The Sony Mavica

July 4, 2009 | Category: History of Photography

I always believed that the Sony Mavica was the first consumer digital camera… but apparently it was the first electronic camera, producing analog video stills which it saved on two inch floppy disks. The disks held 50 photos which you would view on your television set. Pretty fancy for 1981.

I especially like the interchangeable lenses. I’m trying to imagine a practical application for a camera of this sort, but I imagine that it was such a novelty at the time that any shortcomings were probably overlooked. I tried to find some sample “photos” from the camera but considering the difficulty of moving files off those 2 inch disks…