This photo is often shared with a weird caption: the first camera ever built. Taken with the second camera ever built.

The claim is not true. That is a very large camera designed by George L. Lawrence (circa 1900).

Original description: A very large camera designed by George R. Lawrence (1868-1938) and used to photograph a train of the Chicago & Alton railroad on the Chicago-St. Louis line for the 1900 Paris Exhibition. – After the French Consul General had inspected the camera and enormous glass plate, Lawrence was awarded the Grand Prize of the World for Photographic Excellence at the Paris Exposition of 1900 for his 8 x 4 1/2 foot photograph of the Alton Limited train, promoted as The Largest Photograph in the World of the Handsomest Train in the World. Via Wikimedia.

You can find one of the photos taken with the camera from Wikimedia.

The first photographic camera developed for commercial manufacture was a daguerreotype camera, built by Alphonse Giroux in 1839. See History of the camera for more details.