Invention and history of digital camera
The first mass use camera became available at the turn of the 20th century and can be traced back to the year 1900. The concept of a digital camera was begun in the 1950s. The early concept of the digital camera was in close link to television technology. By 1956 electrical impulse recordings were common practise within film industry, and camera manufacturers started to dream of a digital camera.
In 1975, Kodak’s experiments with digital imaging kicked off but it took another 20 years before a digital camera for the home consumer market was launched. In 1986 - 1987, Kodak took unprecedented leaps in digital development and invented the digital camera.
Steve Sasson, an engineer at Kodak, was a pioneer in the history of digital camera. Sasson produced his first digital camera image in 1979. The image took a total of 23 seconds to take, and a further 23 seconds to read from the playback unit. The first mega pixel sensor was invented in 1986. It contained 1.4 million pixels and was suitable for a digital camera image measuring 5×7 inches.
Through the 1990’s the developments continued in camera technology, the focus now shifting to the field of digital imaging. In 1991, Kodak introduced a digital camera targeted at professionals and journalists. Kodak is credited with the invention of a pixel based camera technology known to us as the digital camera. After the introduction and the invention of the Mavica, in the year 1994 Apple introduced the first digital camera for consumers. This created another remarkable success in the history of digital photography. A home use digital camera was also launched in 1994 known as the Apple QuickTake camera. The arrival of JPEG and MPEG standards in the 1990´s changed the face of digital camera for ever. Kodak marketed the first readily available digital camera that met all standards, with the Kodak DC40 in 1995.