The father of the still digital camera was the video camcorders (VTRs) used to record videos for telecast on the television. This camera captured images by converting them into electrical impulses and saving them on to tape. However, all these cameras were Analog in nature. This changed when Nasa converted the format to digital so that it could enhance the images on the computer. Thus the first digital video camera was born.

In 1972 Texas Instruments patented the first film-less electronic camera and in 1981 Sony released the Mavica, which was the first electronic still camera. Mavica recorded still images into a mini disc, which could be read by a video recorder connected to a monitor or a printer.

But the true digital still camera arrived in 1986 when Kodak launched the world's first megapixel sensor. This image sensor could record 1.4 million pixels and produce a 5x7 photo quality print. This was the first true digital camera.

However the camera did not became widely popular because it was too expensive and did not yield quality comparable to film.

Later on Kodak made another major contribution to the home digital camera market by developing PhotoCD. Photographers could take a snap with their digital cameras and take it to a Kodak PhotoCD shop to get a professional quality printout. The company also released Kodak DCS 200, which was gave photographers path-breaking quality as per the standards those days.

But the credit of developing the first consumer level digital camera goes to Apple. The camera called Quicktake 100 could be connected to the computer through a serial cable.

The market for digital cameras really took off with the advent of the colour inkjet printer and the Internet. Now it became very easy to share photographs and even print them with professional quality.

Today digital cameras are cheaper than ever, and their popularity is zooming by the minute. Modern digital cameras also yield very good quality, with as much as 6 mega pixels, or above.

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