A prototype built in 1975 by a 23-year-old Kodak engineer is now officially recognised as the world’s first handheld digital camera, marking a major turning point in the history of photography.
The journey of the handheld digital camera began when Steve Sasson, a young electrical engineer at Eastman Kodak, was asked to study a new light-sensitive chip known as a charge-coupled device (CCD). Kodak, famous for film and chemicals, was not deeply involved in electronics at the time. However, Sasson saw potential in the CCD that others had overlooked.
Using discarded parts and basic equipment, he started building a device that could capture images without using film. Sasson attached a lens from an old movie camera to the CCD, connected it to a simple converter, and stored the image data on an audio cassette deck. The result was a 3.6-kilogram, toaster-sized digital camera capable of taking 100 x 100-pixel black-and-white photos.
By the end of that year, Sasson and colleague Jim Schueckler tested the first image. It appeared distorted on a TV screen after a 23-second playback, but the engineers were thrilled by the breakthrough. Sasson described the moment simply: “We were just overjoyed.”
Kodak executives quickly recognised the disruptive potential of the invention. They asked when colour images might be possible and how quickly resolution could improve. Sasson predicted that digital imaging would match basic film quality in around 20 years — a forecast that became reality when Kodak launched its first consumer digital camera in 1995.
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The original prototype is now preserved at the George Eastman Museum. Though simple by today’s standards, the invention laid the foundation for modern photography and inspired the cameras found in billions of smartphones around the world.
