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Old 05-02-2012, 07:36 PM
Stoney Stoney is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 176
It did exist at one time

Quote:
Originally Posted by Army View Post
I'm surprised nobody has invented a digital camera "film" that loads in old fashioned cameras just like it always did but saves pictures to an inbuilt memory card instead - just think you could still go through the ritual of opening and closing the back of the camera in the wife's hand bag just for fun just like in the old days! (before plugging in your USB cable to the film and uploading it all to facebook)

There was a company that prototyped a drop in Digital Insert that was shaped like a 126 cartridge that fit 35mm SLR bodies. The memory was in one end and a C123 lithium battery was in the other end. It had around 2mb of memory.

The problem was the CCD chip was so small (they cost the earth back then) and the area covered was 20% of a standard 24x35mm frame. So a 50mm "normal" lens was a 200mm lens!

Even now only the top of the line Canon/Nikon line (D-90 and up) have a CCD that covers almost 85% of a 24x35mm frame so you still have a conversion factor. My 20mm 2.8 AIS Nikkor on my D80 body is different than the 20mm 2.8 Digital version. The older 20mm "sees" more than the CCD photographs...

I bet that you could make one now and market it for $500 and make money but the tool up would cost and the Chinese would clone it before the ink was dry on the US Patent application.
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