The Early Days of Digital

Photo by moaby, taken with the 1991 Kodak DCS 100 pictured

Montréaler Marc Aubry's Ma Collection de Reflex Numérique, a collection of self-portraits taken with cameras from the early days of digital. If he had owned all those cameras when they were new, they would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the aggregate.

Made me muse a bit about how the early history of digital will be remembered historically. Museums collect "works on paper," and many of the earliest digital works on paper—prints—were fugitive; most early digital pictures were never printed; much early digital storage media were orphaned; and the cameras were superseded so quickly that they were essentially disposable. I wonder if a few people out there were functioning as digital photography's George Thomason—and curious as to exactly what they collected, and what among it will be considered valuable to posterity. All in all, considering all the potential problems, I don't envy future historians of the era just past in photography. Much of the evidence of the era is sifting out of existence as we speak.

Mike
(Thanks to BuzzFeed, via Tom Kaszuba)

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Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

[Stan B.]

That F3 hooked up to its primitive, digital component reminds me of all those sci-fi/horror movies where humans wake up attached to some diabolically innovative scientific/mechanical apparatus meant to extend or severely alter the remainder of their lives...

[Kenneth Tanaka]

"All in all, considering all the potential problems, I don't envy future historians of the era just past in photography."

In my experience art historians don't care about cameras. They care about prints and their "vintage".

[hugh crawford]

Oh look! It's a non Bayer mask color camera from 1996!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/maoby/6187344440/in/set-72157627624479529/
I always wondered why 3 chip cameras weren't successful for still photography the way they are in video.

[Richard Newman]

I would expect that Eastman House is taking note of the rapid evolution of digital equipment, and is probably collecting "antique" digital cameras (all of at least 15-20 years old - gads I feel ancient!!)

[Mandeno Moments]

When I look at the Kodak photo the first thing that strikes me is how far digital image quality has come.

Click here to see what was on the other end of the cable. Then compare that to size of the Canon S95, bearing in mind that the latter gives far superior image quality at a fraction of the cost. In terms of quality, cost, and convenience photographers have never had it better.

[James Rhem]

It's entirely appropriate that this should happen. Digital for all its saving wonders and convenience is essentially an ephemeral medium. I say let it pass unrecorded and uncelebrated. Pixels? Poof.

[Maggie Osterberg]

All I know is that the F3 was Nikon's last good-looking camera, before Wünderplastik took over SLR design.

[J]

They are probably archived appropriately on the "Wayback Machine"
http://archive.org/web/web.php

[David Luttmann]

Hey...the F5 is anything but Wünderplastik!

[misha]

Don't forget, that Kodak DCS 100 pictured, cost $35K - and that's NOT a typo.