Sasson, was an engineer at
Eastman Kodak at the time when he invented and built the first electronic camera using a
charge-coupled device
image sensor in 1975. It weighed 8 pounds (3.6 kg) and had only 0.01
megapixels. The image was
recorded onto a cassette tape and this process took 23 seconds. The
camera only took images in black and white. To play back images, data
was read from the tape and then displayed on a television set. Needless
to say, his invention revolutionized photography and The medium would
never be the same.
digital camera prototype developed for
Sasson said, "It had a lens that we took from a used parts bin from the Super 8 movie
camera production line downstairs from our little lab on the second
floor in Bldg 4. On the side of our portable contraption, we shoehorned
in a portable digital cassette instrumentation recorder. Add to that
16 nickel cadmium batteries, a highly temperamental new type of CCD
imaging area array, an a/d converter implementation stolen from a
digital voltmeter application, several dozen digital and analog circuits
all wired together on approximately half a dozen circuit boards, and
you have our interpretation of what a portable all electronic still
camera might look like."
On November 17, 2009,
U.S. President Barack Obama awarded Sasson the
National Medal of Technology and Innovation at a ceremony in the
East Room of the
White House. This is the highest honor awarded by the US government to scientists, engineers, and inventors.
photographer unknown
On the 6th of September, 2012, The
Royal Photographic Society
awarded Sasson its Progress medal and Honorary Fellowship in
recognition of any invention, research, publication or other
contribution that has resulted in an important advance in the scientific
or technological development of photography or imaging in the widest
sense.
Leica Camera AG honored Sasson by presenting to him a limited edition 18-megapixel
Leica M9 Titanium camera (engraved with the serial number = 4,000,000) during
Photokina 2010.
Sasson speakes about how he invented the digital camera video
Styrous® ~ July 4, 2015