POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Sony Mavica FD-91 digital camera with packaging

Object No. 2002/100/1

At the time of purchase (June 1999) the Sony Mavica FD-91 was representative of the state of the art for consumer digital cameras. It was acquired for display within the media section of the Cyberworlds exhibition. The FD-91 is the first digital camera to be acquired by the museum. Digital cameras were originally developed during the latter part of the cold war - after satellite technology matured and provided a platform for cameras to spy on other countries and transmit captured images via satellite back to earth stations. The technology to achieve this came from developments in television (vidicons - television camera vacuum tubes) and communications. It was found that images captured by early interplanetary missions (Viking, Voyager) and relayed to Earth stations in an analog form had degenerated and were unviewable on TV screens. Processes for treating these signals digitaly with computers vastly improved them. The next step was to digitise the entire process. In 1974 NASA began investigating developments in charge coupled device technology (CCD) first demonstrated in 1969 at the Bell Laboratories. The eventual development of domestic/consumer digital cameras was hastened by the rapid adoption and penetration of digital cameras in publishing - this allowed photographers to hang around until the last minute and enabled the instant transmission of images worldwide. Desktop publishing (PageMaker, Apple Mac, 1984) was the next technology to encourage the use and adoption of digital cameras and images. The first digital camera was designed and manufactured by Sony in 1981 - the Sony Mavica used CCD technology and digitised the image, recording them to disk (Mavipak - precursor to the 3.5 floppy); images were viewable on a video screen or printable using the dedicated Mavigraph. More recent developments in digital image capture hardware for the domestic market include the Kodak DC-40 (1994) and the Apple Quicktake (1994). Since that time compelling developments in the internet - the explosion of the world wide web, the development and adoption of digital image applications (where images can be viewed and shared immediately) and the continuing penetration of the computer as a regular household consumer product, have all contributed to the demand for low end digital cameras. As always demand for new consumer electronics products is driven to a certain extent by a decline in the level of support and service offered for the older technology. Established film and film camera maufacturers (such as Kodak, Polaroid) that developed and exploited those markets strategly become involved (through acquisition, R&D) in the newer technology. This behaviour hastens the market adoption of a newer technology - vinyl vs CD, VHS vs DVD, Bank branches vs internet etc. This rapid growth in digit cameras has (by 2001) led to a decline in demand for film cameras and film. Analysis of the trend toward digital camera use and sales project digital camera sales to capture upwards of sixty percent of the total worldwide market by 2006.