Digital Cameras and How It Began
Digital cameras are something that we all know and love – many of us keep one in our pocket (on our phones)! But they started out very differently to where we are now.
Where Did It All Start?
The first digital stills camera in history was made by Steven Sasson in 1975, who was an engineer at Eastman Kodak. It was made with CCD sensors and a movie camera lens, and captured images onto a cassette tape. This camera was so different to the way cameras are made now; it was about the size of a printer and weighed almost 4kg. This needed a special screen made which was dedicated to being able to view the pictures themselves. It wasn’t until 1981 that the first true digital camera was made by the University of Calgary Canada ASI Science Team. This was the first camera to record digital data rather than analogue. The camera was used to photograph aurora pictures at night, and was called the Fairchild All-Sky Camera.
Photo credit: Richard Trenholm/CNET
Starting to Look Familiar to What We Have Today
The first portable digital camera was the Fujifilm DS-1P in 1988. It used a 2MB card that stored 5-10 photos! Aside from the evolution of cameras, data storage has also had a huge move forward. The first digital camera to go on sale commercially in the US was the 1990 Dycam Model 1 (also called the Logitech Fotoman). It used a CCD sensor and stored the photo data digitally, and could be plugged into a PC to export the photos. It retailed for about $1,000 USD, which wasn’t super successful.
Photo credit: Science Museum Group
The Casio QV-10 in 1995 was the first camera to come out with an LCD screen on the back of the camera body. It started to look like the small digital point and shoot cameras that we know today. This camera was able to store up to 96 images, which was a big jump from the Logitech Fotoman. The QV-10 had a 5.2mm lens (60mm full frame equivalent) and the lens itself swivelled!
Photo credit: Digital Kamera Museum
The Ricoh RDC-1, also released in 1995, was the first digital still camera to be able to capture video and sound. It cost around $1,500 USD, so certainly not as good value as the Kodak FZ55 which is retailed now.
The Nikon D1
The Nikon D1 was the first true digital DSLR. It was released in 1999, and had a 2.7MP APS-C sensor. It was the first camera to be able to genuinely replace film; and it was the first to be able to shoot in JPEG! The Nikon D1 retailed for about $5,000, and was immensely popular. Today’s Nikon D6 has 20.8MP, which is 7.7 times more than the D1. It was released in 2020, about 20 years after the D1. Seeing the same series of cameras evolve to the current model shows how much we have all progressed, and shows that there’s no end in sight for pushing specs to the max!
Photo credit: DP Review
Cameras In Our Pockets
The first iPhone was released in 2007, and was a revolution in and of itself in terms of cameras and communication. The camera on the first iPhone was 2MP! Now our phones are able to shoot in 4K/60fps, which was seen in cameras in 2003 with the Dalsa Origin cinema camera.
Photo credit: Medium.com
Revolutions
Now cameras are moving from DSLR to mirrorless, making high spec cameras even smaller and cheaper. Cameras are no longer something unattainable for the average consumer; there’s a choice at every budget level, which was not a possibility in the 90s. The reality is that the invention of digital cameras is less than 50 years old – and who knows how much will evolve with cameras in the next 50 years!
