How Kodak Nearly Won

The story of Kodak is often told wrong. At least, I always heard it wrong. It ends in bankruptcy, but along the way Kodak made big impacts on digital photography that will forever be part of their legacy. Here's my attempt to tell at least a part of the whole story.
Special thanks to Amy and her advising to get a working Kodak DCS Pro 14n (actually, she said NOT to get one, which was great advice that I ignored) see why here: thelightslide.com/kodak-dcs-p...
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Sources:
www.nikonweb.com/files/DCS_St...
hbr.org/2016/07/kodaks-downfa...
hbr.org/2002/05/disruptive-ch...
www.technologyreview.com/2011...
petapixel.com/why-kodak-died-...
www.krlretirees.com/News_Items...
/ 1579848424052396038
www.statista.com/chart/5782/d...
#kodak #photography

[@snappiness]

There's so much more to this story that I didn't even talk about here. Like, Kodak bought Ofoto, a photo sharing website that was set to be the next big thing before something called Facebook came along... missed again! What else did I miss?

[@GODSPEEDseven]

Man, what an awesome video!! This was such a fascinating slice of history I knew nothing about! Makes me sad that they gave up their pro line, but kind of shows how much photography took a hit with smartphones. I'm glad some like Ricoh and Pentax have managed to just survive to this day. Guess this makes me appreciate the struggle that even the giants like Canon, Nikon, Sony must have faced on the way as well..

[@sheldonspock5566]

You missed the Kodak large sensors that equipped Digital Backs and DSLRs such as the Pentax 645D, and were staples of the pro market for a fair share of time. You missed Kodak's CCD ventures providing for third party cameras, like Olympus and Leica (the M8 and the M9 which was actually full-frame), also their endeavors in the Machine Vision sector until the bankruptcy came and they sold the division to TrueSense... In the cinematography world there was the Ikonoskop and Digital Bolex which used Kodak CCDs derived straight from their Machine Vision and other scientific applications. Astrophotography was also a big market for Kodak CCDs... Also of special interest of mine is Kodak's long term collaboration with NASA during the Space Shuttle era and the DCS pro cameras usage in dozens of space flights... My first film camera was a cheap Kodak point and shoot in '97. My first digital camera was the DX4530 back in '03. Nowadays I own the DC4800, P850, P880, Z980, the DCS Pro SLR/n (alas it has a corroded sensor) and also Oly E-1, E-400, E-500. I'm incredibly jealous of your Four-Thirds Zuiko 300 2.8!!

[@peterjona1303]

The Kodak Pixpro S-1 is worth to mention or an own video. ;)

[@sheldonspock5566]

Never heard of that camera, nor that there had been a µFT Kodak branded camera. Having said that, it's after the bankruptcy and Kodak had sold the rights to another manufacturer which simply branded the camera "Kodak", but it had no design or engineering whatsoever done by Kodak AFAIK.

[@achaycock]

I have a number of these Kodak cameras, although sadly none from theirprofessional line. They wedre certainly innovative and yet somehow failed to truly stand out from the competition a lot of times. I have the DC 40, but at the same time the Casio QV10 came out with an LCD display that would let you chimp. The DC120 was supposedly the worlds first consumer 1MP camera, but was stll a slab when nicer looking and more useful sized bodies were being released. They caught up a little with the DC210, a lovely camera to use, but then those magical Nikon Coolpix cameras came out with a truly ergonomic design. I think Kodak made some truly great products, but had the misfortune of doing nothing truly wrong, but nothing truly right.

[@filipecostapt6427]

We need another video just like this for Olympus. A brand with so much history

[@GlennAki]

+1 for this!

[@GODSPEEDseven]

@@GlennAki I agree wholeheartedly. I also think this applies to all photography companies, even Canon, Nikon, Minolta/Sony, Pentax, Sigam, etc.. the history is fascinating and interesting between the film and digital era.

[@christophermorris7616]

In 1997 was contacted by a Kodak who wanted to provide me with two prototypes digital cameras. Working as a Time Magazine contract photographer. They wanted real journalistic images for the upcoming release. These were preproduction models of the Canon EOS D2000. They sent a technician to Paris to work with me, for they did not want to let the cameras out of site for they said the value of them was 100k for these were the only production models. I took them to Moscow, (ironically the tech couldn’t get a visa, so I had them for several weeks where I discovered the future that was coming. For me they were like having a Polaroid to be able to check your images in the field. They ran an add campaign of my images made in Moscow to introduce the future. Years earlier I had worked with the Nikon version, but this had no lcd to view the files. They were mainly used by he wire services to get images out right away. Was not until 2003 that I felt digital could be implemented into a professional role.

[@williamcurwen7428]

Kodak colour scientists did a remarkable job on the Kodak CCD sensor for the Olympus E1. There is quite a weak UV+IR mirror cut filter on the EI, and it is actually possible to get magenta-ish shadows with cyan-ish skies, which is so close to being Kodachrome it’s freakishly uncanny. All those Kodak colour scientists are either retired or no longer with us. I have the E1 and E500 and have no intention of ever selling them.

[@snappiness]

I have the E300, also Kodak sensor! I want to try the E-1 someday for that more flagship body experience.

[@williamcurwen7428]

@@snappiness Apart from the superb handling and build quality, the RAW files at ISO400 have sensor noise that is converted from RGB to a monochromatic grain quality. Get it right and your pictures will look like paintings.

[@JohnReinertNash]

They aren't all retired. :-)

[@williamcurwen7428]

@@JohnReinertNash Oh my goodness! How wonderful to connect with one of the few! I have for a long time been trying to figure out exactly how and why the early digital cameras were so good at recording colour in ways similar to film. And I think the colour scientists from Agfa and Kodak did an incredibly good job in formulating colour filter arrays that worked so well at attracting professional photographers using film over to working with digital capture. The colour scientists at Fuji were able to draw upon their in-house knowledge and I think modern Fuji cameras are the only ones out there that consistently deliver beautiful and uniquely original colour fidelity. I often wish the upper management at Kodak could have continued with the collective leap of faith displayed by scientists such as yourself.

[@yew108]

Hi, what is the difference between e1 and e500 in terms of color?

[@weezintrumpeteer]

Great video, I didn't know a lot of this and have always been fascinated by Kodak's digital camera history. I wish you would have gone over their business of supplying sensors to other camera brands (like the Leica M8/M9, etc). As someone else mentioned earlier, would love to see a video on Olympus and other camera brands like Minolta, etc.

[@donwallace7354]

Great history rundown! It's interesting that both Kodak and Fujifilm built their DSLRs on a Nikon foundation.

[@thissidetowardscreen4553]

Brilliant video Snaps! My first digital camera was a Kodak DC5000, still have it today and it still works! Always have a fuzzy feeling about Kodak. Growing up on film and moving to digital. Lovely camera and those colors! Kodak knew how to make CCD sensors with pop! Thanks for sharing!

[@derrenleepoole]

I love the Kodak CCD sensor in my Leica M9, there’s just something about it that just delivers wonderful results.

[@snappiness]

I think there is something to be said about their sensors and color science (though in that case I'm sure Leica had the final say on color). My Kodak ccd in my Olympus e300 is fantastic.

[@derrenleepoole]

@@snappiness I have the X-Trans 1 sensor in the X-Pro1 which is fantastic, and like the M9 sensor has a quality that’s hard to define. I also have the XH-1 with the X-Trans 3 sensor, and I can’t get along with it at all, no idea why. And you’re right, Leica certainly had a say in the final output. I’m always surprised by the results and quality. This channel really opened my eyes to the CCD sensor and it’s really fantastic. I’m currently eyeing up the original Canon 5D classic, because they’re so cheap now, with everyone raving about them and the colours, I’m keen to try it out. A future video for your channel?

[@normanq1206]

@@derrenleepoole you can't go wrong with the 5D classic. Produces beautiful images SOOC.

[@derrenleepoole]

@@normanq1206 yep… I’m looking to adapt my OM Zuiko lenses on one.

[@torb-no]

@@derrenleepoole I love how (for some of us) we talk about sensors like people talk about film (subjectivity and all). Personally I had the X-M1 (same sensor as X-Pro1) and I liked it fine, but I actually *loved* the X-Pro2 (same sensor as X-H1). To this day it's the most beautiful camera sensor I've worked with so far. While I like my current X-Pro3… as far as results I think the sensor is a straight down grade (though, I still great). I wonder if camera makers ought to make cameras with interchangable sensors (and processing) so people could get the colors and tonality they want. I'd *love* to have the X-Pro2 sensor in my X-Pro3 for example.

[@recordbutton1845]

I got a DCS-330 a few months after it was introduced. I did several projects that said specifically “no digital” but after what I showed I was able to do the work. I remember once showing my portfolio to someone and they asked when they could see the digital prints, and I said, you’ve been looking at them all along. All of my portfolio was digital. I rented the 14n but passed on it because of the weird color shifts with some lenses.

[@adamevans1989]

It's such a shame that the Contax N Digital is so flakey when it comes to reliability. The glass availabe for the Contax N platform is absolutely stunning. Would be cool to see if its possible to rip the unreliable parts out and basically do a 'restomod' on them.

[@torb-no]

The entire Contax brand going away was really sad. Would probably have been great as digital systems too. Personally I feel like Fuji has a lot of spiritual successors though. X-T series feels like a spiritual successors to Contax N. X-Pro series to Contax G series. Arguably their medium format stuff too (though, Fuji sadly have gone completely away from proper dials in that area).

[@GGrev]

@@torb-no Contax is just the brand, Kyocera would've killed it off some time anyway. The lenses for Contax though... Zeiss lives on, I've got the Contax SLR lenses, full sets of it, the f1.4s, the G lenses, I remember I have 2 complete sets of them, the 45mm f2 is one of the most amazing lenses.

[@torb-no]

@@GGrev If Contax had been more successful why would they have shot it down?

[@maxwellwellmax878]

I picked up a Contax N1 with the Kit lens brand new when B&H had a fire sale, I still use it!. the N Digital was waaay too expensive and rare.

[@ChrisThe1]

You can rehouse the contax lenses fairly easily and use them on modern cameras

[@GGrev]

Nikon's reputation was really good back then, everybody wanted a digital camera in F mount.

[@leonarddaneman810]

Great video. I calculated 14mgpxl to be the entre' level digital for producing an 8x10 equal in quality to film. This Kodak camera did it . . . but, computers and storage were lagging behind. Like AOL and Warner, they were too early . . . we were not ready.

[@smilesmilesandpixels9340]

Saw your post about this camera and was looking forward to the video😁😁😁😁

[@borisz.257]

Hi, first of all great video! I saw that you did a short for Olympus C8080, it would be great to see full review on that camera as well. All the best and keep up a good work!

[@Nedski42YT]

Here another related story about your video. I was working at a Philips division in New York in the 1990's and 2000's. I had heard that Philips was making a sensor for an upcoming DSLR from Pentax. I had been using Pentax 35MM film SLR's since the 1970's. I had dipped my toe into digital cameras in 1999 with the purchase of a Nikon Coolpix 950, a nice, but limited 2 megapixel point-n-shoot. I also bought a 3 megapixel Canon Pro-90 point-n-shoot. The upcoming Pentax would have a full-frame 6 megapixel sensor. When it was reported that the camera would use Pentax K-mount lens's I was very happy! I kept waiting and waiting. When they cancelled it I decided to get a Canon D30 DSLR. It used the same battery as the Canon Pro-90and also that same CompactFlash storage medium so at least could re-use some of my investment.

[@wrenchmonkey3920]

I remember reading that the prototype Kodak digital used a K mount. Plenty of former Phillips ppl around here in the cuse.

[@KobieMC]

I miss the days of Kodak, Konica and Minolta (before Konica and Minolta merged). But I REALLY miss Samsung in the digital camera race. The NX1 was a powerhouse when it came out.

[@mu5hshro0m]

you're a legend. got me back into all this. PS your next love might be a video looking at old school flashes synced up with a PC sync cable/a wireless hotshoe solution would get around the voltage problem. Imagine. an E-300 with a Strobonar 770? So tight. Wonder if vintage flashes even have an impact on an image? Maybe the bulb ones. I'm hunting for a PC sync vintage bulb flash.

[@geo7geA]

Really interesting video! Thanks for sharing

[@ohnoflicks]

Great video. Still have my Kodak SLRn which cost a small fortune in 2005 (I believe) but I was fortunate enough to buy one used a few years later from a guy who was closing his studio. The landscapes out of this camera can be nothing short of ethereal. And if you ever get a hold of the cam or get a chance to play with raw files, be aware that some other current raw processors can wreak havoc with your files. Get hold of the old Kodak DCS desktop software. That’s where the files will really sing.

[@snappiness]

Good tip!

[@ncallend]

Nice work! I learned a few new cool things.

[@dfiglide]

Just discovered your pod cast/channel, watched your Kodak DSLR one, now this one. I was always under the impression that after inventing digital photography Kodak parked it at the back of the warehouse! I hope that they can survive & continue too innovate. Many thanks for all your work & research, you`ve a new subscriber.

[@snappiness]

Great! thanks for stopping by! :)

[@robertbrewster8622]

We bought one of those DCS14 full frame cameras when it came out, intending to use if for architecture and interiors. It had a terrible problem with color moire, so bad that we returned it. When the Canon 1Ds Mark II came out, we bought two, and they were great workhorses.

[@robertfolsom2107]

Big Kodak fan here! Great video

[@bigrobotnewstoday1436]

I think a few of these companies gave up too soon on digital cameras. I think Kodak should have continues with their pro DSLR line and started making their own lens for F mount and then they could have moved over to mirrorless. They have a good film stock that they could have promoted simulations like Fuji does. Samsung also pulled out right when people started to really started to notice them with the Samsung NX1 at the time they had the best 4K and even made the GH4 look bad. HTC was the first cellphone company to put two lens on their phones and offer portrait mode. Panasonic Lumix released a cellphone with a real zoom lens. Nokia released to cellphones with leaf shutters and had read flashes in those cameras.

[@raul0ca]

Nikon and Canon killed Kodak pro cameras. Without making their own cameras they would never have been able to match the form factor.

[@AM1465]

Also, Fuji were producing excellent DSLR's based on Nikon bodies. They were doing what Kodak were doing only they were getting it right.

[@gabgallant]

Great video! I really liked it.

[@thelightslide]

Great video! Kodak did make one more camera, the DCS Pro SLR/n and SLR/c, altho it’s only a minor update to the 14n (and the c had a Canon mount). I also do not recommend buying one; although I do love mine, it is a major pain. Can you expand on your statement that the Canon 1DS out-resolves the 14n/Pro?

[@HenryKlausEsq.]

Great video! I've always loved your work but this was a real treat. Jealous of your collection!

[@JulioBomfim]

Good research, great content! 👏👏👏

[@snappiness]

Thank you. It was a lot of reading, haha.

[@nikytamayo]

I need that twin sensor Kodak in my life! Fascinated with multi sensor systems like that and the Light.

[@regalwalnut]

Great episode, James!

[@outtathyme5679]

I had a Kodak Easy Share printer in like the late ‘90’s. Loved it

[@BrianWallace21]

I grew up in Rochester and was a Kodak kid. I’ll never forget in 2001, driving through Rochester and seeing a billboard from Kodak that read “Trust Film”. In 2001. At that point, I knew I’d be a Canon shooter for life.

[@goodsoul6675]

Happy to find this channel.

[@snappiness]

Happy to see this comment!

[@oceanheadted]

I remember one of my friends had a digital camera from Kodak about 2000, it delivered really nice images.

[@cameronempey8350]

I remember looking at this back in 2003 when i was taking photography classes it was such a good looking camera!

[@waliabbas]

Thanks for sharing these hidden cameras with us !!

[@SummersSnaps]

I remember the Kodak Easyshare, I used to own one but can't recall the specific model.

[@munnsie100]

I have a DCS520 based around an EOS 1N, in Australia. Sadly, the Kodak part of the camera is dead, grows every PCMCIA card I’ve used, and the display flickers on and off. The 1N seems to be fine, but I can’t bring myself to disassemble it to liberate the working 1N, since it’s a piece of history.

[@revaaron]

I love my SLRn and I still use it. I still might buy a Kodak DB if I see one cheap for my contax 645.

[@besperus4475]

Kodak licensed a company to produce a micro 4/3 dslr with interchangeable lenses in 2013. The S1 was very compact in clouded two zoom lenses and one massive fixed focus tele lens at one price.

[@besperus4475]

Problem was the flash was specifically designed to work only on this body, very small too. It had many of the abilities of mft cameras in use today. But it was slow focusing and slow to clear after making an exposure. By then Olympus and lumix where much better.

[@snappiness]

I did try to get ahold of that PixPro S1 but I have not ever seen one for sale since they were new. Interesting bit of history there.

[@TorontoBoris]

I have the 14nx and man I love it. It was devastating when it finally crapped out and died a few months back.

[@robertomaas2600]

Fujifilm Finepix S3Pro alike, I love mine!

[@kirisuma2186]

currently use a Kodak AZ528. The only issue I have with it is that it is only saving in jpeg, not raw. Luckily nowadays there are enough AI based photo editing softwares that manage to bring details back in.

[@jjp9303]

Pentax 645D also has Kodak's medium format CCD Sensor!

[@snappiness]

A camera on my must-try list :)

[@iggytse]

That Kodak DSLR is very interesting. I vaguely remember talking to a truck driver who was on a photo workshop with me about his Kodak camera. I was shooting film at the time with a Nikon F100. He reckoned he paid $13k for his camera. Not sure if that included lens or just the body. I am assuming his was the one in this video as I can’t imagine why anyone would spend that kind of cash on a Kodak compared with Nikon DSLR.

[@Nedski42YT]

Here a related story about your video. I was working at a Philips division in New York in the 1990's and 2000's. We were using a very high end and expensive CAD software system for designing electronics. I was in the PCB (printed circuit board) layout part of the process. The software was somewhere (don't quote me) around $100,000 per complete seat with a substantial yearly support cost as well. We had five or less seats. We had a software support person visit several times each year. He had told us that Kodak in Rochester had around twenty seats of the software and half-a-dozen software support full time people helping Kodak. There were so many support people there that Kodak had to rent out multiple hotel rooms for most of the year. Kodak was using the software for the design of their consumer digital cameras. My guess is that spending tens of millions of dollars a year on CAD software didn't help. 📸

[@torb-no]

Even before Fujifilm was taking on Kodak with film in the 90s they had a long-term plan to transition to digital photography *and* transition their film bussiness to other chemically oriented production (like cosmetics and pharmasuticals). So sad that Contax/Kyocera dropped out of the camera industry. They just had brilliant industrial design. Tho I suppose Fujfilm made successord to their (D)SLR line with X-T series, and to their unique rangefinder-ish G1/G2 with the X-Pro series.

[@chrisp1601]

Interesting your mic is an SM57 w/ a windscreen. Thats a very smart choice for many reasons. Do you do sound too?

[@frstesiste7670]

Kodak made another dSLR a year later, the SLR/c with Canon EF mount. Same sensor but based on a Canon body. IMO competing with the lens mount "owner" where you basically buy a significant part of the product (body, mount and lenses) and just add the digital sensor and processor is bound to fail. It might have worked OK in the nienties when Canon and Nikon didn't have their own dSLRs but as soon as they did there were no way Kodak could compete. In addtition the large CCD-sensors where alread outclassed by Canon's CMOS-sensors in 2003/2004. Fujifilm tried the same as Kodak with Nikon bodies and their Super CCD-sensor but sensibly quit that market and made their own line of cameras and lenses. In the nineties Kodak still had the financial muscle to try what Fujifilm did but didn't - and lost.

[@annoyedok321]

It's easy for most people to assume Kodak screwed up here because they are missing a lot of the work, sacrifices and money required to go from patent to successful product. Imagine you had a golden goose that laid golden eggs, but you knew it would die someday. They made money off film, paper, and chemicals off every 30 pictures taken. It's a business model companies drool over. They would have to hasten the demise of it, using a large chunk of profits from it with a expiring patent to only make money selling cameras once. As a chemical company they didn't have the reputation of camera manufacturers like Canon, Nikon, or electronics companies like Sony. APS film was a go-between attempt to keep those profits of film. I worked at multi-state film developer at the time and it was semi-successful. It also took special equipment that of course Kodak had the patents on too.

[@andreid5254]

I'm happy user of Kodak SLR/n, Kodak 760c and Kodak Pro Back 645M

[@snappiness]

Very cool! The 760 is on my shortlist of next adventures - that one seems even harder to track down reliable power sources these days.

[@KevinJanesch]

​@@snappiness I've got a couple 520s and a 560, and picked up a third-party eBay pack. Mine very recently stopped working but the cameras are super power-hungry, so I think if you can condition packs they should stay serviceable. It's supposed to be like once every 10 charges. The original chargers do it but they are what's hard to find. I've tracked down the battery connectors, it should be straightforward to assemble an adapter to a hobby RC battery charger to condition packs, and maybe a bit more to DIY a pack with 6x 2/3AA NiMH cells that can be removed for charging. The DC adapter connectors are still available new from places like DigiKey as well, so if you aren't hauling it around or don't mind the heft, a 2.5+ amp, 7-volt DC power supply should work. I stocked up on projects, I also have one F3 and enough other stuff for two DCS 100s (including an original, massive case and the optional keyboard), a 200mi, and a working 14n! They're cool cameras.

[@darkvantage2019]

Did you use the undertale font? It's pretty nice but it could be a little smaller, great video as always ❤

[@alexcarrillo5510]

Yes I was stupid to get the Kodak DCS14n for the Nikon Mount, and Yes you were Right TRY FINDING SOME BATTERIES!! As I comb all over Ebay in Japan, Hong Kong, UK, and even in Germany-NO BATTERIES. So I returned it, and got my refund, and got myself a Nikon D3, I was happy good video, but I also got 2 Kodak Cameras, the Kodak DS4800 3 Pixel which gave me very pleasing results, and easy menu to understand the camera, and a Kodak DC290 camera for $25.00, and She works for a 2.0 megapixel, as it takes AA Batteries, and CF cards, and the results A-OK. Thank You Great video....

[@us249]

hey man, maybe it's just me, but i'm not a big fan of the random large subtitles. no hate though.

[@TheChosenOne_]

Yeah they really distract. And it feels like a reel or short 🤐

[@ArkanoidMcZombietron]

It was strange and out of place. Very distracting and gimmicky. The content is more than good enough to stand on its own.

[@hakonsoreide]

Yes. Very distracting, especially since they don't augment the information with essential keywords, but suddenly and randomly just spell out entire lines of voiceover for no obvious reason. It seems to have become rather common just recently, and I don't like it either. Either you subtitle everything, or you display keywords. Anything in between is just annoying and distracting.

[@MacSilvey]

Agreed

[@SMGJohn]

Dude, whats with the hate???

[@cameronmartin645]

I was given a Kodak Dcs 14n as a gift from a family friend. Your not kidding about the OS being slow.

[@justinriley3096]

You know I’m Just Glad they are coming back for a Company that Put out some of the Best products and made it where you Can hold the camera to Make it Some how any way possible

[@northof-62]

I see Kodak Pixpro cameras in store now. But it's not the same Kodak?

[@Skipsul]

Well done! Fun rebuttal to those who claim Kodak was somehow not trying to go digital.

[@KennyRedSocks]

There was nothing wrong with the Philips FTF3020 sensor. MegaVision, Dicomed, Leaf and Phase One used it without issue. It's said that it's the support circuitry that fails in the Contax N Digital.

[@That_hasselblad_guy]

What that camera behind you on the desk. I'm curious

[@snappiness]

The greyish one? It's the Minolta rd-3000. I have a video about it on my channel and I'll have another one soon as I picked up more stuff for it.

[@somephotovideos]

Oh no! Another digital camera to keep an eye out for! 👀

[@HansBaumeister]

Very interesting video, thank you! Here is a bit of Kodak history: I worked for Kodak Germany in the 90's and spoke with the head of marketing at some kick-off event - this must have been 1996 or so - about the demise of photographic film (at this time, I already owned a DC40 that I had bought used off a customer). My suggestion was that digital photography would very soon usurp the photography market in the western world, leaving Kodak high and dry with their film sales. He laughed this off and then said: "even if you're right, there is always China - that is going to be the next boom market for film!" - well, we all know where that went: the Chinese bought digital cameras from the start and Kodak in Germany is reduced from 4.500 employees to about 40... By the way, my last position at Kodak was in Marketing, and I had a chance to see a pro photographer "in action", using a Kodak pro digital camera. He said the thing had cost im 20.000 German Mark (10.000€, but not in today's money... probably equivalent to about 30.000€ today) but was worth every cent due to the highly sped-up workflow.

[@Omgiamsotriggered]

Yeah, but lately Film photography, and Kodak with that, has been making a huge comeback(belive its due to covid, people having free time and doing more hobbies) and they cant produce enough of it, meaning in the end your boss was kinda(accidentaly) right.

[@maxwellwellmax878]

I remember the Kodak DSLR used a Nikon N80 on steroids for the F Mount version, and a Sigma chasis for the Canon Mount Version. I always wondered what Kodak could have been if they had someone like Steve Jobs running the show.

[@raytaylornz]

Oh no i always think its sad when I see a DC290 that is broken. i loved the scripts and apps you could load on to it.

[@prla5400]

I have a Pixel too!

[@photo1416]

And more examples will be on .that historical camera? The ISO should be limited to the camera, probably by the value of 400?

[@scotskinner4350]

My first digital camera was a Kodak DC 240; 1.2 megapixels. I still have it, haven't shot with it for many years. I always thought it made great photos.

[@raul0ca]

I had a DCS 315. In Photoshop the red and green channels are fine but the blue is some weird extrapolation

[@jac1207]

more and more apparent it isn't who did it first, it's who can do it better.

[@actionimagesphotography]

What's the Kodak return? High priced film?

[@michaelc4917]

All the owners of DCS SLR/n do not recommend ppl getting one bc they only have one working copy. I got mine 3 yrs earlier and was able to get the original battery from eBay. The files coming from that sensor look just like Ektachrome film under good light. So you ppl better off buying a D3 or D4 bc I am still looking for a second working copy.

[@playgroundsinc]

When you do captions it's gotta be all the time or none of the time

[@hmApollo101]

Kodak is funny. They always do things once, great things, and then just leave it at that. For example, they are members of the MFT group, and actually released a MFT camera and lens kit sometime in the last decade, and never did it again. They didn't even market it from what I've seen, and no one paid attention to it at all. Funny enough I think I'm one of the few people who have one of the Kodak MFT kit pieces, a zoom lens.

[@billsmith5166]

I'm a whiner, but I'd really like to have watched this. The problem is that your large block captioning can trigger seizures. Would you consider making the font smaller, eliminating the background and the "as typing" presentation? If not, I completely understand.

[@samuelschwager]

I carry a little bit of kodak around in my leica m8 :)

[@gregvann9630]

Can you talk about the Sony a900 youtube is a ghost town about it

[@snappiness]

That is high up on my list. I've been watching for a deal. I'm wanting tog et back into A mount after my last Sony.

[@momentsbyron]

Almost the same thing happened to blackberry phones 😅😂

[@crowonawirehome]

I still use 2 kodaks. They have a Look.

[@junxia8119]

Cameras that you can play Doom on?😂

[@P.K.04]

imagine how much better cameras today would have been if they didn't abandon digital for so long

[@johnc_]

Digita OS was a flop, but another company also created a universal camera OS, Android

[@snappiness]

Yeah! I talk about that in my video on DigitaOS. Super interesting. Before researching that I had no idea Android was originally made for cameras.

[@user-gx7nd6cr1x]

Can you share some raw files?

[@ej_tech]

The way that the subtitles show up in this video is distracting and annoying compared to plain old subtitles without animations.

[@ared18t]

It wasn't Kodak that invented the digital camera. It was the employee and he did it by himself without help from the company.

[@someoneelse242]

Sad, as this is a workable dslr. Even fujis camera was just as developed.

[@barrycomer3688]

Displaying test on the screen is really distracting - I would stop doing that.

[@Moonrakerd]

I own the upgraded 14nx and used to have 14n quite some years ago, this cam gives you really good quality in daylight but all the other times its a horrible piece of shit :DD heavy big, shitty f80 body, slow, slow shutter speeds divided on firmware, noise performance of the small sensor camera :D even back in the days I preferred d200 to this, not to mention when I could afford a d700 that was another world

[@snappiness]

Even at base iso, there's quite a bit of noise. I haven't even pushed the limits of it yet so yeah, I can totally see that 😀

[@artistjoh]

I lived through this entire time (started my photography career in 1962). Kodak is often said to have ignored digital after inventing it. You mention the inventor's dilemma in why they didn't do anything with it. This is nonsense. In 1975 they faced five huge technical and engineering hurdles that meant there was no practical way to make a usable digital camera that could be sold to consumers. Firstly, Sasson's invention was huge and heavy. Meanwhile film cameras were small and light-weight. Secondly Sasson's invention was expensive, while film cameras were cheap. Thirdly It required battery power to run, and lithium batteries had yet to be invented. The battery technology of the time was not good enough. Fourthly there was no practical storage media. Sasson's very low res images were written to cassette tape, and it was not practical to build a cassette recorder into a stills camera. Fifth processing power was not up to anything more than very low res stills. The bringing digital cameras to market was the story of solving these problems one by one, but despite Kodak investment in research it was mostly competitors who made the break through solutions. Sony was an important player in this. Firstly they thought outside the box and developed a camera that was essentially a video camera producing stills from the video feed in the early 1980's, and they developed the video floppy disk which was far superior to cassette tapes. Sony also was the first to market the lithium-ion rechargeable battery in 1991 Expense and size remained a problem. The Kodak DCS digital camera in 1991 cost $20,000 and required two people to carry it. The photographer carried the camera itself, but it was tethered to a full sized desktop-like computer plus battery pack which the assistant would have on straps over the shoulder. The following year Kodak released the DCS-200. I still have mine. They had shrunk it down to just the camera package, but it was still big, for a camera. It came in four versions depending on hard drive size and whether color or black and white. It cost $10,000. Mine is a black and white one in 80Megabytes. There is a hole on the back which you can poke a pen inside to delete the last photo. I think it is 1.3Mp. Haven't used it in years but I have no reason to think it wouldn't work still if I put batteries in it. The hard drive it the weak point in them. I would never sell it. Now you mentioned the Apple camera. I still have my one, the QuickTake 100, and even have the original boxes, AC adapter etc. But you didn't mention the manufacturer that probably had more to do with killing Kodak's digital aspirations than anyone. That was Casio. Casio digital cameras were way cheaper than Apple, and were a huge hit. The QV-10 in 1995 was the first consumer digital camera with a screen on the back. It was also a regular camera shape unlike the stupid shape of Apple's cameras. Casio took the point and shoot market by storm and when Kodak tried to compete, Casio already had the mindshare as well as market share that meant Kodak was less able to gain traction than it was in the film camera days. In film Kodak always had the mindshare that made it hard for others to compete. In digital, Casio had that for amateurs, and Canon quickly got it for pro's and Kodak was frozen out. A shame because they made some really good cameras. I still have one of those Kodak Dual Lens cameras. I loved it as a pocketable walk around camera. The irony is that when the smartphone took over the point and shoot market, Casio cameras were killed. I remember the day when Casio announced they were ceasing camera production. I like that you correctly acknowledge that Kodak was serious about digital. I get sick of hearing the conspiracy theory that they invented the digital camera but tried to stop its development. Sasson would have loved to market it in 1975, but he thought like an engineer and did not fully appreciate that it was not a marketable product yet and had to wait for technology to catch up to his invention. For pro's Kodak's DCS was a big deal in the 1990's. It was expensive, but essential for news. But I also remember the "digital will never take over because it is not as good as film" arguments that kept going well into the new century.

[@danc2014]

This also reminds me of Xerox inventing a mouse and GUI display and leting this new company Apple use it .

[@artistjoh]

@@danc2014 The difference is that Xerox appears to have not realized how important these innovations were, probably because their main business was photocopiers. The technology was already ripe for exploiting the computer inventions but Xerox failed to understand that this was the future and they should have decided to invest big in computer manufacturing but didn't. Ironically, in regard to this discussion about cameras, Xerox had started life as a photographic materials company. While some at Kodak were similar to Xerox in that they did not appreciate what they had, others did understand the importance of Sasson's invention, and understood that this was probably the future of photography, but the technology was not yet ready to exploit its potential, and costs were astronomical. The technology was not yet ripe to exploit it. There were other companies involved in the development of digital photography technology. It started with research at Philips, but Bell was the main one in the development of the CCD sensor, and Fairchild, RCA, and Texas Instruments further developed it. Sasson worked with Fairchild engineers for inventing a stills camera, Sony worked with them for video applications. NEC and Panasonic made contributions so that by the 1980's the CCD was a far better and more practical device than the one Sasson had experimented with in 1975. Digital imaging was a massive effort across decades by several company's, and the urban myth that Kodak invented it, then tried to sit on it in order to protect film sales, ignores the enormity of the technological development that was needed, and how many research laboratories were involved in the process. Kodak, with its expertise in film cameras simply did not have the depth in electronics engineering to go it alone, and needed all the time it took until 1991 when they released the DCS.

[@alaadeenhesham5288]

why Kodak never made a phone ?

[@nikita3.14]

What's that with the text? Sometimes it comes up, sometimes not. For me it's distracting and makes no sense.

[@xxGravyBabyxx]

I always wonder what photography would be like if smartphones didnt have cameras. I think there would have been more innovation and competitiveness in trying to get easy and great quality cameras.

[@snappiness]

I think so too. There was a lot of cool stuff going on that just kinda died. Still cool stuff today, but mostly on the higher end of things.

[@okatbikes4917]

I don't think we need so many undertale font subtitles for randomly chosen passages. It's extremely distracting.

[@marcel1372]

undertale font lol

[@jan-martinulvag1953]

I see. You are an historian. Why did you not say so. ? Oh I see, you did not know

[@classic.cameras]

Its funny all the Canon and Nikon fanboys owe their entire digital experience to Kodak and Sony. Both of those companies innovated so much in the 1980's and 90's that we're all basically shooting Kodak/Sony Hybreds. I am a Canon fanboy who uses Sony now. I made the switch when I realized that Sony really has been in the camera game for over 40 years. Starting with Betamax camecornders. And Kodak essentially made the first DSLR's (for Nikon and Canon)

[@jasongold6751]

could have, should have, might have? TG that they failed! We would never have reaped all the benefits of the camera companies, the death of film, yes! It's dead! Any sensible true working photographer, pro or amateur, uses digital The cost and TIME factor! I'm 79. I worked film in wet darkroom for 40+ years. Using crappy films,weird results, is not ART! It's crap. I luv my Easyshare! It was $5.00!