Cameras - a history. PART 3: Digital Cameras and Smartphone Cameras 

As a new photography enthusiast, that entered the world of real cameras walking out from smartphone photography, I wanna express my deepest appreciation for these 3 videos you have made covering the history of cameras. Watching these videos has been a great journey and exponentially increased my love for my new hobby. Thank you very much.

As promised, here is Part 3 of my series on the history of cameras. The hardest to do, because this is living history and so much is going on! So it's a more of an overview and personal take on the development of digital and smartphone cameras, and their impact on popular photography. Please add your own experiences and views in the comments if you want... Here are the links to the different Sections: 00:00 Introduction 01:38 Electronics 06:38 Digital Cameras - Point and Shoot Cameras 12:35 DSLRs and Rangefinders 15:23 The impact of the Internet and Post Processing 18:11 Mirrorless (MILC) Cameras 25:52 Phone Cameras 30:46 Conclusions and the Future of Cameras

I can really appreciate your admiration of old and new cameras. I own modern mirroless, dslr, full manuel slr, folding medium format and box brownie cameras from today and 100+ years old. I enjoy using them all for the ultimate photographic experience. Thanks for a wonderful insight into photography history.

I very much enjoyed this series. Thanks for all your effort. A comment regarding smartphones: these days, new phones are mostly sold based on having better cameras and faster processors to run web-based apps better than their predecessors. Sadly, their ability to function as mobile phones is secondary. That makes sense I suppose given that even the most basic phone can make or receive a phone call as well as the most elaborate one can. I use my pretty basic phone camera to snap "documentary" images; that is, to create a record, rather than for creative purposes, and for that I find it indispensible. Sure, phone cameras can take great photos, and their onboard processing ability is impressive, but I don't see them replacing "real" cameras. I mean, imagine you hire a photographer for your daughter's wedding, and he shows up with just an iPhone!

I really enjoyed this series! I appreciate all your work put into these videos!

thanks for this detailed Documentary, I have found recently going back to film cameras to apply my experience with SLR digital to film and the surprise of picking up your prints ( or super 8 film for movies ) in the mail or development shop, the internet has led to a small renaissance in Film which some would never have though of like Vinyl Records.

The rapid uptake in digital imaging is linked exclusively to internet sharing. It took years for digital cameras to equal the image quality of film, and it's debatable whether it's yet capable of out-resolving a sharp medium format film image. Without the internet, digital would have remained as quirky and niche as Polaroids. Smart phones are the latest popular vs enthusiast capture device, but it's been around since box cameras, 126 and 110 Instamatics. The same enthusiasts who obsessed over resolution and bought lenses costing thousands in film days, can now enlarge their photographs way past any size they are ever likely to print, and declare corner sharpness wanting. Meanwhile the general public can show friends and family their lifestyle without ever buying a camera.

Love this series, so glad to see part 3! 👍

I found this series to be hugely interesting and I want to thank you for your hard work and for making such an easily digestible series of videos. Your second episode has had me on the hunt for twin lens reflex cameras, both for the interest factor and for the inspiration of your shooting a scene through the viewfinder of one. Your digital series was very interesting. I couldn't help feeling mildly disappointed to see a couple of truly iconic digital cameras missed off, though I could understand why this was so. I believe the Logitech Fotoman (The Dycam it was based on wasn't common in Europe) would have been worth a mention, simply because it was the first digital camera that really gained commercial traction. I have 2 of the Fotoman Plus cameras that I am currently getting back into working order (simply a battery issue) and I think they're very interesting. Likewise the Casio QV10, the first digital camera to offer an LCD screen to preview images in 1994 really switched up the game for digital cameras and had a huge impact on digital photography in the 1990's. I have a strong interest in what I call the Cambrian period of consumer digital cameras (1991 - 2001), there was so much innovation and new ideas as manufacturers attempted to experiment with what would work. I also have quite a few of Kodak's early consumer attempts in my collection as well. I'm UK based, so if you ever want to see or review any of these unusual beasts, I would be happy to sort that out.

Great overview of cameras & photography. I recently got a Sony A7 to get back to using a simpler kit with my old manual lenses. Broadband has helped revolutionise the sharing of images and provided image-rich platforms. A far cry from my old Zenit B, home-processed black & white photography days but one to be welcomed.

as someone who has been taking pictures for 50 years (wow, that snuck up on me) I agree completely with your take on phone cameras. I seldom use my phone for anything but taking pictures, in a serious way...well, semi-serious.

While my best pictures come from full frame my and crop sensor mirrorless cameras, I find myself using my smartphone to take conceptual photos most of the time, my phone is just always with me. I enjoy the freedom my cell phone gives me, but the joy of taking a tack sharp image with the settings that I chose and then editing to the final picture is what I enjoy about photography

A spot on description of the Sony A6000; I have one. Not perfect, but they were always about £500 new with the 16-50mm kit lens, a bargain. I think they've stopped making them now.

thanks for the video! May I also declare how awesome the scene at 31:10 was ( with the phone at the bottom and old Kodak pocket camera at the top) - I was watching kind of zoned-out and then you reached forward and took the top camera! I was instantly "awoken" since previously my brain saw the entire scene just a "powerpoint" due to the white background and not a real scene

Fantastic and educational.

Very interesting and nicely written and narrated. I liked these series a lot. :)

Thank you!! I've been watching your channel for awhile, I've been learning and basing much of my vintage lens purchases from your reviews and insight into these gem lenses. This series was as fun and educational to watch...I did learn a lot and had fun doing it. Great series. I know it is quite a bit of work to do a series like this, but you do series so well, I hope in the future you find other photography subject to dive deep into and have another series come out. Take are and thank you! CC

Great series!

Really nice series, thanks for posting!!!

Excellent series! Thank you for mking it.

Thank you Simon for putting together this informative, intelligent, and very enjoyable series. I'm sure it will be a reference point for many interested in photography.

once again a great presentation in a great series. I'm only just starting to appreciate the versatility of my s7.

damn impressive, good show, great research and dedication to educate us. thank you Simon.

Congratulations on a superb series. I'm left thinking you must be an academic of some kind. The introductions including scope and exclusions are bang on. Great work!

Loved the series and would love to see a similar series about the evolution of lens designs and tech.

You deserve way more attention, great channel sir !!!

wonderful series - I am missing a mention of the innovative Olympus e-10

another great vid!

Great series of videos! I really appreciated your comments in the last video.

Well made video. Preciate your effort!

Dear Lord... I've used so many of those digital cameras you've mentioned when they where new, and that means only one thing... I'm getting old.

Fitting conclusion to an excellent series. I was working in the photographic industry when digital backs first appeared. It was the ability to retouch and manipulate images that was the real drawcard. Those early adopters were willing to invest considerable time and sums to achieve - often only for certain shoots. Film was still king for many more years. As you mentioned, it was the launch of the iPhone with seamless connection to the internet that heralded the next revolution.

Very nice end of the serie and the reason of the progression of phones vs cameras is well explained. Some rems to improve your serie that I think are missing (take them in positive mood of course) : 1/ you spoke of Pentax Olympus and Nikon for manual cameras but you forgot Minolta (you just speak of the 7000i) but I think they deserve more until they were sold to Sony . 2/ you don t explain why Japan invades the world of camera in the 50s and 60s and are still at the top now. 3/ You didn t speak of the relative flop of Leica in SLR and the good choice of Canon when they switch to the EF mount allowing full electronic communication between the lens and the camera. 4/ the big battle of canon and Nikon at the golden age of SLR. 5/the fact that some big electronics companies like Sony and Panasonic which were completely absent at the beginning of film photography are now very present on the market (Sony sold more cameras than Canon) and made some clever alliance with the old Leica and Zeiss thx to digital area. But again difficult to be exhaustive on this topic and your work is huge and I learnt a lot viewing it and thanks a lot to gave the date of the important technology breaks. We have all of them in your serie and it s very precious. Thx again. You won a follower :)

thank you for video

Really good series of video, thank you. There many videos about photo history. That camera you wish for, doesn't the Nikon DF or more recent mirrorless version fit the bill?

Since I can only use one hand, I do not use a smart phone to take picture because it has a touch screen. The screen keeps flipping all over the place when I am trying to take a photo, it is even hard for me to use it as a phone. I use a Canon ELPH 190IS and in my opinion, the images I get are superior then those taken by a smart phone.

I love the K-01 brick look...but yea the no viewfinder on large camera is quite bad to use just for the stabilisation against brow 34:30 i make sure to pet my k70 even if I don't use it that day

I really want to see computational photography make it's way into the compact point and shoot market - mult stacking can really boost the performance of a small sensor - my phone's 1/1.3" sensor genuinely performs as well as my Fuji XT20's APSC in terms of noise and sharpness, and can be controlled to look completely natural. (I only use the fuji for lenses and funnily enough simplicity) I'd love to see a pocket camera which uses this computation to compensate for their small sensors - if they do they'll be able to do pretty much everything aside from obtaining a shallow depth of field.

Well done. Very interesting and engaging series. What's next?!

So I guess Sony and Apple are pretty much responsible for modern photography.. I'm kidding, but seriously I feel like digital photogaphy segment of this otherwise excellent camera history series gives short shrift to anything not full frame Sony or iPhone.. I mean the only APS-C camera given any airtime is.. the Sony A6000?! OK, I've picked my nit and said my piece, now. I really did enjoy this series overall, and especially the Pentax history-because I too, can say that my first real SLR was a Pentax SP500, which I still have and it still works. The only difference between it and the SP1000 is they didn't stamp the 1000 on the shutter speed dial. But it's still there and shoots at 1/1000 :-D

Next year 2024 Pentax is releasing four new film cameras to feed the increase in the popularity of film.😅

Is there a video camera series ?

A bit boring I’m 53 was around during this time I love photography

Part 4: AI photography

With chatt GPT everything is archaic and dead

Thanks for the video, I've been watching for its arrival. It's fun to get a sense of what has been going on in the background of camera development during my lifetime. Interesting to see how these revolutionary shifts were integrated into my life with the thrill of novelty and not a lot of thought about how it was really creating a seismic shift in how our culture would be forced to evolve in response. Watching the video and looking back on how life has changed in response to consumers funding this progress provokes me to think I might not be aware enough of the world I participate in creating. We owe so much to the art of miniaturization and ingenuity. Your comment that all the electronic features (when they initially came out) probably didn't help the actual photos that much suggests that its easy to sell us on the idea that we need more help than we do. Thought provoking video! Thanks again.