How I Wished Digital Camera Was Invented Earlier - Precious Memories of Old Photos

30 September 2009, Wednesday (11 Syawal)

Time sure flies.  It's already the last day of September and only 3 months away to another new year.  And before we realised it, it's already the 11th day of Ramadan.

Today, I've decided to sift through the mountains of old, but precious photos that I have been keeping since time immemorial. I wanted to look for and scan my parents' photos before I look at the rest of the thousands of photos in my collection. And while I was going through the photos, I realised the importance and significance of photos. Each photo tells its own story.  Each photo tells us something about a part of history. Each photo captures a special memory, and each photo is precious in its own right.

Imagine the time when people of yesteryears were unable to capture their precious moments as cameras were not invented yet. 

So thanks goes to Alhazen (Ibn Al-Haytham), a great authority on optics in the Middle Ages who lived around 1000AD, who invented the first pinhole camera, (also called the Camera Obscura}.

And later, Louis Daguerre, who was the inventor of the first practical process of photography. In 1829, he formed a partnership with Joseph Nicephore Niepce to improve the process Niepce had developed, in what was termed as the birth of modern photography.

And with the advent of technology, the first digital camera was invented by Eastman Kodak Co. electrical engineer Steven Sasson. Sasson began work on the first digital camera under Kodak. Instead of traditional film, the camera used solid state imagers and a charged coupled device (CCD). In 1978, the work was patented by Sasson and his supervisor, Gareth A. Lloyd.

Kodak did not release the technology to the consumer market until 1991. The Kodak Professional Digital Camera System (DCS) matched a 1.3-megapixel Kodak sensor with a Nikon F3 camera body.

“The thing to remember about the digital revolution in photography is that it changed how we take pictures. The most important aspect of photography, why we take pictures, remains the same. Our memories are our most important possessions, and the job of this or any other technology is to enable us to make these vital parts of our lives easier and even more valuable,” said Sasson.

This statement couldn't ring more true as I looked at the mountains of old photos which I hope to digitalize soon.  I wish Sasoon had invented the digital camera much earlier........