A world without smartphones and social media, where only one company stands out in photography… In the 1970s, Kodak was the leader of this world.
However, in this content, we will talk about the interesting story of the first digital camera, not the story of Kodak. Our protagonist in this story is Steven Sasson, who started working at Kodak as an ordinary engineer.
No one expected that Sasson, who started working at Kodak in 1973, would invent the digital camera two years later.
As a young man, only 24 years old, Sasson’s job at the company was to develop an application for load-coupled devices (CCD), one of the important technologies used in digital imaging. According to Sasson, the main reason he was given the job was to keep him from getting in trouble because he was a new employee.
But Sasson discovered something completely unexpected. He invented the process that allows us to take photos with our phones, send photos around the world in seconds, and share them with millions of people.
The first digital camera was quite complex.
The machine that Sasson invented consisted of a digital tape recorder, a Super-8 movie camera, an analog-to-digital converter, and circuit boards. At that time, it took 50 milliseconds to capture images and 23 milliseconds to record on tape.
After the photo was taken, the cassette was placed on another device and after about 30 seconds, a 100X100 pixel black and white image was projected onto the screen. So it was a little difficult to see the photo. But for Sasson it was more than just a camera and it was the beginning of the digital photography era.
Sasson; made a series of presentations to executive groups from the marketing, technical and business departments and then to his bosses.
He brought the portable camera into the meeting room and introduced the system by taking pictures of the people in the room. Despite the poor quality of the projected photo, according to Sasson, resolution would increase rapidly as technology progressed and they could compete with 110 film and 135 film cameras in the consumer market.
But Kodak officials weren’t convinced that anyone would want to look at their screen shots. Because printing was a method used for years, nobody had any complaints about it and it was very cheap. In addition, Kodak had a large market share in the US photo market.
Although this invention was not welcomed, Sasson was allowed to continue his work in this field.
The first digital camera was patented in 1978. It was called the “electronic fixed camera”. However, Sasson was not allowed to speak publicly about it or show his prototype to anyone but Kodak. The first digital camera weighed about 3.6kg and shot just 0.01MP.
The first product was not accepted, but Sasson did not give up.
In 1989 Sasson and his colleague Robert Hills produced a camera that looked like today’s professional models. The first modern working digital single-lens reflex (SLR) camera had a 1.2-megapixel sensor; was using image compression and memory cards. All was well, it was only a matter of time before the product was released.
But again, Kodak read what it knew. The marketing department wasn’t interested in this camera either. They could have, but they didn’t want to because the digital camera would have taken a toll on the company’s film sales. That’s why the camera never saw daylight.
Yet by 2007 Kodak had made billions of dollars thanks to its digital camera patent.
Although the company eventually made sales in both professional and consumer cameras, it filed for bankruptcy in 2012 because it could not fully embrace the field and entered the field late.
Sasson’s first digital camera, made in 1975, is on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. President Obama awarded Sasson the National Medal for Technology and Innovation at the 2009 White House ceremony.
How fast has technology progressed since those days? We went from 30 images on a precision tape to thousands on something as small as a fingernail.
- Sources: New York Times, Diyphotography
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