Remember the old saying that goes something like “a picture is worth a thousand words”? These days to come close to getting this thousand word picture you might need some pretty high quality digital cameras. In order to remind us just how wonderful and advanced the art of digital photography has become in recent years, maybe it would be useful to take a look at the history of digital photography.
Digital photography may not have been around that long, but it certainly has changed the way that we take our photographs. Back in 1969, (on October 17th), George Smith and Willard Boyle invented the charge coupled device, (or the CCD as we know it). This device was originally destined for use in computers as a semi-conductor memory. The two inventors of the CCD were actually thinking about ways to incorporate their device into video phones.
Once their plans and sketches were finalized, Smith and Boyle built their charge coupled device into the world’s first CCD camera. This is what changed the history of photography altogether.
The original digital camera that was built by them was a solid state video camera, which was shown on television in 1975. This amazing CCD camera, with its image sharp pictures created images that were clear enough to be viewed by people watching this television programme.
Following on within the history of digital photography, saw Sony creating the first prototype of what we know as a digital camera, in1981. Their first digital camera was called Mavica, short for Magnetic Video Camera. As you can guess, the Sony Mavica was actually a video camera which was able to capture video freeze-frames, thus creating still photographs.
In 1986 Kodak scientists invented the first megapixel sensor. This sensor was capable of recording 1.4 million pixels which could produce a 5 x 7 inch digital, photo quality print. In 1987 Kodak went on to release 7 products that had the ability to manipulate digital images.
In 1991 Kodak made a partnership with Nikon, to create and release the Nikon F-3 camera. This camera was equipped with a Kodak 1.3 megapixel sensor. At about this same time Logitech produced and released their Dycam model for black and white images and Apple produced a digital camera that could actually transfer images from the camera to the computer.
Although this is a potted history of digital cameras, it enables us to see how vastly this technology has improved and changed over the past 20 years especially. Almost 30 years after the first digital camera was produced and released, digital photography has changed our lives. I can still remember taking Polaroid photos as a child and being fascinated by how the images developed. To be in a position to be able to see an image through my camera lens, transfer it to my computer and then print it immediately, just makes me want to explore the history of digital photography in even more depth.