Next time you click the shutter on your smartphone, think of this man: Steven Sasson invented the first digital camera in 1975.

Back then, he expected a consumer would be happy with 2 million pixels. Today, we scoff at cameraphones with twice that number and buy digital SLRs with almost ten times the resolution. Read on, and see him tell his own fascinating story.

This video, created by David Friedman at the amazing dfpblog.com is utterly enchanting. Sasson shows off his original camera, demonstrating that it had just two buttons: One for power, and one to capture an image.

The camera stored images briefly on a digital memory card, before transferring them to digital cassette. It took 23 seconds to record an image for posterity, and the tape would hold 30 images maximum, although that was a number chosen by Sasson himself, and not dictated by technical limitations.

“I didn’t want to store just one or two images, because then people would say ‘well that’s not very useful’” he says. “I didn’t want to store 100 or 1,000 images because nobody knew how to deal with that concept.

“The key, when you’re putting across an idea, is you have to understand the culture you’re dealing with and put only the essential elements of your idea out there, so that it doesn’t get confused with things that might complicate the concept.”

Watch the video below. It’ll change how you think about digital cameras for ever.

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There’s a bit of blue language towards the end, but if no one’s around, stick a coin in the swear jar and start watching right now!

Digital cameras from CES 2011 powered by Dixons

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