Fujifilm

Fujix DS-220 (1995)

Here is a leading-edge camera from the mid-1990s conceived to address the demands of professional and technical photographers. It has a modular in design, comprising the 0.33 megapixel binocular-style camera to which can be attached the LCD monitor/viewfinder and a macro flash adaptor with twin strobes and extra macro lenses.

You can see the whole, bulky fandango in these photos. The camera component alone weighs half a kilogram – my kitchen scales tell me the complete system as shown here is 1.05 kg. The total cost was also hefty - about US$2,200.

Incidentally, the DS-220 claimed to be the world’s first digital still camera that used lithium-ion batteries.

Fujix DS-505A (1996)

“It takes only a few moments to forget everything you’ve heard about digital photography,” says the Fujifilm brochure about the Fujix DS-505A.

Well, it takes only a few moments reading this brochure to realise that serious photographers needed a lot of persuading to abandon their 35mm SLRs in 1996. The blurb verges on being apologetic about digital photography – a feint endorsement indeed. “The first surprise will be how familiar it feels,” it continues. “The real-image viewfinder works exactly the same way as the one in your 35 mm SLR, and the other functions are similar as well.”

All these years later, we can see why this is such an audacious digital camera. The shape of the body is impressive but ungainly – the right-hand side of the body seems to have been sliced away. Its reflex viewfinder system is radical but flawed – creating so much light loss that the maximum aperture is reduced to f/6.7. Its photo file-handling system is revolutionary (at the time) – so much so that Fujifilm called the DS505A a “digital card camera”, the word “card” being a reference to the removable PCMCIA cards which had 5mb or 15mb storage capacity. But even the larger of these two cards could store only five uncompressed images!

The camera has a 1.3 megapixel sensor, maximum shutter speed of 1/2,000 second and continuous shooting rate of 1 per second.

The DS-505A was co-produced by Fujifilm and Nikon. Fujifilm made the electronics and sensor while Nikon made the body and F-mount lenses. Each company marketed it separately. Interestingly, each company printed the Nikon and Fujix names on the body but see how Fujifilm rendered the word "Nikon" unreadable on the cover of the marketing brochure. How unfriendly.

Ultimately, let’s put aside the timidity of the Fujifilm marketing and the limitations of digital technology of that era.

Let’s salute this absolutely remarkable camera.

Fujifilm DS-8 Clip-It (1996)

The prolific Fujifilm company brought out its first digital cameras in 1996 and by year's end, it had two models on the market – the DS-7 and this DS-8 Clip-It. Don't imagine that the fancy term "Clip-It" represents anything remarkable. It's really a curiosity, but a curiosity now prized by collectors. You see, the camera was all but the same as the DS-7 but with a clip-on optical viewfinder (which can be seen in the photos below). Apparently, it was only marketed in Japan. So, the DS-8 was special!

The camera had a 0.35 megapixel CCD sensor, external storage comprising a SmartMedia card and a 1.8" LCD screen. It sold for about US$700.