Now is a good time to look at the history of digital photography. After all, digital photography has been with us for a few years, and the technology is perhaps not as new as you might think.
The origins of digital photography actually go back quite a few decades.
But who started it off?
What was the first digital camera?
Why was the space race significant?
Here you'll find the history of digital photography and discover which is best, digital or film?
Before you continue - how about telling us all about your first digital camera? It will only take a few moments, and you'd be contributing to the site.
If you'd rather skip that for now (you can always pop back later) click for a very brief history of photography or, jump straight to:
What was the first digital camera you owned? Spend a moment to tell us about it. When did you buy it? What brand? Megapixels? . . . ? Anything great about it? Anything poor? (Go on, get it off your chest!)
It was an OK camera in its time, but cannot be compared to the cheapest model of today.
The Olympus ...
Kodak DC260 1.3 mp
Not rated yet
I still have it and it works as good as when I bought it. It takes great photos and I've had a lot of fun with it.
It only holds 11 photos at its best ...
Nikon Coolpix 900
Not rated yet
My first digital camera was a Nikon Coolpix 900. The thing I liked about it was that it swivelled. The lens part and the camera part were sort of separate....
kodak dc 210
Not rated yet
1 mp camera that captured decent pictures. used it to photograph many early pictures of my children and family.
(The Kodak DC210 was on sale from ...
Jenoptik ?
Not rated yet
My first digital camera was a Jenoptik. I can't remember the exact model number, but I bought it in 2001.
I remember buying it more as a toy than a ...
History of photography itself
Before we even begin with the history of digital photography, it's nice to have a brief look back at the history of photography itself. After all, if we didn't have these early developments, we might not have digital photography today!
First, back to the old days – the glass plates, dry plates (using gelatin), followed by black and white film, and then colour film.
The process of recording a photograph has always been (and indeed still is) to allow focused light to fall onto a light sensitive surface.
The light sensitive surface could then be processed using chemicals in order to produce a positive or negative image.
In the case of a negative image further processing was required. This involved shining light through the negative onto light sensitive paper, a chemical process applied, making a positive image – what we know as a photographic print.
It was all to do with speed and quality
The key elements in the history of photography at this point were speed and picture quality
The very early photographs (from around the 1840s using glass plates) required a considerable length of time exposed to the light. For portraits, people had to sit motionless for minutes at a time.
The final photograph was lousy in its quality and cost around a week’s wages! At the time though, people were in awe of the technology.
NB: These developments - speed and picture quality - continue to this day. Today every generation of digital camera is a little faster, and a little better than the one that went before.
Mr Eastman grabs his place in the history of photography
History moves on and speed and quality improve. George Eastman (of Kodak fame) played a big part in the development of film, first produced in 1884.
Four years later, in 1888, he launched the famous Box Brownie camera with the slogan ”you press the button, we do the rest!”.
The importance of the Box Brownie was that anyone could take a photograph and not have to fiddle with chemicals in order to process the film. You gave your camera to the chemist who did all that fiddling for you. Film photography for the masses had arrived.
Photographs could be taken in a fraction of a second, stored on the film, and developed at a later date.
This concept - placing the production of the final print more into the hands of the casual photographer (and away from the professional) - continues in the history of digital photography.
The box brownie therefore has significance to the history of digital photography, as the ability to produce a print is now firmly with the photographer.
Colour at last
The evolution now moves onto colour film. In 1936 the first colour film was made by Kodak and called “Kodachrome”.
The actual process of taking a photograph was the same as before though. You loaded film, pressed the button and handed the film in for development.
From this point forwards the evolution concentrates on improving film photography, rather than developing any really new techniques. What was the next key development? Get rid of the film completely; and here we come to the start of the history of digital photography.
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The improvements in film photography led to smaller and better cameras; the improvements made throughout the history of digital photography have led to more pixels, smaller cameras, lower costs and greater memory capacity.
Today it’s possible to buy a reasonable 3 megapixel camera for under £100.
Technology never stands still though. Few would have predicted the stunning growth of digital photography, even ten years ago.
And now digital cameras outsell film. Some manufacturers have already pulled out of the film market completely, so perhaps the history of digital photography truly starts now?
As a final note, what of the future history of digital photography? My prediction? Well . . . 3D digital photography? Surely it's a possibility!
Sidebar . . . One of the best things about digital photography is sharing the photos you take. However, because we end up taking so many of them, it’s easy to lose track of them all.
I recommend you give Google’s Picasa a try. It will not only organise your photos, but will perform minor edits too.
It’s all some photographers need, and best of all, it’s absolutely free!
Picasa comes as part of the Google Pack. If you don’t want the rest of the pack just de-select them when you get to the download screen.
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