Who and When was Film and Digital Photography Invented?

The first commercially successful photographic process was announced in 1839, the result of over a decade of experimentation by Louis Daguerre and Nicéphore Niépce. Unfortunately, Niépce died before the daguerreotype process was realized, and is best known for his invention of the heliograph, the process by which the “first photograph” was made in 1826. 

Daguerreotypes are sharply defined, highly reflective, one-of-a-kind photographs on silver-coated copper plates, usually packaged behind glass and kept in protective cases. The daguerreotype process is demonstrated in the video below from the George Eastman House. 

Eastman Kodak engineer, Steven Sasson, invented the digital camera in 1975. In a bit more than two decades, the technology have overtaken analog film materials and dominate the photographic industry and practice. This video below, presented by George Eastman House, features a timeline of digital camera technology starting with Steven Sasson’s first completely digital camera prototype and takes us all the way to the cameras in our smartphones today. So has digital photography finally replaced the film camera for good? Find out. 

My readers know I have been a wildlife photographer for 25 years using Canon equipment. My first professional film camera was the Canon EOS-1. When Canon announced their first digital camera, the D30 in 2000, I bought it as an experiment and worked with the new medium. When Canon introduced their first 'affordable' full frame EOS-5D camera in 2005, I bought that as well because by that time I have seen the value of digital photography and needed a professional 'backup' camera. You can see my equipment bag and works on MichaelDanielHo.com

Did Digital Photography Eliminate Film Cameras

Did the advent of consumer digital photography eliminate the film camera, especially in light of Eastman Kodak's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in 2012. Only a very limited number of companies still manufacture film for analog photography.

In my book and in the video below from the Financial Times, the answer is a definitive NO. The analog photography market has shrank dramatically with the successful introduction of Canon's first digital camera, the EOS-D30 in 2000, but the film photography market is making a small comeback, not unlike the vinyl record industry, after the launch of Compact Discs.

I am a wildlife photographer and although my main camera now is the EOS-1D X, I still have my old faithful, the EOS-1V film camera and my first professional camera was the EOS-1 when it came out in 1989. The film camera is alive and well for those who can still remember the good old days. We just have to pay quite a bit more now to buy high quality film.