Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by cmn32480 on Thursday August 13 2015, @04:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the say-cheese dept.

The New York Times published a story about a young Kodak engineer's development of the first practical digital camera:

Imagine a world where photography is a slow process that is impossible to master without years of study or apprenticeship. A world without iPhones or Instagram, where one company reigned supreme. Such a world existed in 1973, when Steven Sasson, a young engineer, went to work for Eastman Kodak.

Two years later he invented digital photography and made the first digital camera.

Mr. Sasson, all of 24 years old, invented the process that allows us to make photos with our phones, send images around the world in seconds and share them with millions of people. The same process completely disrupted the industry that was dominated by his Rochester employer and set off a decade of complaints by professional photographers fretting over the ruination of their profession.

The camera he created looked rather odd (there is a picture in the article):

The final result was a Rube Goldberg device with a lens scavenged from a used Super-8 movie camera; a portable digital cassette recorder; 16 nickel cadmium batteries; an analog/digital converter; and several dozen circuits — all wired together on half a dozen circuit boards.

The article points out that Kodak owned the patent for the digital camera and made a fortune from it until it expired in 2007. Three years later Kodak itself expired, filing bankruptcy because it failed to properly utilize the technology it invented.

It may be an error to say that Mr. Sasson invented digital photography. Wasn't NASA doing it with its Mariner and Pioneer space probes?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Nuke on Thursday August 13 2015, @12:47PM

    by Nuke (3162) on Thursday August 13 2015, @12:47PM (#222252)
    This stuff about taking years mastering the art of photography does not always apply.

    One of the greatest ever photographers was Henri Cartier-Bresson, and he left all the darkroom work to others. All he did was aim his camera and press the camera shutter button (Ok, set the shutter speed too), which he seems to have done by a born instinct - at "The Decisive Moment", the title of his book. A digital camera would have made no difference to him or his pictures.

    OTOH, another greatest ever photographer was Ansel Adams, who regarded pressing the shutter as just the start of a long creative process that would include hours in his darkroom perfecting every corner of his huge prints.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Informative=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @08:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @08:33PM (#222502)

    This is true in any field - some people are just geniuses.

    Once Adams had perfected his zone system, he didn't need to be in the darkroom. He would write down the instructions for developing and printing and leave it to his assistants.