DSLRs

The first commercially available DSLR was the Kodak Digital Camera System (DCS) 100, released in May 1991. It was aimed squarely at the photojournalism market, and to this end it came with a separate portable digital storage unit that stored either 156 or 600 images on its 200-megabyte hard drive, depending on whether or not compression was used. There was also an external keyboard intended for captioning the photographs. The camera was capable of producing 1.3-megapixel images. Just shy of a thousand units were sold.

Kodak completely dominated the DSLR market in the early years, and Nikon didn’t even begin to develop the D1, the camera that revolutionized the industry, until 1996. This was five years after the release of the DCS 100. Nikon had the advantage of being able to develop a camera from the ground up, unlike Kodak, which had basically built upon existing technologies and products.

The Nikon D1 solved several problems associated with DSLRs at the time, the major one being picture quality. The camera was advertised as having 2.7 megapixels, but it has since been revealed that there is more to this number than meets the eye. Each megapixel on the D1 is in fact composed of numerous photosites, and this explains the sensor’s excellent signal to noise ratio and overall sensitivity.

It is fair to say that this is the camera that revolutionized the photography industry. It had the image quality and frame rate that made it a serious proposition for journalists and other demanding users. The other huge factor was price—Nikon’s D1, at around $5,000, was much cheaper than any of Kodak’s offerings. It also demonstrated that digital could actually rival film in quality.

Today, two companies, Nikon and Canon, dominate the DSLR market. They both produce a range of cameras that are aimed at the professional market as well as at amateurs. Professional cameras tend to be much more rugged and generally have higher specifications. The DSLRs at the consumer end of the market are capable of excellent pictures, though, and many professionals are on record as preferring their smaller size and lighter weight.