Latest articles by David S Young
It cost US$995 but, if the battery of this 1990 digital compact camera died, ALL your photos vanished forever!
Classic cameras The first commercial digital camera required a docking station and a computer just to boot up
Kodak’s Fling failed while Fujifilm’s QuickSnap conquered the world – but the first disposable camera actually dates back 160 years!
Classic cameras The Fujifilm QuickSnap is now 40 years old, and the disposable camera boom isn’t stopping – but the history of the disposable camera is much older
This revolutionary 1980s camera changed photography forever – but helped bankrupt its creator
Classic cameras The secret history of autofocus: How Leica invented it, but Minolta paid the $96 million price for it
The world's best-known underwater explorer created a camera that went on to rule the waves
Classic camera Collectors are now hunting for this notoriously flawed half-frame film camera
Why left-handed photographers fell in love with this otherwise awful 1980s bridge camera
Classic camera Collectors are now hunting for this notoriously flawed half-frame film camera
Kodak sold 50 million of these cheap plastic cameras, so why did they suddenly vanish?
Classic camera Before smartphones, the Kodak Instamatic was the ultimate point-and-shoot gadget that everyone owned
Nikon built this camera to replace a legend – but professionals refused to buy it, despite its rugged beauty
Classic camera Photographers refused to buy Nikon’s most advanced camera for over a decade, sticking with its predecessor
Wide load! The history of panoramic cameras – from the iconic XPan to the old and new Widelux
Classic camera Panoramic cameras have existed since the 1800s. Here's how we got from obscure German models to Jeff Bridges' favorite camera
More expensive than a Nikon F: The rise and fall of the "Bullseye" camera
Classic cameras The secret history of the Zeiss Contaflex and the 35mm TLR that changed everything
The forgotten failure that forced Canon to reinvent the SLR camera and change photography forever
Classic cameras There's a little-known link between a 1980s Canon 35mm SLR and the birth of the World Wide Web
The f/0.95 mystery: Why 'world record' super-fast camera lens speeds are often just about the bragging rights
classic lenses The fascinating history of super speed lenses and why the world's 'fastest' lens was actually a German joke!
The world's most iconic tiny film camera was almost never built
Classic cameras The secret history of the Rollei 35: A masterpiece born in a basement
The lost history of Britain’s most innovative SLRs - and the camera that's rarer than a Stradivarius
Classic cameras High quality, high cost – the sorry tale of why Britain’s best cameras couldn't survive the 1960s
This 7-pound beast was once the press photographer's favorite camera, before it landed a surprising role in Star Wars
Classic cameras From Iwo Jima to Jedi: The surprising history of the Graflex Speed Graphic camera
How a trench warfare invention became Germany’s most iconic camera for a whole generation of professional photographers
Classic cameras Why the Rolleiflex medium format film camera is still considered one of the finest camera lines ever made
The rise and fall of Yashica cameras: Why the Yashica FX-3 remains the ultimate budget alternative to the Pentax K1000 SLR
Classic cameras The Zeiss connection: Why collectors still hunt for Yashica’s C/Y mount camera bodies
5 legendary monster wide-angle lenses – from water-filled glass to U$160,000 fisheyes
Five fascinating ultra-wide lenses that changed the way we see the world
The curious tale of how Fujifilm Instax cameras survived a brutal patent war to become an instant success selling over 100 million cameras!
Classic cameras Inside the 80-year rivalry that made the world's favorite instant camera brand possible
This American-made camera was known as The Brick – but still some two million photographers bought one!
Classic cameras The legendary American camera brand you probably forgot ever existed
The clever engineering trick that made Mamiya's cameras twice as good as its twin-lens reflex rivals
Classic cameras Mamiya failed at 35mm cameras, but then it built a legend with this twin-lens reflex range
This "utterly awful" analog camera recorded photos to floppy discs but somehow paved the way for modern digital photography
Classic cameras Sony called it the "Magnetic Video Camera" but it didn't actually record video!
The most expensive part of a 35mm film cassette is the part that photographers don't even think about
Classic cameras The simple 1934 invention that finally made photography convenient for everyone
A 3-year-old girl asked a simple question – and sparked a US$600 million camera revolution
Classic cameras Meet the original Steve Jobs: the man who invented the "impossible" decades before the iPhone
