Moses Billings
With the development of the daguerreotype in the 1840s, the role of the portrait painter declined in general, because it was now much easier and much cheaper to have one's likeness presented in a visual format. While many portrait painters lost business in competition with the daguerreotype, Billings instead began to produce daguerreotype prints himself. It is not known exactly which prints were made by Moses Billings, as daguerreotypes were usually signed, when signed at all, along the side of the plate. Due to the traditional storing methods of daguerreotype plates, even this signature usually quickly became illegible. However, it has been generally noted, or at least hypothesized, that his daguerreotype prints showed a level of talent and artistry above that of amateur daguerreotypists. Though it is not known exactly which prints were his, it is known that he had largely abandoned the process by the 1850s. Even after he stopped making daguerreotypes, he did continue to paint people's portraits on canvas.
Frederick Langenheim
Langenheim and his brother William began working in 1840 for a German language newspaper edited by George Francis Schreiber in Philadelphia. Langenheim acquired a daguerreotype camera in 1841 from Von Voigtlander and formed a partnership with Schreiber in a photographic studio business for a couple of years. In 1843 Langenheim went into the photography studio business with his brother at 26–27 Exchange Street in Philadelphia. It was the "W. & F. Langenheim" firm and known as the Philadelphia daguerrotype establishment. They made in 1842 the first advertising picture in history. It was of patrons eating and drinking in the restaurant in the Philadelphia Exchange Building. The picture of people dining was hung in the hall of the building to attract potential customers for the dining room.
In 1845, Langenheim took the first set of panoramic pictures of Niagara Falls ever photographed. The panoramic set of five adjacent scenes were placed in panels in a display frame. The daguerreotype pictures were the first of Niagara Falls according to photo historian Robert Taft (1894-1955). They were the first such pictures to gain world fame. There were eight sets of copies made. A set was sent to Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre and five crowned heads of Europe, Queen Victoria, and one each to the reigning rulers of Brunswick, Prussia, Saxony, and Wurttemberg. The seventh set was given to United States president James Knox Polk. The eighth set was retained by the Langenheim brothers.