Digital cameras are everywhere today, and they all trace their lineage to a device about the size of a toaster that was invented in 1975 by Steve Sasson. At the time, he was a young engineer at Kodak.
Born in 1950 in Brooklyn, New York, Mr. Sasson developed an early interest in chemistry and electronics. He taught himself how to operate a ham radio at 13. “I was interested in electronics and doing chemistry experiments, but those tended to get me in trouble because they created a lot of smoke,” he laughed. He stuck with electronics. After graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with an electrical engineering degree, Mr. Sasson was hired by Kodak in 1973. Though the company was firmly entrenched in film-based technology, they were also interested in new research and development. “Kodak was becoming involved with electrical electronic components, like exposure controls, flashes, and film advance, so they started looking for electrical engineers.” Mr. Sasson’s first job in Kodak’s research lab was to build a control system for a machine that would clean movie camera lenses. After completing the assignment, he was offered the chance to experiment with a new type of imaging device, which would become the basis for digitizing images. “You would expose a pattern of light on the surface of this device about the size of a thumbnail. It would then generate a corresponding charge pattern. Where there was a lot of light, you have a lot of electrons separated into packets—we call them pixels now.” He used numbers to represent the light pattern. “So I have a digitized version of the image on the device. If I could store that permanently, I would be duplicating what a camera does. That was the idea of the digital camera.”
He was inspired by the futuristic possibilities that were shown on the hit TV show “Star Trek.” “There was no paper or film on the bridge of the Enterprise, there was just electronic communication. That represented the vision of the future and inspired my goal to develop a filmless camera that would take and display an image.”
Realizing a Dream
Using a lens from a movie camera, a cassette tape to record images, and other components from the research lab’s used parts bin, he built a working digital camera. At a Kodak meeting, he presented his new device. He took photos of the room, and in less than a minute, the images showed up on a television set. “They’d never seen anything like that before. But there was also a lot of caution about it, because they clearly got it that this would undermine the entire business model of the company,” which was a leader in producing film. Mr. Sasson recalled the Kodak executives asking him, “What problem are you trying to solve? What’s wrong with photography as we know it? Why would anybody want to take pictures this way? Why would they want to look at it on TV?”
Undaunted, Mr. Sasson continued his efforts. At the end of the 1980s, he developed a camera with his colleague that took megapixel images and put them onto memory cards; it looked similar to a DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) camera today. “We showed it to the professional marketing arm of Kodak. They just said, ‘No, we make all our money off of film, so why would we sell this thing?’”
Nonetheless, the world was changing. The personal computer had been invented, and the internet had been developed. People increasingly prioritized convenience—being able to store and share images quickly—over photo quality. Mr. Sasson recognized this shift and kept going despite not knowing exactly how. “Sometimes, that’s more important than knowing how to do something; it’s knowing what to do.” That conviction led him eventually to succeed.
The ubiquity of his invention did not quite dawn on him until he went on a trip with his family to Yellowstone National Park in 1998. “We were waiting for Old Faithful to erupt,” he recalled. “I looked around and saw people with digital cameras. … I watched how the world was actually doing what I dreamed about so many years earlier.” Mr. Sasson is humble about his achievement. “I feel lucky to have been in the position to make a small contribution toward that happening. That was a whole new industry made by thousands of technical people, not just at Kodak … [but] around the world as well.”
Inspiring Inventors of the Future
Mr. Sasson retired from Kodak in 2009. He was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation at the White House in 2009. In 2011, Mr. Sasson was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Through the organization’s Camp Invention program, he and other inductees encourage young children to explore innovative ideas. He is also a regular judge at the organization’s annual Collegiate Inventors Competition. These events allow Mr. Sasson to provide young people with advice on how to overcome failure. “Sometimes being wrong is a lot more valuable than being right, because you learn a lot more,” he would tell them, encouraging them to think of different angles while problem-solving, much like he did while developing digital photography.
He finds it most rewarding to have helped young people on their journeys. One inventor Mr. Sasson mentored, Charu Thomas, who has since launched a successful company called Ox that utilizes virtual reality technology to streamline warehouse operations, recently sent him a note thanking him for motivating her to apply for a patent for her invention. In 2020, she made Forbes magazine’s “30 Under 30” list. “More than any awards that you get, it’s the fact that you did something that enabled someone to do it—it is so rewarding to me,” he said. He urged all young inventors, don’t be afraid to think differently.
Annie Wu contributed reporting.
This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.
