Today, we have cameras in our hands. Be it a family gathering or a cultural program, a meeting or a walk. People take out their phones and start taking pictures.

All this is possible because of digital technology. And, this technology has not been used for a long time. However, in a short time, it has spread rapidly in the photography community. Until the 20th century, cameras had to use reels and only a few people had the ability to take photos in this era.

At that time, digital technology was just emerging and was mainly used by astronauts for telemetry and imaging.

In 1961, Eugene F. Lally of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab was thinking, 'How can we create a situation where we can take pictures of planets and stars using mosaic photosensors in space and scientists can find their positions?'

But unfortunately, his theory of digital photography was far ahead of the technology that was in use at that time. That is, the technology that could support his idea had not been developed. In 1972, Texas Instruments' Willis Adcock filed a patent for a reel-less camera, but it is unclear whether he actually built the camera. The first digital camera was developed in 1975 by Eastman Kodak engineer Stephen Sashon. He developed a prototype (US Patent 4,131,919) from a movie camera lens. It used charged-coupled device (CCD) image sensor chips developed by Fairchild Semiconductor. A CCD is a light sensor that sits behind the lens and captures the image. In other words, it does what a reel does. It used Motorola parts, 16 AA batteries, and some newly invented CCD electronic sensors. The camera was about the size of a toaster. It weighed 3.6 kg. It could take black and white photos on digital cassette tape.

Sashan and his colleagues also invented a special screen to view these photos. At that time, the resolution of Kodak's prototype was 0.01 megapixels. It took 23 seconds to click a photo.

Despite this invention, Kodak did not pay much attention to the development of digital cameras. It was busy producing reel cameras.

In the 1980s, handheld cameras began to replace reel cameras. In 1981, Sony released the prototype Mavica (Magnetic Video Camera) model.

The Mavica was a television camera that could also take still frames. However, it was not a fully digital camera. These analog electronic cameras can be considered the ancestors of digital cameras. Because these cameras recorded images electronically, they were still technically recording analog data.

The AA battery-powered Mavica stored images on a two-inch floppy disk called a 'Mavipack', which held 50 color photos, which could be viewed on a television or monitor. Its CCD had 570,490 pixels on a 10x12 mm chip.

The sensor had a light sensitivity of ISO 200. The shutter speed was fixed at 1/60 second.

Canon introduced the first analog electronic camera for sale, the RC-701, in 1986. Then came the RC-250 Zapshot in 1988.

Zapshot was called the 'Ion' in Europe and the 'Q-Pic' in Japan. It cost $499 in the US, but consumers had to spend an additional $999 for batteries, computer interface cards, software and floppy disks.

These cameras never became popular with the general public due to their poor image quality and high price. However, newspapers benefited greatly from their use.

With traditional cameras, the process of shooting, developing reels, printing, scanning and sending could take hours or even days. However, these cameras could convert images into electronic signals and send them to the newsroom within minutes via telephone lines, radio transmitters or satellite links.

Newspapers were better served by this camera because they were more concerned with getting photos on time than with high resolution or quality. These cameras were used to capture events such as the 1984 Olympics, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and the 1991 Gulf War.

The advent of true digital

In 1981, the University of Calgary ASI Science team in Canada built the 'Fairchild All-Sky Camera'. This camera used 100x100 pixel Fairchild CCDs. It was the first camera to record photographs in digital data.

For this reason, it is also called the first true digital camera. In October 1921, Sony introduced the world's first compact disc player, the Sony CDP-101. This CD player became very popular. Its success spurred businessmen and large companies to innovate and invest in digital technology.

In 1983, Canon hired Luigi Colani to design its own camera. He used his philosophy that "there are no straight lines in the universe" to create the Hi-Pro, a SLR with an innovative LCD viewfinder, the Lady, a camera for beginners, the Super Sea Bio with a power zoom and built-in flash, and the Frog, which was designed underwater. He also designed the Homic (Horizontal Memorychip Integral Storobo Camera). The Homic was exhibited at the 1984 Photokina exhibition, but it was never sold. The first true handheld digital camera on the digital camera market was the Fuji DS-1P in 1988. It recorded images as computer files on a 16 MB S-RAM internal memory card, developed in collaboration with Toshiba, but the DS-1P was never sold in stores.

The first digital camera sold in the United States was the 1990 Dycam Model 1. Also known as the Logitech Photoman, this camera used a CCD image sensor, stored images digitally, and could be downloaded directly to a computer.

Digital development

In 1988, the JPEG and MPEG standards for digital image and audio files were created, respectively. In 1988, Digital Darkroom became the first photo-editing program for the Macintosh computer, and in 1990, Adobe Photoshop 1.0 was released.

In 1992, Mosaic was released, the first web browser that allowed people to view images on the web. The same year, the Kodak DCS 200 also appeared with a built-in hard drive. Its resolution was 1.54 megapixels, which was almost four times the resolution of still-video cameras.

Apple's Entry: The QuickTake

The Apple QuickTake 100, launched in 1994, was the first color digital camera available for under $1,000. It had a 640x480 pixel CCD and could store up to eight 640x480 images on its internal memory.

Despite the Apple logo, it was actually manufactured by Kodak. The subsequent QuickTake 200 was manufactured by Fujifilm.

Epson introduced the first "photo quality" desktop inkjet printer in 1994. Later that year, the Olympus Deltis VC-1100 became the first digital camera to send images.

It had to be connected to a modem, but it could also send images over a phone line (including a cellphone). It took about six minutes to send an image. The image resolution was 768x576 pixels, the shutter speed could be set between 1/8 and 1/1000 seconds, and it included a color LCD viewfinder.

SmartMedia Cards and Compact Flash memory cards also came out in 1994. The first camera to use a compact flash was the Kodak DC-25 in 1996. In 1995, the Casio QV-10 introduced a camera with an LCD screen. The screen was 46 millimeters (1.8 inches). The QV-10 also had a rotating lens.

Images were captured by a 1/5-inch 460x280 pixel CCD and stored in semiconductor memory, which could hold up to 96 color still images. It featured now-familiar features such as close-up macro shooting, auto exposure, and self-timer. It was priced at $1,000.

In 1995, Logitech introduced the Videoman, the first webcam that could be connected to a personal computer.

The advent of the digital age

In 1995, the Ricoh RDC-1 was the first digital still camera to record both video and sound. It was initially priced at around $1,500. It had a 64 mm (2.5 in) color LCD screen and a 3x optical zoom with an f/2.8 aperture. These features remained the standard features of compact cameras for years, but prices fell over time.

In 1996, the Canon PowerShot 600 was introduced. It had a 1/3-inch 832x608 pixel CCD, built-in flash, auto white balance and optical viewfinder, as well as an LCD display. It had the ability to store images on a hard disk drive and store up to 176 MB.

In 1997, the Pentax EI C90 was released. It was very light. It also had the feature of separating the body from the LCD. Technology continued to develop in this way.

By the 2010s, the size of a compact camera had become as small as the cassette tape used to save a blurry image, as Steve Sasson's 1970 prototype.

Professional-style SLR cameras also converted to digital technology. DSLR cameras allowed the lenses of their older reel-to-reel cameras to be swapped out. Similarly, The benefits of high-capacity digital memory and LCD screens were also added.

Traditional DSLR designs, which carry the mechanical heritage of the reel era, are now being gradually replaced by smaller mirrorless cameras from Sony, Canon, Nikon, Olympus and Panasonic.

Camera phones

The big digital revolution was undoubtedly the 'camera phone'. The 'Kyocera Visual Phone VP-210' in 1999 and the 'Samsung SCH-V200' in 2000 were the first camera phones. A few months later, the 'Sharp Electronics J-SH04 J-Phone' was the first phone that did not need to be connected to a computer.

It could send photos directly, which made it very popular in Japan and Korea. By 2003, camera phone sales had surpassed digital cameras.

The smartphone era took off in 2007 when Apple launched the iPhone. Cameras on phones improved dramatically. Phone memory became larger, allowing for more photos to be taken. CCD sensors were replaced by low-power CMOS chips.

3G, 4G, and 5G made it possible to share photos instantly. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram replaced photography sites like Flickr as the place to share photos. This turned more people into photographers.

In 2012, Nokia launched the 41-megapixel smartphone, the Nokia 808 PureView. Today, feature films are shot on iPhones. Lightweight, consumer-friendly drones have taken digital photography to the skies. Most of today's best camera phones have two, three, or four cameras.

 And, the latest buzzword is "pixel binning," which is used in reference to the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G's massive 108-megapixel camera.