Evolution of Digital Camera

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History of Digital Cameras
 First there was the camera (19th century)
 Then there was the movie camera
 Then there was the video camera

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History of Digital Cameras

 Then NASA wanted to send pictures back

from the moon (or wherever they wanted to
go)
 But there was analog noise
 So they converted the analog signals to digital

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History of Digital Cameras
 1972 the first patent for an electronic camera
 1981 Sony develops the Mavica electronic camera
 Analog video frame capture
 1986 Kodak develops the first megapixel camera
 Verrrrry expensive and had a 5x7 limitation

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History of Digital Cameras
 1990 Kodak produces the Photo CD
 A proprietary technology for digitizing slides, negatives and
prints
 Saved files to a CD
 This popularized digital images
 1991 Kodak created a 1.3 megapixel (journalists)

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History of Digital Cameras
 Apple develops the first consumer level digital camera
about the same time
 Digital scan backs and digital capture backs were being
developed during the 90s for portrait and catalog
photography

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History of Digital Cameras
 Late 1990s saw the development of 3,4 and 5 megapixel
comsumer and prosumer cameras
 These cameras can produce an 8x10 for less than $1000

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What is a Digital Camera?
 What is a pixel?
 What is a megapixel?

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What is a Digital Camera?
 1 megapixel = 1,000,000 sensors = 1,000,000 pixels
 The more sensors the finer the detail and the larger the print
 Each sensor has three filters
 Red
 Green
 Blue
 Open the shutter and the camera records how much of
each color recorded on each sensor

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Operation of a Video Camera
 Open the shutter and the camera records how much of
each color recorded on each sensor

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Film Advantages
 Resolution (getting better)
 Shutter Latency
 Capacity (just different)
 Batteries (a real problem)
 Cost (still a factor but dropping)

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Digital Camera Advantages
 Immediacy (see it now)
 Usability (with a computer)
 Reusability (storage card)
 Duplication (every file is the original)
 Adaptability (print or web or email)
 Flexibility (remove a cast, adjust the flash)
 Size (not dependant on the size of the film roll)

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