The History Of Digital Photography
Everything you never knew about the history of digital photography, from its obscure origins to the surprising ways it shapes the world today.
At a Glance
- Subject: The History Of Digital Photography
- Category: Photography, Technology
The Forgotten Origins of Digital Imaging
The origins of digital photography stretch back much further than most people realize. In fact, the first digital image was created all the way back in 1957 by Russell Kirsch, a researcher at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards. Kirsch developed a drum scanner that could digitize a simple black-and-white photograph into a 176x176 pixel image, a far cry from the high-resolution digital cameras we use today.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s, digital imaging slowly gained traction, with NASA using early digital cameras to capture images from space and military applications exploring the potential of this new technology. In 1975, Steven Sasson, an engineer at Eastman Kodak, built the first self-contained electronic camera, which produced black-and-white images recorded onto a cassette tape.
The Rise of Consumer Digital Photography
While these early developments were exciting, it wouldn't be until the 1990s that digital photography truly began to take off. In 1990, the Dycam Model 1 was released, the first commercial digital camera available to consumers. This clunky device captured 376x240 pixel images and stored them on internal memory, a far cry from the high-quality digital cameras of today.
As the 90s progressed, digital cameras rapidly improved in quality and affordability. In 1994, the Kodak DC40 became the first megapixel consumer digital camera, capturing 1024x768 images. By the turn of the millennium, digital cameras had become commonplace, with models from Sony, Canon, and Nikon offering increasingly sophisticated features and performance.
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