Digital Camera History
The history of the digital camera starts in the early 1940's and finds its roots intertwined with the evolution of the television. Back then the major problem with television broadcasting was that it could only be done live. This was impractical and far from cheap so a way had to be found to record the images being broadcast.
In a somewhat winding path the solution to this problem lead to the invention of the digital camera for scientific purposes and eventually Cheap digital cameras such as the DMC LS1 that we know today.
Cheap Digital Camera UK has recorded the milestones along that path:
- 1951- Bing Crosby laboratories introduced the VTR, which captured live images from television cameras by converting the information into electrical impulses (digital) and saving the information onto magnetic tape.
- 1956- VTR technology has a large impact on the television industry. This coincides with the development of computers in the 1950's to start the digital age.
- 1960s- NASA converted from analogue to digital signals with their space probes to map the surface of the moon using digital signals to send images back to earth.
- 1969- 1969, George Smith and Willard Boyle invented the charge-coupled device (CCD), the image sensor that's the heart of all digital cameras, at Bell Labs.
- 1972- Texas Instruments patented the first film-less electronic camera.
- 1972-8- Kodak invented several solid-state image sensors that converted light into digital pictures.
- 1981- Sony released the first commercial electronic camera called the Sony Mavica (Magnetic Video Camera), an electronic still camera. Although this camera may have started the digital camera revolution, it was not a 'digital camera' in the true sense of the word; it was a video camera that took video freeze-frames.
- 1986- Kodak scientists invented the world's first megapixel sensor, which was capable of recording 1.4 million pixels which is enough to produce a 5x7-inch digital photo-quality print.
- 1987- Kodak released seven products for recording, storing, manipulating, transmitting and printing electronic still video images.
- 1990- Kodak developed the Photo CD system and proposed 'the first worldwide standard for defining colour in the digital environment of computers and computer peripherals.'
- 1991- Kodak released the first professional digital camera system (DCS). This was a Nikon F-3 camera equipped by Kodak with a 1.3-megapixel sensor.
- 1994- Kodak released the dc40 and at under £700 it was the first affordable digital camera marketed for consumers.
- 1995- The Casio QV-11 digital camera is launched.
- 1996 - Sony's Cyber-Shot Digital Still Camera in launched.
- 1997 - (and beyond), after the first inexpensive cheap digital cameras become mainstream.
- 2002 Panasonic take digital cameras a step forward by incorporate Leica lenses in its entire Lumix digital camera range.
A good place to buy a Lumix Camera is the Panasonic website as this ensures you will get a great after sales service and free delivery.
What Digital Camera, May 2005 -
'... the Lumix range is one of the best on the market.'
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