Letter from the site operator.  A while back a digital photography historian requested information from us concerning the development of digital photography and how we became involved with the topic.  Below is a copy of the material we provided:

"When we began this site in September of 2001 the only sites on the net which discussed the history of digital photography were never more than several pages in length and seldom showed more than two or three photos of early model still video or digital cameras.  The same was true for virtually all magazine articles.  Digital photography books were not much better.  They never devoted more than a brief chapter to the subject of digital photography development even though it was the biggest single advance in photography in more than 150 years.

In 1998 we purchased our first digital camera and began researching its technical development.  After several months of gathering material off the net, we found that when attempting to return to various sites those sites were sometimes no longer in existence or the digital photography articles had been deleted.  Concerned about this disappearance of important historical information, we contacted every photography historian listed on the net to make them aware that information about the development of digital photography was disappearing before anyone had thought to preserve it for future generations.  Only one person replied saying, "Thanks for volunteering!"

Since we had printed a rather large stack of material off the net, we decided to accept the challenge and began to assemble chronological photos of cameras as well as historical documents by various authors.  When we first went online with DigiCamHistory.Com our only intent was to identify early model still video and digital cameras for those who might come across a camera they could not identify.  This soon changed to providing basic information about each camera, and later adding information to the site concerning the development of photography in general, developments which had eventually led up to the marketing of digital cameras.

Building a digital photography site in those days was difficult because there was no single source which provided more than a few photos or few paragraphs on the subject.  Researching cameras on the net was next to impossible if you did not know the model number, and how were you to obtain the model number of a camera that you did not know existed?  The only way was to research every magazine and book available which had some information on the topic.  Other sources included reports on the net of past technical  shows which often contained a few photos of  current cameras or those planned for marketing.  Over time, the site gradually grew in content as we spent many hours hunting down every lead on cameras that may have existed, but which we hadn't yet documented.

As the site grew in content, we decided that just documenting the existence of those early model cameras was not sufficient, thus we also began collecting them so that they could be preserved for the enjoyment of future generations.  If we had it to do all over again we probably would have established our collection first and the web site later because of economic reasons.  Once we documented the existence of early model cameras and encouraged other to collect them, their eBay prices jumped considerably.  One individual reported to us that once we placed a camera on our site it tripled in market value overnight.  We are now in the position of not being able to afford purchase of some of the rarer cameras that we could have easily purchased early on.  Some that were once available for a few hundred dollars may now command prices of many thousands.

One other difference notable from the early days has been the gradual disappearance of what we would call professional courtesy between many sites on the net that are devoted to photography.  Early on, virtually every article or report having to do with digital photography as well as those reporting photography news, supporting photography discussion forums, etc., had a section for links to other digital photography sites as we do on our Useful Info page and History Sites page.  Regrettably, perhaps due to economic competition considerations (competition for viewers and for ads), this situation is no longer true for most sites.  In reviewing the many links provided by DigiCamHistory.Com to other photography sites, only a few still provide such links to others, and we could not find a single one that even mentioned DigiCamHistory.Com as a source of additional information or even acknowledged our site as a source of information for their site.

Along that same line, there are a number of foreign sites on the net that have obtained all or most of their material from DigiCamHistory.Com, but which do not mention the source.  On our front page we state that the material on our site is provided for the free use of all photography enthusiasts and we do not mind at all when foreign sites copy our material and then translate the English into the language of their own country.  If fact, we strongly encourage it, but would appreciate it if our site were to be mentioned as the source so that those who can read English and who might wish to explore the subject in greater depth can do so.

There are no ads on this site and it is financed entirely by the owner/operator.  All photos and written material were either originated by the owner/operator or are in accordance with the United States fair use doctrine which governs the use of copyrighted material.

Back in 2002 shortly after I established my website, DigiCamHistory.Com, I received an enquiry from the New York Times about the site asking a number of questions.  At that time digital photography was in its infant stage and very few people new anything about it.  The only way for digicam owners to view photos outside the camera was to use a computer or have then printed at one of the few places that existed for doing so.  Sales of digicams were a minuscule portion of total camera sales and were expected to remain that way long into the future.   Kodak management said that film quality would continue to improve and stay ahead of digital quality, possible forever.  I owned a Sony Mavica MVC-FD91 which had less than one megapixel capability and which produced very poor quality photos compared to film.  In the final paragraph of my reply to the NYT I made a number of predictions:

1.  Consumer digicams will follow the path taken by camcorders - making consumer film cameras a curiosity the way camcorders have done with consumer movie cameras.

2.  Combination camcorders and still cameras will become even more popular, even to the point where many people will no longer see the need for buying two separate types.

3.  Despite the efforts by film manufacturers to make it easier and more convenient to obtain traditional prints from digital images, the really big upcoming change in photography will be the use of DVD players and similar devices to view family photography albums on the home TV.  The advent of high-definition television will make TV screen slide-shows the preferred method of viewing.  Just slip a disk into a player and operate the remote similar to the way it is now done with slide projectors.  No more digging out photo albums from their hidden places of storage and flipping through them one page at a time on one's lap.  Moreover, ten thousand or more photos can now be stored in the same amount of space as previously taken up by a single paper-print album. 

All of the above were proven to be true, and in a much shorter time than even the most optimistic predictions of early digicam users.  Basically, digicams followed the path of digital music which took over the market from LPs far sooner than the "experts" predicted."