25 years ago, Sony unveiled the DSC-F1, a 0.3-megapixel digital stills camera with a rotating lens. Check out this piece of photographic history as Gordon Laing takes it on a quick tour of Brighton.
What’s truly fascinating about the F1 is how despite being one of the earliest consumer digital cameras, it was built with selfies and low shooting angles in mind. This is perhaps an indication that even in the mid-90s, manufacturers were keen to exploit the advantages offered by not having to rely on a mechanical shutter to make exposures. The lack of a viewfinder was also a selling point, with Sony explaining in the marketing that the “screen allows for easy viewing with no need to hold the camera up to your eye.”
The 1/1.3” CCD features 350,000 pixels offering 24-bit color, and the rear LCD measures 1.8″ with a marvelous 61,380 dots. Readers might recall ArcSoft’s PhotoStudio DSC software available for Windows and Macintosh computers, which “lets you tile, merge, and add effects to your photos, thus letting you be creative.” Back then, the minimum requirements for PC users were a 386SX 66 MHz processor and at least 8 megabytes of ram.
Did you own one of Sony’s earliest digital cameras? Are you tempted to pick on up second-hand? Let us know in the comments below.