After More than 100 Years George Eastman's Dream Comes True

 My backyard tree ornaments. Photographed with a 12-megapixel iPhone 6s.

I received a comment recently from a long-time friend who was bemoaning the complexity of digital cameras. I told him that one of the reasons for the popularity of cell phone cameras is that all you have to know is which way to point them and when to push the button. 

The camera in a cell phone is the fulfillment of George Eastman's dream. In 1880, he founded the Eastman Kodak Company, and in 1888, brought to market a revolutionary camera -- just a box with a lens, a shutter, and a winding crank, loaded with enough film for 100 pictures. When the user reached the end of the roll, he simply sent the camera to Kodak's processing laboratory and in due time received his pictures -- and his camera; loaded with a fresh roll of film for another 100 photos. From this came Kodak's slogan: You push the button. We do the rest.

One hundred and eleven years after Eastman launched his camera, the first cell phone with a camera appeared on the market: the 0.3 megapixel Kyocera VP-210, the first phone with a built-in camera. It wasn't very good, but the technology has advanced rapidly, and now, in the mid-2020s we have compact marvels with multiple lenses in different focal lengths and 48 megapixel sensors that are capable of very fine, even professional-level work. And some professionals are using them for much, even all of their work.

Three grandmas and a baby. Walmart, 2020. iPhone 6S.

I have a semi-professional photographer friend who does excellent work with a late-model iPhone with three, built-in lenses. Although he has a conventional camera with long lenses for bird and wildlife photography, he prefers to use his iPhone for most other work.

Is this the future of photography? For the vast majority of people, I think it probably is. But there will always be people like me, who enjoy using a traditional camera and the extra capability that goes with it. But, like my picture of the grandmas with a baby in Walmart, a cell-phone-with-camera is a handy thing to have along when you don't have your real camera.

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Photography and text copyright 2025 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography   cell phone photography     cell phones    George Eastman     Kodak     Kyocera VP-210