unorthodoxy, and Mahmud responded by presenting one of these Tasvir-i Hümayun to Şeyhülislam Abdülvahab Efendi in 1832. Further portraits were ceremoniously hung in the Military College in 1835 and in the Rami and  Selimiye Barracks in 1836. In 1838 he sent another portrait to çerkez Hafİz Mehmed Paşa, commander of the Ottoman forces, as a gesture of support in the coming battle against the forces of the rebel governor of Egypt, Kavalalı Mehmed Ali Paşa.

The discovery of photography was announced in Turkey on 28 October 1839 in Takvim-i Vekayi, a newspaper published in Turkish, Arabic and French.

In 1840 the first Turkish post office opened in the courtyard of Yenicami Mosque in Istanbul, and on 25 August that same year another newspaper, Ceride-i Havadis, which printed foreign news items translated by an Englishman named William Churchill, mentioned that Daguerre's camera had become commercially available.

In October 1839, the French artist Horace Vernet (1789-1893), accompanied by his nephew Charles Marie Bouton and the Daguerreotypist Goupil Fesquet (1806-1893), set sail from the port of Marseille on the first ever photographic expedition.

Their journey took them to Syria, Alexandria, Cairo, Sina, Palestine, Tyre, Saidon, Deir El Kamar, Damascus, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Beirut and Baalbeck, finally reaching the Aegean port of Izmir on 4 February 1840. Daguerreotypes which he took of Izmir from the decks of the Iena are mentioned in his diary for 13 February 1840.

Since the necessary printing techniques had not yet been developed it was impossible to publish these photographs in books and newspapers. Instead artists copied the photographs for reproduction, adding half-tones and livening them up with the figures of people and animals which were necessarily absent from the scene due to the long exposure period. The first book illustrated by engravings based on photographs was Excursions Daguerriennes: Vues et Monuments Les Plus Remarquables du Globe (1840-1844) published by N.P.Lerebours in Paris. These were scenes photographed in various parts of Europe and the Middle East.

Joseph Philbert Girault de Prangey (1804-1892), an expert on Islamic architecture, took over one thousand Daguerreotypes in the Near East in the 1840s, and illustrations based on these were published in Monuments Arabes d'Egypte de Syrie et d'Asie-Mineure Dessines et Mesures de 1842 a 1845 published in Paris in 1846.

Ceride-i Havadis reported in issue 95 dated 8 Cemazıyelahır 1258 (17 July 1842) the arrival of the French photographer Kompa in Beyoğlu in 1842.

The French writer Maxime du Camp (1822-1894) published photographs he had taken in Izmir, Ephesus and Istanbul in 1843 in Souvenirs et Paysages d'Orient: Smyrne, Ephese, Magnesie, Constantinople, Scio printed in Paris in 1848.

Photographs taken by Jacob August Lorent (1813-1884) during his journey from Istanbul commencing in 1842 to Egypt, Jerusalem and the Black Sea, were published in his book Wanderungen im Morgenlande 1842-1843 in 1845.

Old Istanbul was linked to the commercial district of Galata by a bridge for the first time in 1845. During these years the Ottoman Empire was endeavouring to catch up with the West. The first bank opened in Istanbul in 1847, and one of the earliest trials of the telegraph took place at Beylerbeyi Palace the same year.

Ernest de Caranza arrived in Istanbul in 1852 and took many Calotypes during his extensive travels through Anatolia. He compiled fifty-five of these into an album which he presented to Sultan Abdülmecid (1839-1861), who rewarded him with the title of imperial photographer.

The same year Alfred Nicolas Normand (1822-1909) took a series of Calotypes measuring 16 x 21 cm of Istanbul.

The earliest known example of combination printing in the world, a photograph of Pera based on two negatives, was the work of the Irishman John Shaw Smith (1811-1873) in 1852.

Further innovations took place in the Ottoman Empire during these years. The railway between Cairo and Alexandria was built in 1854, and in architecture the eclectic style known as Turkish rococo took its most extravagant form in the newly built Dolmabahçe Palace, which followed western concepts of design and decoration. In 1857 the first regulations governing the press and publishing were introduced.

Francis Frith (1822-1898) photographed Izmir and its environs in the 1860s, and published an album of thirty-seven photographs with a frontispiece of himself dressed in Turkish costume.

Francis Bedford (1816-1894) was a member of the entourage of the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, during his tour of Turkey and the Middle East in 1862. His photographs obtained by the wet collodion process were published by Day & Son in London.

The many civilisations which had risen and fallen in Asia Minor left ancient ruins in unequalled abundance and variety. Photography became a widely used tool for documenting these sites. In 1861 George Perrot and the architect Edmond Guillaume organised an archaeological tour of Anatolia, and published their findings in a book entitled Exploration Archeologique de la Galatie et de Bithynie in Paris in 1862. Illustrated by photographs taken by Jules Delbet, this book served as a guide to the archaeologists who undertook the first excavations here.

A.de Moustier, a relative of Marquis de Moustier, French ambassador to the Ottoman capital, photographed Istanbul and Turkey's northwest region from the Marmara Sea to the northern Aegean in 1862. Using the photolithography technique, engravings were produced from Moustier's negatives and used to illustrate his fifteen-volume Le Tour de Monde in 1864.

Felix Bonfils (1831-1885) and his son Adrien Bonfils (1861-1929) opened a photographic studio in Beirut and took photographs of Istanbul and the Anatolian peninsula.

Lessons in perspective drawing were introduced into the curriculum of the Imperial College of Engineers in the late eighteenth century, and photography lessons in the nineteenth century. The latter were taught by military artists who had graduated from this school. Turkish photographers who studied at this and other military schools in the nineteenth century included Captain Hüsnü (1844-1896), Bahriyeli Ali Sami, Servili Ahmed Emin (1845-1892), Ali Rıza Paşa (?-1907), and Ali Sami Aközer (1866-1936). Abdülhamid II entrusted these photographers with the task of making a photographic record of events throughout the empire.

Pioneer of photographic journalism in the Ottoman Empire was James Robertson (1813-1888), who was hired as chief designer at the Ottoman Mint in 1840 and took photographs of the Crimean War in 1855.

Photographic studios began to make their appearance in Turkey around this time, and portraiture became an increasingly important part of their work. Those early portraits reflected the style of contemporary painting. Similarly, photographs of landscapes and urban scenes echoed the art of engraving in subject matter and composition.

The Italian Carlo Naya (1816-1882) was one of the first photographers to settle in Pera. He placed notices with local newspapers advertising his studio, which opened in 1845 opposite the Russian Embassy on the Grande rue de Pera. He worked in Istanbul until 1857.

An Ottoman Greek, Basile Kargopoulo, opened his photographic studio in Pera in 1850. He is best remembered for his panoramas and street scenes of Istanbul, which provide a valuable documentary record of the city in the mid-nineteenth century. Kargopoulo also took portraits, and provided a large wardrobe of smart garments for the impecunious young men who made up the majority of his clientele.

A Hungarian refugee, Raif Efendi, who took refuge in the Ottoman Empire in 1848, opened a studio in the district of Çemberlitaş in 1854.

The German chemist, Rabach, opened a studio in Beyazıt in 1856.

Pascal Sebah's studio, El Chark, opened in 1857, and it was Sebah who took all the photographs for the album of Ottoman costume published for the Vienna Exposition in 1873. Sebah went into partnership with Policarpe Joaillier in 1888, after which the studio was renamed Sebah & Joaillier.

Nikolai Andreomenos (1850-1929) opened a studio in Beyazıt in 1867 where he worked for nearly thirty years before opening a branch in Pera. Andreomenos was presented with two medals by Sultan Abdülhamid II.

When the Swedish photographer Guillaume Berggren (1835-1920) visited Istanbul he fell in love with this mysterious oriental city at first sight, and made up his mind to stay. He opened a studio in Pera in the early 1870s. His photographs of Istanbul exhibit a masterful technique and composition.

The Gülmez Brothers of Pera specialised in portraits and pastoral scenes around Istanbul.

One of the best known Pera photographers was Bogos Tarkulyan (?-1940), who was also a portrait painter. The owner of Foto Phebus, Tarkulyan's own name was gradually supplanted by that of his studio and he was widely referred to as Phebus Efendi.