History of the camera

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First published picture of a camera obscura in Gemma Frisius' 1545 book De Radio Astronomica et
Geometrica

The history of the camera began even before the introduction

of photography. Cameras evolved from the camera obscura through many generations
of photographic technology – daguerreotypes, calotypes, dry plates, film – to the
modern day with digital cameras and camera phones.

Contents

 1Camera obscura (Before 17th century)

 2Early photographic camera (18th–19th centuries)
 3Early fixed images
 4Daguerreotypes and calotypes
 5Dry plates
 6Invention of photographic film
 735 mm
 8TLRs and SLRs
 9Instant cameras
 10Automation
 11Digital cameras
o 11.1Digital imaging technology
o 11.2Early digital camera prototypes
o 11.3Analog electronic cameras
o 11.4Early true digital cameras
o 11.5Digital SLRs (DSLRs)
o 11.6Camera phones
 12See also
 13References
 14External links

Camera obscura (Before 17th century)[edit]

Further information: Camera obscura

An artist using an 18th-century camera obscura to trace an image

The forerunner to the photographic camera was the camera obscura. Camera obscura
(Latin for "dark room") is the natural optical phenomenon that occurs when an image of
a scene at the other side of a screen (or for instance a wall) is projected through a small
hole in that screen and forms an inverted image (left to right and upside down) on a
surface opposite to the opening. The oldest known record of this principle is a
description by Han Chinese philosopher Mozi (c. 470 to c. 391 BC). Mozi correctly
asserted that the camera obscura image is inverted because light travels in straight
lines from its source. In the 11th century, Arab physicist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) wrote
very influential books about optics, including experiments with light through a small
opening in a darkened room.
The use of a lens in the opening of a wall or closed window shutter of a darkened room
to project images used as a drawing aid has been traced back to circa 1550. Since the
late 17th-century portable camera obscura devices in tents and boxes were used as a
drawing aid.
Before the invention of photographic processes, there was no way to preserve the
images produced by these cameras apart from manually tracing them. The earliest
cameras were room-sized, with space for one or more people inside; these gradually
evolved into more and more compact models. By Niépce's time, portable box camera
obscurae suitable for photography were readily available. The first camera that was
small and portable enough to be practical for photography was envisioned by Johann
Zahn in 1685, though it would be almost 150 years before such an application was
possible.
Pinhole camera. Light enters a dark box through a small hole and creates an inverted image on the wall
opposite the hole.[1]

Ibn al-Haytham (c.  965–1040 AD), an Arab physicist also known as Alhazen, wrote very
influential essays about the camera obscura, including experiments with light through a
small opening in a darkened room.[2] The invention of the camera has been traced back
to the work of Ibn al-Haytham,[3] who is credited with the invention of the pinhole
camera.[4] While the effects of a single light passing through a pinhole had been
described earlier,[3] Ibn al-Haytham gave the first correct analysis of the camera
obscura,[5] including the first geometrical and quantitative descriptions of the
phenomenon,[6] and was the first to use a screen in a dark room so that an image from
one side of a hole in the surface could be projected onto a screen on the other
side.[7] He also first understood the relationship between the focal point and the
pinhole,[8] and performed early experiments with afterimage.
Ibn al-Haytam's writings on optics became very influential in Europe through Latin
translations, inspiring people such as Witelo, John Peckham, Roger Bacon, Leonardo
da Vinci, René Descartes and Johannes Kepler.[2] Camera Obscura were used as
drawing aids since at least circa 1550. Since the late 17th century, portable camera
obscura devices in tents and boxes were used as drawing aids. [citation needed]

Early photographic camera (18th–19th centuries)[edit]

Before the development of the photographic camera, it had been known for hundreds of
years that some substances, such as silver salts, darkened when exposed to
sunlight.[9]: 4  In a series of experiments, published in 1727, the German scientist Johann
Heinrich Schulze demonstrated that the darkening of the salts was due to light alone,
and not influenced by heat or exposure to air. [10]: 7 The Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm
Scheele showed in 1777 that silver chloride was especially susceptible to darkening
from light exposure, and that once darkened, it becomes insoluble in an ammonia
solution.[10] The first person to use this chemistry to create images was Thomas
Wedgwood.[9] To create images, Wedgwood placed items, such as leaves and insect
wings, on ceramic pots coated with silver nitrate, and exposed the set-up to light. These
images weren't permanent, however, as Wedgwood didn't employ a fixing mechanism.
He ultimately failed at his goal of using the process to create fixed images created by a
camera obscura.[10]: 8 
View from the Window at Le Gras (1825), the earliest surviving photograph[9]: 3–5 

The first permanent photograph of a camera image was made in 1825 by Joseph
Nicéphore Niépce using a sliding wooden box camera made by Charles and Vincent
Chevalier in Paris.[10]: 9–11  Niépce had been experimenting with ways to fix the images of a
camera obscura since 1816. The photograph Niépce succeeded in creating shows the
view from his window. It was made using an 8-hour exposure on pewter coated
with bitumen.[10]: 9  Niépce called his process "heliography".[9]: 5  Niépce corresponded with
the inventor Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, and the pair entered into a partnership to
improve the heliographic process. Niépce had experimented further with other
chemicals, to improve contrast in his heliographs. Daguerre contributed an improved
camera obscura design, but the partnership ended when Niépce died in
1833.[10]: 10  Daguerre succeeded in developing a high-contrast and extremely sharp image
by exposing on a plate coated with silver iodide, and exposing this plate again to
mercury vapor.[9]: 6  By 1837, he was able to fix the images with a common salt solution.
He called this process Daguerreotype, and tried unsuccessfully for a couple of years to
commercialize it. Eventually, with help of the scientist and politician François Arago, the
French government acquired Daguerre's process for public release. In exchange,
pensions were provided to Daguerre as well as Niépce's son, Isidore. [10]: 11 
In the 1830s, the English scientist William Henry Fox Talbot independently invented a
process to capture camera images using silver salts.[11]: 15  Although dismayed that
Daguerre had beaten him to the announcement of photography, he submitted on 31
January 1839, a pamphlet to the Royal Institution entitled Some Account of the Art of
Photogenic Drawing, which was the first published description of photography. Within
two years, Talbot developed a two-step process for creating photographs on paper,
which he called calotypes. The calotype process was the first to utilize negative printing,
which reverses all values in the reproduction process – black shows up as white and
vice versa.[9]: 21  Negative printing allows, in principle, an unlimited number of positive
prints to be made from the original negative. [11]: 16  The Calotype process also introduced
the ability for a printmaker to alter the resulting image through retouching of the
negative.[11]: 67 Calotypes were never as popular or widespread as
daguerreotypes,[9]: 22  owing mainly to the fact that the latter produced sharper
details.[12]: 370  However, because daguerreotypes only produce a direct positive print, no
duplicates can be made. It is the two-step negative/positive process that formed the
basis for modern photography.[10]: 15 
The Giroux daguerreotype camera made by Maison Susse Frères in 1839, with a lens by Charles Chevalier,
the first to be commercially produced[9]: 9 

The first photographic camera developed for commercial manufacture was a

daguerreotype camera, built by Alphonse Giroux in 1839. Giroux signed a contract with
Daguerre and Isidore Niépce to produce the cameras in France, [9]: 8–9  with each device
and accessories costing 400 francs.[13]: 38  The camera was a double-box design, with
a landscape lens fitted to the outer box, and a holder for a ground glass focusing screen
and image plate on the inner box. By sliding the inner box, objects at various distances
could be brought to as sharp a focus as desired. After a satisfactory image had been
focused on the screen, the screen was replaced with a sensitized plate. A knurled wheel
controlled a copper flap in front of the lens, which functioned as a shutter. The early
daguerreotype cameras required long exposure times, which in 1839 could be from 5 to
30 minutes.[9][13]: 39 
After the introduction of the Giroux daguerreotype camera, other manufacturers quickly
produced improved variations. Charles Chevalier, who had earlier provided Niépce with
lenses, created in 1841 a double-box camera using a half-sized plate for imaging.
Chevalier's camera had a hinged bed, allowing for half of the bed to fold onto the back
of the nested box. In addition to having increased portability, the camera had a faster
lens, bringing exposure times down to 3 minutes, and a prism at the front of the lens,
which allowed the image to be laterally correct.[14]: 6  Another French design emerged in
1841, created by Marc Antoine Gaudin. The Nouvel Appareil Gaudin camera had a
metal disc with three differently-sized holes mounted on the front of the lens. Rotating to
a different hole effectively provided variable f-stops, allowing different amounts of light
into the camera.[15]: 28  Instead of using nested boxes to focus, the Gaudin camera used
nested brass tubes.[14]: 7  In Germany, Peter Friedrich Voigtländer designed an all-metal
camera with a conical shape that produced circular pictures of about 3 inches in
diameter. The distinguishing characteristic of the Voigtländer camera was its use of a
lens designed by Joseph Petzval.[11]: 34  The f/3.5 Petzval lens was nearly 30 times faster
than any other lens of the period, and was the first to be made specifically for
portraiture. Its design was the most widely used for portraits until Carl Zeiss introduced
the anastigmat lens in 1889.[10]: 19 
Within a decade of being introduced in America, 3 general forms of camera were in
popular use: the American- or chamfered-box camera, the Robert's-type camera or
"Boston box", and the Lewis-type camera. The American-box camera had beveled
edges at the front and rear, and an opening in the rear where the formed image could
be viewed on ground glass. The top of the camera had hinged doors for placing
photographic plates. Inside there was one available slot for distant objects, and another
slot in the back for close-ups. The lens was focused either by sliding or with a rack and
pinion mechanism. The Robert's-type cameras were similar to the American-box, except
for having a knob-fronted worm gear on the front of the camera, which moved the back
box for focusing. Many Robert's-type cameras allowed focusing directly on the lens
mount. The third popular daguerreotype camera in America was the Lewis-type,
introduced in 1851, which utilized a bellows for focusing. The main body of the Lewis-
type camera was mounted on the front box, but the rear section was slotted into the bed
for easy sliding. Once focused, a set screw was tightened to hold the rear section in
place.[15]: 26–27  Having the bellows in the middle of the body facilitated making a second, in-
camera copy of the original image.[14]: 17 
Daguerreotype cameras formed images on silvered copper plates and images were
only able to develop with mercury vapor.[16] The earliest daguerreotype cameras required
several minutes to half an hour to expose images on the plates. By 1840, exposure
times were reduced to just a few seconds owing to improvements in the chemical
preparation and development processes, and to advances in lens design. [17]: 38  American
daguerreotypists introduced manufactured plates in mass production, and plate sizes
became internationally standardized: whole plate (6.5 x 8.5 inches), three-quarter plate
(5.5 × 7 1/8 inches), half plate (4.5 x 5.5 inches), quarter plate (3.25 x 4.25 inches), sixth
plate (2.75 x 3.25 inches), and ninth plate (2 x 2.5 inches). [11]: 33–34  Plates were often cut to
fit cases and jewelry with circular and oval shapes. Larger plates were produced, with
sizes such as 9 x 13 inches ("double-whole" plate), or 13.5 x 16.5 inches (Southworth &
Hawes' plate).[15]: 25 
The collodion wet plate process that gradually replaced the daguerreotype during the
1850s required photographers to coat and sensitize thin glass or iron plates shortly
before use and expose them in the camera while still wet. Early wet plate cameras were
very simple and little different from Daguerreotype cameras, but more sophisticated
designs eventually appeared. The Dubroni of 1864 allowed the sensitizing
and developing of the plates to be carried out inside the camera itself rather than in a
separate darkroom. Other cameras were fitted with multiple lenses for photographing
several small portraits on a single larger plate, useful when making cartes de visite. It
was during the wet plate era that the use of bellows for focusing became widespread,
making the bulkier and less easily adjusted nested box design obsolete.
For many years, exposure times were long enough that the photographer simply
removed the lens cap, counted off the number of seconds (or minutes) estimated to be
required by the lighting conditions, then replaced the cap. As more sensitive
photographic materials became available, cameras began to incorporate mechanical
shutter mechanisms that allowed very short and accurately timed exposures to be
made.
The use of photographic film was pioneered by George Eastman, who started
manufacturing paper film in 1885 before switching to celluloid in 1889. His first camera,
which he called the "Kodak," was first offered for sale in 1888. It was a very simple box
camera with a fixed-focus lens and single shutter speed, which along with its relatively
low price appealed to the average consumer. The Kodak came pre-loaded with enough
film for 100 exposures and needed to be sent back to the factory for processing and
reloading when the roll was finished. By the end of the 19th century Eastman had
expanded his lineup to several models including both box and folding cameras.
Films also made possible capture of motion (cinematography) establishing the movie
industry by the end of the 19th century.

Early fixed images[edit]

The first partially successful photograph of a camera image was made in approximately
1816 by Nicéphore Niépce,[18][19] using a very small camera of his own making and a
piece of paper coated with silver chloride, which darkened where it was exposed to
light. No means of removing the remaining unaffected silver chloride was known to
Niépce, so the photograph was not permanent, eventually becoming entirely darkened
by the overall exposure to light necessary for viewing it. In the mid-1820s, Niépce used
a sliding wooden box camera made by Parisian opticians Charles and Vincent
Chevalier, to experiment with photography on surfaces thinly coated with Bitumen of
Judea.[20] The bitumen slowly hardened in the brightest areas of the image. The
unhardened bitumen was then dissolved away. One of those photographs has survived.

Daguerreotypes and calotypes[edit]

After Niépce's death in 1833, his partner Louis Daguerre continued to experiment and
by 1837 had created the first practical photographic process, which he named
the daguerreotype and publicly unveiled in 1839.[21] Daguerre treated a silver-plated
sheet of copper with iodine vapor to give it a coating of light-sensitive silver iodide. After
exposure in the camera, the image was developed by mercury vapor and fixed with a
strong solution of ordinary salt (sodium chloride). Henry Fox Talbot perfected a different
process, the calotype, in 1840. As commercialized, both processes used very simple
cameras consisting of two nested boxes. The rear box had a removable ground glass
screen and could slide in and out to adjust the focus. After focusing, the ground glass
was replaced with a light-tight holder containing the sensitized plate or paper and the
lens was capped. Then the photographer opened the front cover of the holder,
uncapped the lens, and counted off as many minutes as the lighting conditions seemed
to require before replacing the cap and closing the holder. Despite this mechanical
simplicity, high-quality achromatic lenses were standard.[22]

Late 19th-century studio camera

Dry plates[edit]
Collodion dry plates had been available since 1857, thanks to the work of Désiré van
Monckhoven, but it was not until the invention of the gelatin dry plate in 1871 by Richard
Leach Maddox that the wet plate process could be rivaled in quality and speed. The
1878 discovery that heat-ripening a gelatin emulsion greatly increased its sensitivity
finally made so-called "instantaneous" snapshot exposures practical. For the first time, a
tripod or other support was no longer an absolute necessity. With daylight and a fast
plate or film, a small camera could be hand-held while taking the picture. The ranks of
amateur photographers swelled and informal "candid" portraits became popular. There
was a proliferation of camera designs, from single- and twin-lens reflexes to large and
bulky field cameras, simple box cameras, and even "detective cameras" disguised as
pocket watches, hats, or other objects.
The short exposure times that made candid photography possible also necessitated
another innovation, the mechanical shutter. The very first shutters were separate
accessories, though built-in shutters were common by the end of the 19th century. [22]

Invention of photographic film[edit]

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Kodak No. 2 Brownie box camera, circa 1920

The use of photographic film was pioneered by George Eastman, who started
manufacturing paper film in 1885 before switching to celluloid in 1888–1889. His first
camera, which he called the "Kodak", was first offered for sale in 1888. It was a very
simple box camera with a fixed-focus lens and single shutter speed, which along with its
relatively low price appealed to the average consumer. The Kodak came pre-loaded
with enough film for 100 exposures and needed to be sent back to the factory for
processing and reloading when the roll was finished. By the end of the 19th century
Eastman had expanded his lineup to several models including both box and folding
cameras.
In 1900, Eastman took mass-market photography one step further with the Brownie, a
simple and very inexpensive box camera that introduced the concept of the snapshot.
The Brownie was extremely popular and various models remained on sale until the
1960s.
Film also allowed the movie camera to develop from an expensive toy to a practical
commercial tool.
Despite the advances in low-cost photography made possible by Eastman, plate
cameras still offered higher-quality prints and remained popular well into the 20th
century. To compete with rollfilm cameras, which offered a larger number of exposures
per loading, many inexpensive plate cameras from this era were equipped with
magazines to hold several plates at once. Special backs for plate cameras allowing
them to use film packs or rollfilm were also available, as were backs that enabled rollfilm
cameras to use plates.
Except for a few special types such as Schmidt cameras, most
professional astrographs continued to use plates until the end of the 20th century when
electronic photography replaced them.

35 mm[edit]
See also: History of 135 film
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Leica I, 1925
Argus C3, 1939

A number of manufacturers started to use 35 mm film for still photography between

1905 and 1913. The first 35 mm cameras available to the public, and reaching
significant numbers in sales were the Tourist Multiple, in 1913, and the Simplex, in
1914.[citation needed]
Oskar Barnack, who was in charge of research and development at Leitz, decided to
investigate using 35 mm cine film for still cameras while attempting to build a compact
camera capable of making high-quality enlargements. He built his prototype 35 mm
camera (Ur-Leica) around 1913, though further development was delayed for several
years by World War I. It wasn't until after World War I that Leica commercialized their
first 35 mm cameras. Leitz test-marketed the design between 1923 and 1924, receiving
enough positive feedback that the camera was put into production as the Leica
I (for Leitz camera) in 1925. The Leica's immediate popularity spawned a number of
competitors, most notably the Contax (introduced in 1932), and cemented the position
of 35 mm as the format of choice for high-end compact cameras.
Kodak got into the market with the Retina I in 1934, which introduced the 135 cartridge
used in all modern 35 mm cameras. Although the Retina was comparatively
inexpensive, 35 mm cameras were still out of reach for most people and rollfilm
remained the format of choice for mass-market cameras. This changed in 1936 with the
introduction of the inexpensive Argus A and to an even greater extent in 1939 with the
arrival of the immensely popular Argus C3. Although the cheapest cameras still used
rollfilm, 35 mm film had come to dominate the market by the time the C3 was
discontinued in 1966.
The fledgling Japanese camera industry began to take off in 1936 with
the Canon 35 mm rangefinder, an improved version of the 1933 Kwanon prototype.
Japanese cameras would begin to become popular in the West after Korean War
veterans and soldiers stationed in Japan brought them back to the United States and
elsewhere.

TLRs and SLRs[edit]

See also: History of the single-lens reflex camera
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Contax S of 1949 – , the first pentaprism SLR

Asahiflex IIb, 1954

Nikon F of 1959 – the first Japanese system camera

The first practical reflex camera was the Franke & Heidecke Rolleiflex medium
format TLR of 1928. Though both single- and twin-lens reflex cameras had been
available for decades, they were too bulky to achieve much popularity. The Rolleiflex,
however, was sufficiently compact to achieve widespread popularity and the medium-
format TLR design became popular for both high- and low-end cameras.
A similar revolution in SLR design began in 1933 with the introduction of
the Ihagee Exakta, a compact SLR which used 127 rollfilm. This was followed three
years later by the first Western SLR to use 135 film (otherwise known as 35 mm film),
the Kine Exakta (World's first true 35 mm SLR was Soviet "Sport" camera, marketed
several months before Kine Exakta, though "Sport" used its own film cartridge). The 35
mm SLR design gained immediate popularity and there was an explosion of new
models and innovative features after World War II. There were also a few 35 mm TLRs,
the best-known of which was the Contaflex of 1935, but for the most part these met with
little success.
The first major post-war SLR innovation was the eye-level viewfinder, which first
appeared on the Hungarian Duflex in 1947 and was refined in 1948 with the Contax S,
the first camera to use a pentaprism. Prior to this, all SLRs were equipped with waist-
level focusing screens. The Duflex was also the first SLR with an instant-return mirror,
which prevented the viewfinder from being blacked out after each exposure. This same
time period also saw the introduction of the Hasselblad 1600F, which set the standard
for medium format SLRs for decades.
In 1952 the Asahi Optical Company (which later became well known for its Pentax
cameras) introduced the first Japanese SLR using 135 film, the Asahiflex. Several other
Japanese camera makers also entered the SLR market in the 1950s, including
Canon, Yashica, and Nikon. Nikon's entry, the Nikon F, had a full line of
interchangeable components and accessories and is generally regarded as the first
Japanese system camera. It was the F, along with the earlier S series of rangefinder
cameras, that helped establish Nikon's reputation as a maker of professional-quality
equipment and one of the world's best known brands.

Instant cameras[edit]

Polaroid Model 430, 1971

While conventional cameras were becoming more refined and sophisticated, an entirely
new type of camera appeared on the market in 1948. This was the Polaroid Model 95,
the world's first viable instant-picture camera. Known as a Land Camera after its
inventor, Edwin Land, the Model 95 used a patented chemical process to produce
finished positive prints from the exposed negatives in under a minute. The Land
Camera caught on despite its relatively high price and the Polaroid lineup had expanded
to dozens of models by the 1960s. The first Polaroid camera aimed at the popular
market, the Model 20 Swinger of 1965, was a huge success and remains one of the top-
selling cameras of all time.

Automation[edit]
The first camera to feature automatic exposure was the selenium light meter-equipped,
fully automatic Super Kodak Six-20 pack of 1938, but its extremely high price (for the
time) of $225 (equivalent to $4,331 in 2021)[23] kept it from achieving any degree of
success. By the 1960s, however, low-cost electronic components were commonplace
and cameras equipped with light meters and automatic exposure systems became
increasingly widespread.
The next technological advance came in 1960, when the German Mec 16
SB subminiature became the first camera to place the light meter behind the lens for
more accurate metering. However, through-the-lens metering ultimately became a
feature more commonly found on SLRs than other types of camera; the first SLR
equipped with a TTL system was the Topcon RE Super of 1962.

Digital cameras[edit]
Further information: Digital camera § History
Digital cameras differ from their analog predecessors primarily in that they do not use
film, but capture and save photographs on digital memory cards or internal storage
instead. Their low operating costs have relegated chemical cameras to niche markets.
Digital cameras now include wireless communication capabilities (for example Wi-
Fi or Bluetooth) to transfer, print, or share photos, and are commonly found on mobile
phones.
Digital imaging technology[edit]
Further information: Digital imaging § History
See also: Image sensor and Data compression
The first semiconductor image sensor was the CCD, invented by Willard S.
Boyle and George E. Smith at Bell Labs in 1969.[24] While researching MOS technology,
they realized that an electric charge was the analogy of the magnetic bubble and that it
could be stored on a tiny MOS capacitor. As it was fairly straightforward to fabricate a
series of MOS capacitors in a row, they connected a suitable voltage to them so that the
charge could be stepped along from one to the next. [25] The CCD is a semiconductor
circuit that was later used in the first digital video cameras for television broadcasting.[26]
The NMOS active-pixel sensor (APS) was invented by Olympus in Japan during the
mid-1980s. This was enabled by advances in MOS semiconductor device fabrication,
with MOSFET scaling reaching smaller micron and then sub-micron levels.[27][28] The
NMOS APS was fabricated by Tsutomu Nakamura's team at Olympus in
1985.[29] The CMOS active-pixel sensor (CMOS sensor) was later developed by Eric
Fossum's team at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1993.[30][27]
Early digital camera prototypes[edit]
The concept of digitizing images on scanners, and the concept of digitizing video
signals, predate the concept of making still pictures by digitizing signals from an array of
discrete sensor elements. Early spy satellites used the extremely complex and
expensive method of de-orbit and airborne retrieval of film canisters. Technology was
pushed to skip these steps through the use of in-satellite developing and electronic
scanning of the film for direct transmission to the ground. The amount of film was still a
major limitation, and this was overcome and greatly simplified by the push to develop an
electronic image capturing array that could be used instead of film. The first electronic
imaging satellite was the KH-11 launched by the NRO in late 1976. It had a charge-
coupled device (CCD) array with a resolution of 800 x 800 pixels (0.64 megapixels).[31] At
Philips Labs in New York, Edward Stupp, Pieter Cath and Zsolt Szilagyi filed for a
patent on "All Solid State Radiation Imagers" on 6 September 1968 and constructed a
flat-screen target for receiving and storing an optical image on a matrix composed of an
array of photodiodes connected to a capacitor to form an array of two terminal devices
connected in rows and columns. Their US patent was granted on 10 November
1970.[32] Texas Instruments engineer Willis Adcock designed a filmless camera that was
not digital and applied for a patent in 1972, but it is not known whether it was ever
built.[33]
The Cromemco Cyclops, introduced as a hobbyist construction project in 1975, [34] was
the first digital camera to be interfaced to a microcomputer. Its image sensor was a
modified metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) dynamic RAM (DRAM) memory chip.[35]
The first recorded attempt at building a self-contained digital camera was in 1975
by Steven Sasson, an engineer at Eastman Kodak.[36][37] It used the then-new solid-state
CCD image sensor chips developed by Fairchild Semiconductor in 1973.[38] The camera
weighed 8 pounds (3.6 kg), recorded black-and-white images to a compact cassette
tape, had a resolution of 0.01 megapixels (10,000 pixels), and took 23 seconds to
capture its first image in December 1975. The prototype camera was a technical
exercise, not intended for production.
Analog electronic cameras[edit]
Main article: Still video camera

Sony Mavica, 1981

Handheld electronic cameras, in the sense of a device meant to be carried and used as
a handheld film camera, appeared in 1981 with the demonstration of the Sony
Mavica (Magnetic Video Camera). This is not to be confused with the later cameras by
Sony that also bore the Mavica name. This was an analog camera, in that it recorded
pixel signals continuously, as videotape machines did, without converting them to
discrete levels; it recorded television-like signals to a 2 × 2 inch "video floppy".[39] In
essence, it was a video movie camera that recorded single frames, 50 per disk in field
mode, and 25 per disk in frame mode. The image quality was considered equal to that
of then-current televisions.
Canon RC-701, 1986

Analog electronic cameras do not appear to have reached the market until 1986 with
the Canon RC-701. Canon demonstrated a prototype of this model at the 1984 Summer
Olympics, printing the images in the Yomiuri Shinbun, a Japanese newspaper. In the
United States, the first publication to use these cameras for real reportage was USA
Today, in its coverage of World Series baseball. Several factors held back the
widespread adoption of analog cameras; the cost (upwards of $20,000, equivalent to
$49,000 in 2021[23]), poor image quality compared to film, and the lack of quality
affordable printers. Capturing and printing an image originally required access to
equipment such as a frame grabber, which was beyond the reach of the average
consumer. The "video floppy" disks later had several reader devices available for
viewing on a screen but were never standardized as a computer drive.
The early adopters tended to be in the news media, where the cost was negated by the
utility and the ability to transmit images by telephone lines. The poor image quality was
offset by the low resolution of newspaper graphics. This capability to transmit images
without a satellite link was useful during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and the
first Gulf War in 1991.
US government agencies also took a strong interest in the still video concept, notably
the US Navy for use as a real-time air-to-sea surveillance system.
The first analog electronic camera marketed to consumers may have been the Casio
VS-101 in 1987. A notable analog camera produced the same year was the Nikon QV-
1000C, designed as a press camera and not offered for sale to general users, which
sold only a few hundred units. It recorded images in greyscale, and the quality in
newspaper print was equal to film cameras. In appearance it closely resembled a
modern digital single-lens reflex camera. Images were stored on video floppy disks.
Silicon Film, a proposed digital sensor cartridge for film cameras that would allow
35 mm cameras to take digital photographs without modification was announced in late
1998. Silicon Film was to work as a roll of 35 mm film, with a 1.3 megapixel sensor
behind the lens and a battery and storage unit fitting in the film holder in the camera.
The product, which was never released, became increasingly obsolete due to
improvements in digital camera technology and affordability. Silicon Films' parent
company filed for bankruptcy in 2001.[40]
Early true digital cameras[edit]
Minolta RD-175, the first portable digital SLR camera, introduced by Minolta in 1995.

Nikon D1, 1999

By the late 1980s, the technology required to produce truly commercial digital cameras
existed. The first true portable digital camera that recorded images as a computerized
file was likely the Fuji DS-1P of 1988, which recorded to a
2 MB SRAM (static RAM) memory card that used a battery to keep the data in memory.
This camera was never marketed to the public.
The first digital camera of any kind ever sold commercially was possibly the MegaVision
Tessera in 1987[41] though there is not extensive documentation of its sale known. The
first portable digital camera that was actually marketed commercially was sold in
December 1989 in Japan, the DS-X by Fuji[42] The first commercially available portable
digital camera in the United States was the Dycam Model 1, first shipped in November
1990.[43] It was originally a commercial failure because it was black-and-white, low in
resolution, and cost nearly $1,000 (equivalent to $2,100 in 2021[23]).[44] It later saw modest
success when it was re-sold as the Logitech Fotoman in 1992. It used a CCD image
sensor, stored pictures digitally, and connected directly to a computer for
download.[45][46][47]
Digital SLRs (DSLRs)[edit]
Main article: Digital single-lens reflex camera § History
Nikon was interested in digital photography since the mid-1980s. In 1986, while
presenting to Photokina, Nikon introduced an operational prototype of the first SLR-type
digital camera (Still Video Camera), manufactured by Panasonic.[48] The Nikon SVC was
built around a sensor 2/3 " charge-coupled device of 300,000 pixels. Storage media, a
magnetic floppy inside the camera allows recording 25 or 50 B&W images, depending
on the definition.[49] In 1988, Nikon released the first commercial DSLR camera, the QV-
1000C.[48]
In 1991, Kodak brought to market the Kodak DCS (Kodak Digital Camera System), the
beginning of a long line of professional Kodak DCS SLR cameras that were based in
part on film bodies, often Nikons. It used a 1.3 megapixel sensor, had a bulky external
digital storage system and was priced at $13,000 (equivalent to $26,000 in 2021 [23]). At
the arrival of the Kodak DCS-200, the Kodak DCS was dubbed Kodak DCS-100.
The move to digital formats was helped by the formation of the
first JPEG and MPEG standards in 1988, which allowed image and video files to be
compressed for storage. The first consumer camera with a liquid crystal display on the
back was the Casio QV-10 developed by a team led by Hiroyuki Suetaka in 1995. The
first camera to use CompactFlash was the Kodak DC-25 in 1996.[50] The first camera
that offered the ability to record video clips may have been the Ricoh RDC-1 in 1995.
In 1995 Minolta introduced the RD-175, which was based on the Minolta 500si SLR with
a splitter and three independent CCDs. This combination delivered 1.75M pixels. The
benefit of using an SLR base was the ability to use any existing Minolta AF mount lens.
1999 saw the introduction of the Nikon D1, a 2.74 megapixel camera that was the
first digital SLR developed entirely from the ground up by a major manufacturer, and at
a cost of under $6,000 (equivalent to $10,700 in 2021[23]) at introduction was affordable
by professional photographers and high-end consumers. This camera also used Nikon
F-mount lenses, which meant film photographers could use many of the same lenses
they already owned.
Digital camera sales continued to flourish, driven by technology advances. The digital
market segmented into different categories, Compact Digital Still Cameras, Bridge
Cameras, Mirrorless Compacts and Digital SLRs.
Since 2003, digital cameras have outsold film cameras[51] and Kodak announced in
January 2004 that they would no longer sell Kodak-branded film cameras in
the developed world[52] – and in 2012 filed for bankruptcy after struggling to adapt to the
changing industry.[53]
Camera phones[edit]
Main article: Camera phone
The first commercial camera phone was the Kyocera Visual Phone VP-210, released in
Japan in May 1999.[54] It was called a "mobile videophone" at the time,[55] and had a
110,000-pixel front-facing camera.[54] It stored up to 20 JPEG digital images, which could
be sent over e-mail, or the phone could send up to two images per second over
Japan's Personal Handy-phone System (PHS) cellular network.[54] The Samsung SCH-
V200, released in South Korea in June 2000, was also one of the first phones with a
built-in camera. It had a TFT liquid-crystal display (LCD) and stored up to 20 digital
photos at 350,000-pixel resolution. However, it could not send the resulting image over
the telephone function, but required a computer connection to access photos.[56] The first
mass-market camera phone was the J-SH04, a Sharp J-Phone model sold in Japan in
November 2000.[57][56] It could instantly transmit pictures via cell
phone telecommunication.[58]
One of the major technology advances was the development of CMOS sensors, which
helped drive sensor costs low enough to enable the widespread adoption of camera
phones. Smartphones now routinely include high resolution digital cameras.