Which company invented the first digital camera in 1975?

Eastman Kodak invented the first self-contained digital camera in 1975. Kodak engineer Steven Sasson built the prototype while experimenting with a newly developed solid-state image sensor.

Sasson’s camera was very different from a modern pocket camera. It weighed about 8 pounds, captured black-and-white images at roughly 10,000 pixels, and saved them to a compact cassette tape. Recording its first image took 23 seconds in December 1975.

The prototype was a technical experiment rather than a commercial product. It used CCD chips developed by Fairchild Semiconductor, showing how electronic sensors could replace photographic film. Kodak later helped advance professional digital photography, including the Kodak DCS system introduced in the early 1990s.

The phrase “first digital camera” can be slippery because earlier systems digitized images for satellites or television. In ordinary camera history, however, Sasson’s portable, self-contained 1975 device is the landmark usually meant—and Kodak was the company behind it.