The digital camera has changed the world of photography and was invented by an electrical engineer Steven J. Sasson in 1975. The invented device weighed 8 pounds and was of the size of a toaster that was available in those times. The camera produced black and white pictures with a resolution of 0.01 megapixels. 23 seconds were needed for the camera to write an image on a digital cassette tape and it would take another 23 seconds for reading it back from the cassette to be viewed on a TV screen.
The photographic lens for this camera came from a Kodak movie camera while the CCD chips were from the Fairchild Semiconductor and the analog to digital converter was adapted from the electronic components that were manufactured by Motorola Inc.
A digital camera converts images into electronic impulses. These cameras are easy to carry and handle. They use memory cards where the pictures are stored and these pictures can be viewed as soon as they are captured and users have the option of deleting the pictures that are not required.
Sasson was issued patent number 4131919 by the United States for his digital camera. What Sasson had never imagined was that within a short span of 30 years or so, his invention would become such an indispensible electronic device in each household all around the world. Today these digital cameras are manufactured by well known brands such as Sony, Olympus, Canon and others.
