Reference Materials

Cameras:

The use of photographic film was pioneered by George Eastman, who started manufacturing paper film in 1885 before switching to celluloid in 1888–1889. His first camera, which he called the "Kodak", was first offered for sale in 1888. It was a very simple box camera with a fixed-focus lens and single shutter speed, which along with its relatively low price appealed to the average consumer. The Kodak came pre-loaded with enough film for 100 exposures and needed to be sent back to the factory for processing and reloading when the roll was finished. Kodak roll film box sold for US $1 (about $30.00 in 2018[1] dollars)

In 1900, Eastman took mass-market photography one step further with the Brownie, a simple and very inexpensive box camera that introduced the concept of the snapshot. The Brownie was extremely popular and various models remained on sale until the 1960s. Invented by Frank A. Brownell of Kodak. The one here is the Brownie Flash III which is what I remember, but never used.

Camera Technology over the last 70 years 

The technology that the modern camera is based on was created several hundred years ago. Although the ancient ideas were far away from the types of cameras that we know, they were well ahead of their time in relation to the technology and materials that they had at their disposal. It wasn’t until 

1885 when George Eastman created the modern photograph film technology that made cameras a convenient product for consumers. Eastman also created the very first Kodak camera which served to further advance the camera industry and its popularity among consumers.

The first Kodak camera was sold with the film already loaded inside and consumers needed to send the entire unit to the company to get their film developed. The company would then reload the camera with new film and send it back to the consumer, so they could take more pictures with it. But this system did not last very long before more advancements were made.

1901 George Eastman capitalized on his own technology and created the Brownie. This new camera was the first one that had the capability of taking snapshots and it was small enough to be convenient for camera owners to carry around with them. As a result of its popularity, affordability and small size, the Brownie was the preferred camera that families could take with them on vacations and special occasions to create memories that would last a lifetime. The Brownie was so popular that it continued to be produced and marketed well into the 1960s. 

In 1914, Oskar Barnack experimented with 35mm film that was used to create movies and films. His goal was to create a 35mm film that could be used in cameras to create still pictures rather than motion pictures. Though he began this technology in 1914, the troubles that occurred with the onset of World War I made further advancements impossible for the next several years. Twenty years later, the Kodak Company began working on this technology and made several advancements that made it more convenient for average consumers to use. The Retina I by the Kodak Company was cheaper than other models with similar technology, but it was still more expensive than other mass-produced cameras of the era. 

In recent years, the digital technology even spilled over into the camera industry. Even though the predecessors of today’s digital cameras began in 1972 with a Texas Instruments prototype, the true digital camera as we know them today was not produced until 1988 in Japan and later in 1991 in the United States. Even after years of technological advances, though, digital cameras still cost thousands of dollars well into the following decade. As a result, only professional photographers and others with high-paying careers had access to quality digital cameras. The pixel technology and other aspects of the digital camera eventually became less expensive and mass produced soon after and they were also more affordable as a result. Today, you can get a decent digital camera for less than $500 with many different features and options.

 
Cameras have helped to reshape our history because we can actually see photographs of things that have happened. We can get a better idea of events through still pictures and videos, too. The adage “A picture is worth a thousand words” is not very far off from the way that cameras have helped to revolutionize the way we see our world and our surroundings.

This was our version of the smartphone with a built-in camera.  Easy to carry and easy to use.  It had a 110mm film cartridge that could easily be loaded, shot, unloaded, and sent in for development. 

We had no idea of whether the photo was good or bad, we had to trust the camera and if it was a dark area to use the flash bulb. There were 24 frames per cartridge that occasionally enabled the user to capture an extra image due to production variations. Waiting for the prints to come back was normal, so it didn’t bother us much.  What was painful, was paying for the prints and then opening the envelope to find half the photos were really bad and of no use, mostly due to lack of any knowledge of how to take a photo.  

This is one of the photos taken with the Instamatic camera of my father, Ernie, our best friend, Jennie and our daughter, Michele on her first birthday.  I found this photo, which was taken at Christmas of 1969.  Fortunately, I have this photo of Dad, he didn’t make it to the next Christmas.  He passed from a heart operation and staph infection on September 21, 1970.  

While many companies were trying to create better technology for their cameras, this new type of camera jetted onto the scene in 1948. The Polaroid was an instant camera that attracted many consumers because of its instant gratification capabilities. 

This is a photo of the Polaroid Land Camera Model 95, the first commercially available instant camera.

People could take a picture with the Polaroid camera and have their photo in a matter of minutes. Even though it was more expensive than the other cameras of the time, it was still one of the biggest selling models because people enjoyed having their pictures just moments after taking them. It was a novelty at first, but it soon became a luxury that many people had to have. Even today, the Polaroid camera is one of the best-selling cameras in the industry because of its affordable price and instant capabilities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Camera

I never owned a Polaroid camera although I’m certain I played with one and had some fun seeing the image slowly coming to life on the paper that came out of the camera, sometime in the late 50’s, when they were readily available. 

I became more and more smitten with taking photos, so I bought a better 35mm camera, thinking it would be the answer to my problems.  As long as I stayed on the automatic setting, I did pretty well.  By then, the 35mm film became better for us dummies.  The ASA went from 200, to 400 and then to a whapping 800.  The good news was stopping action was much better, the bad news was getting a photo back with lots of grain.  The 3 x 5’s were tolerable, the 8 x 10’s were not good, and the bigger prints were not useable.  But that was still better than getting a blurry photo of your kids running around the yard.  I was busy working and helping to raise our children, so I never took the time to learn more about the camera of photography.  Too bad!

This 35mm photo is of my daughter, Michele, at around two, hugging Monique, our poodle, with her doll, Baby Beans, patiently sitting there waiting for her hug. Michele took that doll everywhere with her.  Fortunately, I improved my good to bad photo averages and would get around 24 of the 26 shots to be keepers.  Unfortunately, over the years, most of my photos got lost in the many moves we made.  

Now we need to get a little “techie” and talk about some of the inventions that are a big part of many of the products we use today and then some.

Digital Cameras revolutionizes photography for all of us.

A digital camera or digicam is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital,[1] and while there are still dedicated digital cameras, many more cameras are now being incorporated into mobile devices, portable touchscreen computers, which can, among many other purposes, use their cameras to initiate live video-telephony and directly edit and upload imagery to others. However, high-end, high-definition dedicated cameras are still commonly used by professionals

Kodak Digital Cameras

December 1975 - The first digital camera, invented by Steven Sasson at Eastman Kodak, takes 23 seconds to capture its first image. The camera weighed 8 pounds, recorded black and white images to a compact cassette tape, and had a resolution of 0.01 megapixels.

Although Kodak invented the digital camera, it didn't commercialize this invention because it wanted to protect its film business. The Company had what I call the "FDH" syndrome. It was Fat, Dumb, and Happy with its success in film. It looked backward instead of forward.  As Bill Gates is fond of saying, "Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." To be innovative, you cannot be afraid to obsolete your own products. If you are, others will obsolete them for you. That is what happened to Kodak and many others. 

It's no exaggeration to say Kodak invented digital photography. In 1975 Kodak engineer Steve Sasson created the first digital camera, which took photos with 10,000 pixels, or 0.01 megapixels — about a hundredth of the resolution that low-end camera phones have today. Kodak didn't stop there; it worked extensively on digital, patenting numerous technologies, many of which are built into the digital cameras of today. (Kodak's primary asset is its intellectual property, which some estimates value at $2 billion.)

"If you want to point back to the most pivotal moment that caused this," says Hayzlett, "it was back in 1975 when they discovered the digital camera and put it back into a closet. Some of the same people are still there. I actually had an executive from Kodak come up to me last week and say, 'I think film's coming back.'"

In 1995 the company brought its first digital camera to market, the DC40. This was years before many others would get into the digital game, but Kodak never took advantage of its early start. Philosophically, the company was steeped in the film business, and to embrace digital meant cannibalizing its own business. Others quickly filled the niche, and Kodak didn't fully rev up its digital business until 2001, when it launched the Easy Share line of point-and-shoot cameras.

"It's a classic business strategy problem," says Miriam Leuchter, editor of Popular Photography. "Their whole business was tied up in film and in printing. So, while they're developing this business technology, there's not a big incentive to push it very far."

While Kodak was slow to get into the digital game, it wasn't the only one. Perennial rival Fujifilm tiptoed as well, not coming out with the FinePix line of point-and-shoots until 2001, so Kodak still had a chance. However, despite having created the category, Kodak digital cameras weren't anything special. They didn't have any standout specs or features, and their designs weren't as eye-catching other manufacturers' models.

"They just weren't as good," says Leuchter. "And the cameras themselves weren't that appealing. Consumers like products that look cool, and [many] Kodak products just do not look cool. They're bulky, they're hunky, they're dorky looking. 

They had a couple of good Easy Share cameras a couple of years ago, but they weren't as good as a lot of the point-and-shoots from other companies."

Those rivals — including Fujifilm, Nikon, Sony, Canon and others — kept innovating over the years with features like face detection, smile detection, and in-camera red-eye fixes, and Kodak, while it put out competent products, was always following feature trends, never leading them.

"The fact that Kodak invented the digital camera makes what is happening now particularly tragic," says photographer Steve Simon, author of The Passionate Photographer. "For the last few years I would see Kodak at photo trade shows and on the big billboard at Times Square and I would wonder to myself, who exactly are they now and what exactly are they doing? If a photographer has to ask that, you know they have a problem."

Photo Sharing

Kodak actually had one shot at creating a truly novel and useful feature for digital cameras: The company launched the world's first Wi-Fi enabled camera in 2005, the Easy Share-One (see below). The camera came equipped with a special card (separate from the SD card) that, when engaged, could connect to a nearby Wi-Fi network. The user could then email photos to friends straight from the camera.

I reviewed the camera for Sound+Vision magazine, and, while it was bulky and had a cumbersome way of using the Wi-Fi, it worked as promised. Emailing photos was a relatively simple task (aside from the initial inputting of addresses), and since few people were securing their Wi-Fi networks with passwords in 2005, finding an open hotspot was surprisingly easy in urban environments.

Nonetheless, the camera failed to sell well, and Kodak killed the line. However, if the company had the foresight to realize sharing was going to become the way people interacted with their photos, it might have thought twice. The year the Easy Share-One came out was the same year a group of engineers founded Eye-Fi, which has gone on to create a successful business around Wi-Fi-enabled SD cards for cameras — virtually the exact same concept Kodak abandoned.

"Photo sharing is the killer app today," says Hayzlett. "There's nothing that beats it. The issue is they built a Wi-Fi camera well before its time, and really the application needs to be on a phone."

Sharing via the Web is by far the biggest way people use their photos, though, and Kodak seemingly got into the game reasonably early with its purchase of the Ofoto service in 2001 (Snapfish, now owned by HP, was founded in 2000). It took Kodak four years to relaunch the service as Kodak EasyShare Gallery, though, a huge amount of time that saw the emergence of Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket and others. Although EasyShare got good reviews for a while, the buzz surrounding its competitors was too loud for it to make any noise.

And let's not forget cellphones, which not only helped murder Kodak's digital camera business (along with everyone else's — right, Flip?), but also made photos social. While it would be expecting too much of Kodak to have created novel apps like Instagram or PicPlz, it was a virtual non-presence in mobile apps (no, SmileMaker doesn't count), which cemented the company's irrelevance in the way people experience photos today. There are no Kodak moments in mobile.

Photo Viewing

Kodak bet big on digital photo frames and photo printers, though it didn't anticipate the market forces at work in each field. When Kodak began pushing hard into frames — with differentiating features like Wi-Fi and batteries (most frames only work when plugged in) — prices were in free-fall, and digital frames were rapidly becoming a commodity market, with thin margins.

"That's a very tough business to make money in, if you can make it at all," says Hayzlett. "Everybody wants the best quality for free, basically."

At the same time, Kodak frames were still hampered by the necessity to tie into the company's photo services, and the setup was much more technically cumbersome than the average person was willing to endure (if you've ever set up a Wi-Fi frame, you've probably wished Apple would enter the market so it would "just work"). Competing against value brands and other heavy hitters such as HP and Sony, Kodak frames only marginally stood out, and the company couldn't make any substantial money on them

The field of photo printing, which Kodak is expected to emphasize if it emerges from bankruptcy, experienced a total transformation over the last decade. Everyone outside of professional photographers used to get prints of all their pictures out of necessity, but today few print photos in any quantity. Ever fewer want the hassle of owning a photo printer, instead choosing to get prints mailed to them from online services like Snapfish.

"They made a big bet on consumer imaging technology — point-and-shoots and photo printers and picture frames — at a time when people increasingly using their phones," says Leuchter. "And they're not printing as much. Home printers are nice, but nobody's printing. They're only printing the photos they care most about."

A significant number of consumers do print photos, however, and the cheap-printer-as-means-to-sell-ink model is a proven model for companies to make money. If indeed Kodak survives, it makes financial sense for it to try and continue to be a force in the business, though since prints have been demoted to an ancillary way people experience photos, the company will never become the influencer it once was by focusing on it.

Lessons Learned

The most immediate takeaway from the fall of Kodak is clear: Don't be afraid to cannibalize your own business in the name of progress. This is seen time and again in the digital revolution: 

Sony's reluctance to develop a competent digital Walkman left an opening for the iPod. Blockbuster laughed off Netflix in the early days, then went bankrupt when it couldn't compete with its Web-based competitor. And iPads may be eating up some Mac sales, but Apple's bottom line is stronger than ever.

But Kodak's inability to make any of its products stand out over the last decade is demonstrative of an overall reluctance to innovate. Certainly, if you asked Kodak executives in the early 2000s if they were committed to innovation, they would have answered yes, but real innovation requires risk and vision. You don't kill all Wi-Fi cameras just because the first model got a lukewarm response from the market — that is, if you really believe in the core idea.

The story of Kodak's downfall is an affirmation that true innovative spirit is much more often found in smaller companies and startups rather than old-school behemoths of yesteryear. After all, if you don't have much to lose, you tend to make many more all-in bets. But, as Kodak has shown, if all you do is play it safe, the cost just to stay in the game will whittle you down until you've got nothing left.

1981 Sony introduces first electronic (filmless) camera 

Mavica (Magnetic Video Camera) was a brand of Sony cameras which used removable disks as the main recording medium. In August 1981, Sony unveiled a prototype of the Sony Mavica as the world's first electronic still camera.[1] 

As with all Mavica cameras until the early 1990s (including later models sold commercially) this first model was not digital.[1] Its CCD sensor produced an analog video signal in the NTSC format at a resolution of 570 × 490 pixels. Mavipak 2.0" disks (later adopted industry-wide as the Video Floppy and labelled "VF") were used to write 50 still frames onto tracks on disk. The pictures were viewed on a television screen. Otherwise, this camera is positioned as the "pioneer of the digital era".[2][1] 

I remember Sony talking about this product during my transition from employee to independent representative.  We were hoping to help Sony bring it to market, but in the end, they decided to go in a different direction, using a special sales team.

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Sony reused the Mavica name for a number of digital (rather than analog) cameras that used standard 3.5" floppy disk or 8cm CD-R media for storage. 

Types of Digital Cameras

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_camera#Sensor_size_and_angle_of_view

Photography by SnapShotSandy

The Digital Revolution a real monster game changer

At this point in the story of my life and technology, we have to leave photography for a while.  Because, the “Digital Revolution” is a monster game changer and deserves to be reviewed properly.  In my not so humble opinion, its importance, then, now and in the future, allowed for major innovations and inventions which continues to evolve from digitization.  Almost all industries and people are being affected by it and it continues to get better and better for all aspects of life on earth and in the universe as we continue our quest for exploration.Ca