The Digital Camera

By Colton Salsbury

The purposes of the digital camera

The original purpose of the digital camera was to copy and excel film experience, but now, digital cameras have gone above and beyond. Also, people who use digital cameras can print pictures, use them for presenting reasons, post it on the Internet, and even transfer it through a cell phone (supposedly, these tasks will be eventually be able to be completed without a computer). Digital cameras are much better than the old fashioned cameras before them mostly because of the simple fact that they are so different. Digital cameras run on mechanical and chemical processes only. Electricity is not needed to operate them.

Who invented the digital camera

Leonardo da Vinci created the first idea for a camera (not a digital) in his Atlantic Codex. Steven Sasson was the one who first invented the digital camera, though. Digital signals and digital imaging came before digital cameras when NASA was using them to take images of space and put them onto their computers. Some of the first industries to make digital cameras were Sony, Kodak (IBM helped Kodak), and Texas Instruments.

History of the digital camera

The digital camera idea originally came from television. The very first digital camera to come out was the Sony ProMavica MVC- 5000 (MVC stands for Magnetic Video Camera). The only camera before that was a film camera. Now, the digital cameras that exist now take much clearer pictures (using pixels), connect to computers, and much more. One of the only similarities between a film camera and a digital camera is that they both have lens, and that both lenses are used for the two same purposes, gathering light for the picture, and being able to see the subject of your photo. Digital cameras are much better than the film cameras before them mostly because of the simple fact that they are so different. Digital cameras run on mechanical and chemical processes only. Electricity is not needed to operate them.  

This is the Sony ProMavica MVC- 5000

How a digital camera works

Instead of going onto film after the picture is taken, the light from the picture strikes a digital sensor array. Digital sensor arrays are like little computer chips. The digital sensor arrays take the place of the film that would be across the camera’s focal plane. These chips work by storing little dots of light called pixels inside. The size of the picture the dots form is measured in mega pixels.

More Facts About the Digital Camera

· Digital cameras have much less of a history than it sounds like, although they have enough of one to make film cameras less popular.

This is the  Fuji DS-1P

References

Young, D. (2010). How does a digital camera works (1). Retrieved from http://www.nikonians.org/html/resources/guides/digital/how_does_it_work_1.

HowStuffWorks, Inc. (2010). How Digital Cameras Work. Retrieved from http://www.howstuffworks.com/digital-camera.htm

Shutterfly (2010). How A Digital Camera Works. Retrieved from http://blog.shutterfly.com/how-a-digital-camera-works/

Inventors (2010). History of the Digital Camera. Retrieved from http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bldigitalcamera.htm

InfoBorder (2010). History of Digital Cameras. Retrieved from http://www.infoborder.com/Digital_Camera_History/

(2003). History of digital camera. Retrieved from http://www-users.mat.umk.pl/~olka/historia.html

Extreme Tech (2010). Digital Cameras – Exploration of design and functionality – 3D g. Retrieved from http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,15466,00.asp

Digital Photography Review (2010). Digital camera inventor receives honorary dectorate: Digital Photography Review. Retrieved from http://www.dpreview.com/news/0910/09102602stevesassonrochester.asp

About.com (2010). Digital Camera History. Retrieved from http://cameras.about.com/od/history/History_Inventing_digital_cameras.htm

Streetdirectory (2010). Few Facts of Digital Cameras. Retrieved from http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/14825/gadgets/few_facts_of_digital_cameras.html