Question: Which George invented the Kodak roll-film camera?
Answer: Eastman

The Eastman Kodak Company, commonly known as Kodak, is an American technology company that concentrates on imaging products, with its historic basis on photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, United States and incorporated in New Jersey.  It was founded by George Eastman in 1888.

Kodak provides packaging, functional printing, graphic communications and professional services for businesses around the world. Its main business segments are Digital Printing & Enterprise and Graphics, Entertainment & Commercial Films.   It is best known for photographic film products. During most of the 20th century Kodak held a dominant position in photographic film. The company's ubiquity was such that its tagline "Kodak moment" entered the common lexicon to describe a personal event that demanded to be recorded for posterity. 

Kodak began to struggle financially in the late 1990s as a result of the decline in sales of photographic film and its slowness in transitioning to digital photography. As part of a turnaround strategy, Kodak focused on digital photography and digital printing and attempted to generate revenues through aggressive patent litigation.   In January 2012, Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.  In February 2012, Kodak announced that it would cease making digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames and focus on the corporate digital imaging market.  In August 2012, Kodak announced the intention to sell its photographic film (excluding motion picture film), commercial scanners and kiosk operations as a measure to emerge from bankruptcy. 

In January 2013, the Court approved financing for Kodak to emerge from bankruptcy by mid-2013.  Kodak sold many of its patents for approximately $525,000,000 to a group of companies (including Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Samsung, Adobe Systems and HTC) under the name Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corporation.  On September 3, 2013, the company emerged from bankruptcy having shed its large legacy liabilities and exited several businesses.  Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging are now part of Kodak Alaris, a separate company owned by the U.K.-based Kodak Pension Plan.   On March 12, 2014, it announced that the Board of Directors had elected Jeffrey J. Clarke as Chief Executive Officer and a member of its Board of Directors.  

Name

The letter k was a favorite of Eastman's; he is quoted as saying, "it seems a strong, incisive sort of letter."
He and his mother devised the name Kodak with an anagrams set. Eastman said that there were three principal concepts he used in creating the name: it should be short, easy to pronounce, and not resemble any other name or be associated with anything else. 

History

From the company's founding by George Eastman in 1888, Kodak followed the razor and blades strategy of selling inexpensive cameras and making large margins from consumables – film, chemicals and paper. As late as 1976, Kodak commanded 90% of film sales and 85% of camera sales in the U.S. 
Rivalry with Fujifilm

Japanese competitor Fujifilm entered the U.S. market (via Fuji Photo Film U.S.A.) with lower-priced film and supplies, but Kodak did not believe that American consumers would ever desert its brand.  Kodak passed on the opportunity to become the official film of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics; Fuji won these sponsorship rights, which gave them a permanent foothold in the marketplace. Fuji opened a film plant in the U.S., and its aggressive marketing and price cutting began taking market share from Kodak. Fuji went from a 10% share in the early 1990s to 17% in 1997.  Fuji also made headway into the professional market with specialty transparency films such as Velvia and Provia, which competed successfully with Kodak's signature professional product, Kodachrome, but used the more economical and common E-6 processing machines which were standard in most processing labs, rather than the dedicated machines required by Kodachrome. Fuji's films soon also found a competitive edge in higher-speed negative films, with a tighter grain structure.

In May 1995, Kodak filed a petition with the US Commerce Department under section 301 of the Commerce Act arguing that its poor performance in the Japanese market was a direct result of unfair practices adopted by Fuji. The complaint was lodged by the United States with the World Trade Organization.  On January 30, 1998, the WTO announced a "sweeping rejection of Kodak's complaints" about the film market in Japan. Kodak's financial results for the year ending December 1997 showed that company's revenues dropped from $15.97 billion in 1996 to $14.36 billion in 1997, a fall of more than 10%; their net earnings went from $1.29 billion to just $5 million for the same period. Kodak's market share declined from 80.1% to 74.7% in the United States, a one-year drop of five percentage points that had observers suggesting that Kodak was slow to react to changes and underestimated its rivals.   

Although from the 1970s both Fuji and Kodak recognized the upcoming threat of digital photography, and although both sought diversification as a mitigation strategy, Fuji was more successful at diversification. 

Shift to digital

Although Kodak developed a digital camera in 1975, the first of its kind, the product was dropped for fear it would threaten Kodak's photographic film business.    In the 1990s, Kodak planned a decade-long journey to move to digital technology. CEO George M. C. Fisher reached out to Microsoft and other new consumer merchandisers. Apple's pioneering QuickTake consumer digital cameras, introduced in 1994, had the Apple label but were produced by Kodak. The DC-20 and DC-25 launched in 1996. Overall, though, there was little implementation of the new digital strategy. Kodak's core business faced no pressure from competing technologies, and as Kodak executives could not fathom a world without traditional film there was little incentive to deviate from that course. Consumers gradually switched to the digital offering from companies such as Sony. In 2001 film sales dropped, which was attributed by Kodak to the financial shocks caused by the September 11 attacks. Executives hoped that Kodak might be able to slow the shift to digital through aggressive marketing. 

Under Daniel Carp, Fisher's successor as CEO, Kodak made its move in the digital camera market, with its EasyShare family of digital cameras. Kodak spent tremendous resources studying customer behavior, finding out that women in particular loved taking digital photos but were frustrated in moving them to their computers. This key unmet consumer need became a major opportunity. Once Kodak got its product development machine started, it released a wide range of products which made it easy to share photos via PCs. One of their key innovations was a printer dock, where consumers could insert their cameras into this compact device, press a button, and watch their photos roll out. By 2005, Kodak ranked No. 1 in the U.S. in digital camera sales that surged 40% to $5.7 billion.

Despite the high growth, Kodak failed to anticipate how fast digital cameras became commodities, with low profit margins, as more companies entered the market in the mid-2000s.  In 2001 Kodak held the No. 2 spot in U.S. digital camera sales (behind Sony) but it lost $60 on every camera sold, while there was also a dispute between employees from its digital and film divisions.  The film business, where Kodak enjoyed high profit margins, fell 18% in 2005. The combination of these two factors resulted in disappointing profits overall. Its digital cameras soon became undercut by Asian competitors that could produce their offerings more cheaply. Kodak had a 27 percent market-leading share in 1999, that dwindled to 15 percent by 2003. In 2007 Kodak was No. 4 in U.S. digital camera sales with a 9.6 percent share, and by 2010 it held 7 percent in seventh place behind Canon, Sony, Nikon, and others, according to research firm IDC.  Also an ever-smaller percentage of digital pictures were being taken on dedicated digital cameras, being gradually displaced in the late 2000s by cameras on cellphones, smartphones, and tablets.

New strategy

Kodak then began a strategy shift: Previously Kodak had done everything in-house, but CEO Antonio Pérez shut down film factories and eliminated 27,000 jobs as it outsourced its manufacturing.  Pérez invested heavily in digital technologies and new services that capitalized on its technology innovation to boost profit margins. He also spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build up a high-margin printer ink business to replace shriveling film sales. Kodak's ink strategy rejected the razor and blades business model used by the dominant market leader Hewlett-Packard in that Kodak's printers were expensive but the ink was cheaper.  As of 2011, these new lines of inkjet printers were said to be on verge of turning a profit, although some analysts were skeptical as printouts had been replaced gradually by electronic copies on computers, tablets, and smartphones. Home photograph printers, high-speed commercial inkjet presses, workflow software, and packaging were viewed as the company's new core businesses, with sales from those four businesses projected to double to nearly $2 billion in revenue in 2013 and account for 25 percent of all sales. However, while Kodak named home printers as a core business as late as August 2012, at the end of September declining sales forced Kodak to announce an exit from the consumer inkjet market. 

Kodak has also turned to litigation in order to generate revenue. In 2010, it received $838 million from patent licensing that included a settlement with LG.

In 2011, despite the turnaround progress, Kodak rapidly used up its cash reserves, stoking fears of bankruptcy; it had $957 million in cash in June 2011, down from $1.6 billion in January 2001.  In 2011, Kodak reportedly explored selling off or licensing its vast portfolio of patents in order to stave off bankruptcy. By January 2012, analysts suggested that the company could enter bankruptcy followed by an auction of its patents, as it was reported to be in talks with Citigroup to provide debtor-in-possession financing.  This was confirmed on January 19, 2012, when the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and obtained a $950 million, 18-month credit facility from Citigroup to enable it to continue operations.  Under the terms of its bankruptcy protection, Kodak had a deadline of February 15, 2013 to produce a reorganization plan. 

In April 2013, Kodak showed its first Micro Four Thirds camera, to be manufactured by JK Imaging.  

On September 3, 2013, Kodak announced that it emerged from bankruptcy as a technology company focused on imaging for business.  Its main business segments are Digital Printing & Enterprise and Graphics, Entertainment & Commercial Films.

On March 12, 2014, Kodak announced that Jeffrey J. Clarke had been named the new CEO. 

Timeline

1880–99

*April 1880: George Eastman leased the third floor of a building on State Street in Rochester N.Y. and began the commercial manufacture of dry plates.
*January 1, 1881: Eastman and businessman Henry A. Strong formed a partnership called the Eastman Dry Plate Company.  Eastman resigned his position at the Rochester Savings Bank in order to work full-time at the Eastman Dry Plate Company.
*1884: The Eastman-Strong partnership was dissolved and the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company formed with 14 shareowners. The Eastman Dry Plate Company was responsible for the first cameras suitable for non expert use.
*1885: George Eastman bought David Houston's patents for roll film and developed them further. These were the basis for the invention of motion picture film, as used by early filmmakers and Thomas Edison.
*September 4, 1888: Eastman registered the trademark Kodak. 
*1888: The first model of the Kodak camera appeared. It took round pictures  in diameter, was of the fixed focus type, and carried a roll of film enough for 100 exposures. Its invention practically marked the advent of amateur photography, as before that time both apparatus and processes were too burdensome to classify photography as recreation. The roll film used in the first model of the Kodak camera had a paper base but was soon superseded by a film with a cellulose base, a practical transparent flexible film.  The first films had to be loaded into the camera and unloaded in the dark room, but the film cartridge system with its protecting strip of opaque paper made it possible to load and unload the camera in ordinary light. The Kodak Developing Machine (1900) and its simplified successor, the Kodak Film Tank, provided the means for daylight development of film, making the dark room unnecessary for any of the operations of amateur photography. The earlier types of the Kodak cameras were of the box form and of fixed focus, and as various sizes were added, devices for focusing the lenses were incorporated.
*1889: The Eastman Company was formed. 
*1891: George Eastman began to produce a second line of cameras, the Ordinary range. 
*1892: It was renamed the Eastman Kodak Company in 1892. Eastman Kodak Company of New York was organized. He coined the advertising slogan, "You Press the Button, We Do the Rest."   The Kodak company thereby attained its name from the first simple roll film cameras produced by Eastman Dry Plate Company, known as the "Kodak" in its product line.
*Early 1890s: The first folding Kodak cameras were introduced. These were equipped with folding bellows that permitted much greater compactness.
*1895: The first pocket Kodak camera, the $5 Pocket Kodak, was introduced.  It was of the box form type, slipping easily into an ordinary coat pocket, and producing negatives 1½ x 2 inches.
*1897: The first folding pocket Kodak camera was introduced, and was mentioned in the novel Dracula, published the same year.
*1899: George Eastman purchased the patent for Velox photographic paper from Leo Baekeland for $1,000,000. After this time, Velox paper was then sold by Eastman Kodak.

1900–99

*1900: The Brownie camera was introduced, creating a new mass market for photography.
*1901: The present company, Eastman Kodak Company of New Jersey, was formed under the laws of that state. Eventually, the business in Jamestown was moved in its entirety to Rochester, and the plants in Jamestown were demolished.
*By 1920: An “Autographic Feature” provided a means for recording data on the margin of the negative at the time of exposure. This feature was supplied on all Kodak cameras with the exception of a box camera designed for making panoramic pictures and was discontinued in 1932.
*1920: Tennessee Eastman was founded as a wholly owned subsidiary. The company's primary purpose was the manufacture of chemicals, such as acetyls, needed for Kodak's film photography products.
*1930: Eastman Kodak Company was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average index on July 18, 1930. The company remained listed as one of the DJIA companies for the next 74 years, ending in 2004.

*1932: George Eastman dies at age 77, taking his own life with a gun shot.

*1935: Kodak introduced Kodachrome, a color reversal stock for movie and slide film.
*1936: Kodak branches out into manufacture of hand-grenades.
*1940-1944: Eastman Kodak ranked 62nd among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts. 
*1949-1956: Kodak Introduces the Retina Series 35mm Camera 
*1959: Kodak introduced the Starmatic camera, the first automatic Brownie camera, which sold 10 million units over the next five years.
*1963: Kodak introduced the Instamatic camera, an inexpensive, easy-to-load, point-and-shoot camera.
*1970: Kodak scientists disclose the continuous wave tunable dye laser.   This becomes a product for several high-tech companies but not at Kodak.
*1975: Steven Sasson, then an electrical engineer at Kodak, invented a digital camera. 
*1976: The Bayer Pattern color filter array (CFA) was invented by Eastman Kodak researcher Bryce Bayer. The order in which dyes are placed on an image sensor photosite is still in use today. The basic technology is still the most commonly used of its kind to date.
*1976: Kodak introduced the first Kodamatic, instant picture cameras, using a similar film and technology to that of the Polaroid company.
*1976: The company sold 90% of the photographic film in the US along with 85% of the cameras. 
*New Kodak Moment: A $19M profit. 
*1981: Kodak was sued by Polaroid for infringement of its Instant Picture patents. The suit ran for five years, the court finally finding in favour of Polaroid in 1986.
*1982: Kodak launched the Kodak Disc film format for consumer cameras. The format ultimately proved unpopular and was later discontinued.
*1986: Kodak scientists created the world's first megapixel sensor, capable of recording 1.4 million pixels and producing a photo-quality  print.
*1987: Dr. Ching W. Tang, a senior research associate, and his colleague, Steven Van Slyke, developed the first multi-layer OLEDs at the Kodak Research Laboratories, for which he later became a Fellow of the Society for Information Display (SID)
*1988: Kodak buys Sterling Drug for $5.1 Billion 
*1988: Kodak scientists introduce the coumarin tetramethyl laser dyes  also used in OLED devices. These become a successful product until the line of fine chemicals is sold. 
*1991: The Kodak Professional Digital Camera System or DCS, the first commercially available digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera. A customized camera back bearing the digital image sensor was mounted on a Nikon F3 body and released by Kodak in May; the company had previously shown the camera at photokina in 1990.
*1993: Eastman Chemical, a Kodak subsidiary founded by George Eastman in 1920 to supply Kodak's chemical needs, was spun off as a separate corporation. Eastman Chemical became a Fortune 500 company in its own right.  
*1994: Apple Quicktake, a consumer digital camera was debuted by Apple Computer. Some models were manufactured by Kodak.

2000–09

*2003: Kodak introduced the Kodak EasyShare LS633 Digital Camera, the first camera to feature an AMOLED display, and the Kodak EasyShare Printer Dock 6000, the world's first printer-and-camera dock combination.
* November 2003: Kodak acquired the Israel-based company Algotec Systems, a developer of advanced picture archiving and communication systems (PACS), which enable radiology departments to digitally manage and store medical images and information. 
*January 2004: Kodak announced that it would stop selling traditional film cameras in Europe and North America, and cut up to 15,000 jobs (around a fifth of its total workforce at the time).   
*April 8, 2004: Kodak was delisted from the Dow Jones Industrial Average index, having been a constituent for 74 consecutive years. 
*May 2004: Kodak signed an exclusive long-term agreement with Lexar Media, licensing the Kodak brand for use on digital memory cards designed, manufactured, sold, and distributed by Lexar. 
*January 2005: The Kodak EasyShare-One Digital Camera, the world’s first Wi-Fi consumer digital camera capable of sending pictures by email, was unveiled at the 2005 CES.
*January 2005: Kodak acquired the Israel-based company OREX Computed Radiography, a provider of compact computed radiography systems that enable medical practitioners to acquire patient x-ray images digitally. 
*January 2005: Kodak acquired the Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada-based company Creo.
*January 2006: Kodak unveiled the Kodak EasyShare V570 Dual Lens Digital Camera, the world's first dual-lens digital still camera and smallest ultra-wide-angle optical zoom digital camera, at the CES. Using proprietary Kodak Retina Dual Lens technology, the V570 wrapped an ultra-wide angle lens (23 mm) and a second optical zoom lens (39 – 117 mm) into a body less than 2.5 cm (an inch) thick.
*April 2006: Kodak introduced the Kodak EasyShare V610 Dual Lens Digital Camera, at that time the world’s smallest 10× (38–380 mm) optical zoom camera at less than 2.5 cm (an inch) thick.  
*August 1, 2006: Kodak agreed to divest its digital camera manufacturing operations to Flextronics, including assembly, production and testing.   As part of the sale it was agreed that Flextronics would manufacture and distribute consumer digital cameras for Kodak, and conduct some design and development functions for it. Kodak kept high-level digital camera design in house, continued to conduct research and development in digital still cameras, and retained all intellectual property and patents. Approximately 550 Kodak personnel transferred to Flextronics.
*January 10, 2007: Kodak agreed to sell Kodak Health Group to Onex Corporation for $2.35 billion in cash, and up to $200 million in additional future payments if Onex achieved specified returns on the acquisition.  The sale was completed May 1.  Kodak used part of the proceeds to fully repay its approximately $1.15 billion of secured term debt. Around 8,100 employees transferred to Onex, and Kodak Health Group was renamed Carestream Health. Kodak Health Group had revenue of $2.54 billion for the 12 months to September 30, 2006.
*April 19, 2007: Kodak announced an agreement to sell its light management films business, which produced films designed to improve the brightness and efficiency of liquid crystal displays, to Rohm and Haas. The divested business comprised 125 workers. As part of the transaction Rohm and Haas agreed to license technology and purchase equipment from Kodak, and lease Building 318 at Kodak Park. The sale price was not disclosed. 
*May 25, 2007: Kodak announced a cross-licensing agreement with Chi Mei Optoelectronics and its affiliate Chi Mei EL (CMEL), enabling CMEL to use Kodak technology for active matrix OLED modules in a variety of small to medium size display applications. 
*June 14, 2007: Kodak announced a two to fourfold increase in sensitivity to light (from one to two stops) compared to current sensor designs. This design was a departure from the classic "Bayer filter" by adding panchromatic or “clear” pixels to the RGB elements on the sensor array. Since these pixels are sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light, they collect a significantly higher proportion of the light striking the sensor. In combination with advanced Kodak software algorithms optimized for these new patterns, photographers benefited from an increase in photographic speed (improving performance in low light), faster shutter speeds (reducing motion blur for moving subjects), and smaller pixels (higher resolutions in a given optical format) while retaining performance. The technology was credited to Kodak scientists John Compton and John Hamilton. 
*September 4, 2007: Kodak announced a five-year extension of its partnership with Lexar Media. 
*November 2008: Kodak released the Kodak Theatre HD Player, allowing photos and videos stored on a computer to be displayed on an HDTV. Kodak licensed technology from Hillcrest Labs for the interface and pointer, which allowed a user to control the player with gestures. 
*January 2009: Kodak posted a $137 million fourth-quarter loss and announced plans to cut up to 4,500 jobs. 
*June 22, 2009: Kodak announced that it would cease selling Kodachrome color film by the end of 2009, ending 74 years of production, after a dramatic decline in sales.  
*December 4, 2009: Kodak sold its organic light-emitting diode (OLED) business unit to LG Electronics, resulting in the lay-off of 60 people. 

2010–present

*December 2010: Standard & Poor's removed Kodak from its S&P 500 index. 
*September 2011: Kodak hired law firm Jones Day for restructuring advice and its stock dropped to an all-time low of $0.54 a share.  During 2011, Kodak shares fell more than 80 percent. 
*January 2012: Kodak received a warning from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) notifying it that its average closing price was below $1.00 for 30 consecutive days and that over the next 6 months it must increase the closing share price to at least $1 on the last trading day of each calendar month and have an average closing price of at least $1 over the 30 trading-days prior or it would be delisted. From the $90 range in 1997, Kodak shares closed at 76 cents on January 3, 2012. On January 8, 2012, Kodak shares closed over 50% higher after the company announced a major restructuring into two main divisions, one focused on products and services for businesses, and the other on consumer products including digital cameras.  
*January 19, 2012: Kodak filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection.  The company's stock was delisted from NYSE and moved to OTC exchange. Following the news it ended the day trading down 35% at $0.36 a share.
*February 7, 2012: The Image Sensor Solutions (ISS) division of Kodak was sold to Truesense Imaging Inc. 
*February 9, 2012: Kodak announced that it would exit the digital image capture business, phasing out its production of digital cameras.   Kodak sees home photo printers, high-speed commercial inkjet presses, workflow software and packaging as the core of its future business. Once the digital camera business is phased out, Kodak said its consumer business will focus on printing. It will seek a company to license its EasyShare digital camera brand.
*August 24, 2012: Kodak announced that it plans to sell its film, commercial scanner and kiosk divisions. 
*September 10, 2012: Kodak announced plans to cut another 1,000 jobs by the end of 2012 and that it is examining further job cuts as it works to restructure its business in bankruptcy. 
*September 28, 2012: Kodak announced that it is exiting the inkjet printer business.
*December 20, 2012 Kodak announced that it plans to sell its digital imaging patents for about $525 million to some of the world’s biggest technology companies, thus making a step to end bankruptcy. 
*April 29, 2013 Kodak announced an agreement with the U.K. Kodak Pension Plan (KPP) to spin off Kodak’s Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses and settle $2.8 Billion in KPP claims. 
*September 3, 2013 Kodak announces that it has emerged from Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection  as a company focused on serving commercial customers.
*October 17, 2013 Kodak brings European headquarter and the entire EAMER Technology Centre under one roof in Eysins, Switzerland. The relocation brings the company's European headquarters and Inkjet demo facilities, which were based in Gland, Switzerland, and the Kodak EAMER Technology and Solutions Centre, which was based in La Hulpe, Belgium, together. 
*March 12, 2014 Kodak names Jeffrey J. Clarke as its new Chief Executive Officer. 
*July 30, 2014 Kodak is negotiating with movie studios for an annual movie film order guarantee to preserve the last source of movie film manufacturing in the United States. 
*December 2014, Kodak announced to release its first Android smartphone which is made by Bullitt and will be displayed at CES 2015. 

Products and services

Current

Kodak provides packaging, functional printing, graphic communications and professional services for businesses around the world.  Its main business segments are Digital Printing & Enterprise and Graphics, Entertainment & Commercial Films.  

Digital printing and enterprise

Kodak provides high-speed, high-volume commercial inkjet, and color and black-and-white electrophotographic printing equipment and related consumables and services. 
It has an installed base of more than 5,000 units.

Its Prosper platform uses Stream inkjet technology, which delivers a continuous flow of ink that enables constant and consistent operation, with uniform size and accurate placement, even at very high print speeds. Applications for PROSPER include publishing, commercial print, direct mail, and packaging. The business also includes the customer base of Kodak VersaMark products.

The NexPress platform is used for printing short-run, personalized print applications for purposes such as direct mail, books, marketing collateral and photo products. The Digimaster platform uses monochrome electrophotographic printing technology to create high-quality printing of statements, short-run books, corporate documentation, manuals and direct mail.  

Flexo printing

Kodak designs and manufactures products for flexography printing. Its Flexcel  line of flexo printing systems allow label printers to produce their own digital plates for customized flexo printing and flexible printed packaging.

Functional printing

The company currently has strategic relationships with worldwide touch-panel sensor leaders, such as the partnerships with UniPixel announced on April 16, 2013 and Kingsbury Corp. launched on June 27, 2013.   

Enterprise professional services

Enterprise professional services offers print and managed media services, brand protection solutions and services, and document management services to enterprise customers, including government, pharmaceuticals, and health, consumer and luxury good products, retail and finance.

Digital printing solutions

In 1997, Heidelberg Printing Machines AG and Eastman Kodak Co. had created the Nexpress Solutions LLC joint venture to develop a digital color printing press for the high-end market segment. Heidelberg acquired Eastman Kodak Co.'s Office Imaging black and white digital printing activities in 1999. In 2000, they had launched Digimaster 9110 - Black & White Production Printer and NexPress 2100 Digital Colour Press.

In March 2004, Heidelberg transferred its Digital Print division to Eastman Kodak Co.  under mutual agreement. Kodak continues to research and develop Digital Printing Systems and introduced more products.

At present, Kodak has commercial Web-fed presses, commercial imprinting systems - Prosper, VersaMark and commercial sheet-fed press - NexPress digital production colour press, DIGIMASTER HD digital black and white production printer. 

Consumer inkjet ink cartridges

Kodak entered into consumer inkjet photo printers in a joint venture with manufacturer Lexmark in 1999 with the Kodak Personal Picture Maker.

In February 2007, Kodak re-entered the market with a new product line of All-In-One (AiO) inkjet printers that employ several technologies marketed as Kodacolor Technology. Advertising emphasizes low price for ink cartridges rather than for the printers themselves. 

Kodak announced plans to stop selling inkjet printers in 2013 as it focuses on commercial printing, but will still sell ink. 

GECF

Graphics

Kodak's graphics business consists of computer to plate (CTP) devices, which Kodak first launched in 1995 when the company introduced the first thermal CTP to market. In CTP, an output device exposes a digital image using SQUAREspot laser imaging technology directly to an aluminum surface (printing plate), which is then mounted onto a printing press to reproduce the image. Kodak's Graphics portfolio includes front-end controllers, production workflow software, CTP output devices, and digital plates.

Global Technical Services

Kodak’s Global Technical Services ("GTS") for Commercial Imaging is focused on selling service contracts for Kodak products, including the following service categories: field services, customer support services, educational services, and professional services.

Entertainment Imaging and Commercial Film

Kodak's Entertainment Imaging and Commercial Film group ("E&CF") encompasses its motion picture film business, providing motion imaging products (camera negative, intermediate, print and archival film), services and technology for the professional motion picture and exhibition industries.

E&CF also offers Aerial and Industrial Films including KODAK Printed Circuit Board film, and delivers external sales for the company’s component businesses: Polyester Film, Specialty Chemicals, Inks and Dispersions and Solvent Recovery.

Motion picture and TV production

The Kodak company played a role in the invention and development of the motion picture industry. Many cinema and TV productions are shot on Kodak film stocks. 

The company helped set the standard of 35 mm film, and introduced the 16 mm film format for home movie use and lower budget film productions.

The home market-oriented 8 mm and Super 8 formats were also developed by Kodak. Kodak also entered the professional television production video tape market, briefly in the mid-1980s, under the product portfolio name of Eastman Professional Video Tape Products. In 1990, Kodak launched a Worldwide Student Program working with university faculty throughout the world to help nurture the future generation of film-makers. Kodak formed Educational Advisory Councils in the US, Europe and Asia made up of Deans and Chairs of some of the most prestigious film schools throughout the world to help guide the development of their program.

Kodak previously owned the visual effects film post-production facilities Cinesite in Los Angeles and London and also LaserPacific in Los Angeles. Kodak sold Cinesite to Endless LLP, an independent British private equity house. 

Kodak previously sold LaserPacific and its subsidiaries Laser-Edit, Inc, and Pacific Video, Inc., in April 2010 for an undisclosed sum to TeleCorps Holdings, Inc.

Kodak also sold Pro-Tek Media Preservation Services, a film storage company in Burbank, California, in October 2013. 

Technical support and on-site service

Aside from technical phone support for their products, Kodak offers onsite service for other devices such as document scanners, data storage systems (optical, tape, and disk), printers, inkjet printing presses, microfilm/microfiche equipment, photograph kiosks, and photocopiers, for which they dispatch technicians who make repairs in the field.

Other

Kodak markets Picture CDs and other photo products such as calendars, photo books and photo enlargements through retail partners such as CVS, Walmart and Target and through its Kodak Gallery online service, formerly known as Ofoto.

Former

Still film cameras

On January 13, 2004, Kodak announced it would stop marketing traditional still film cameras (excluding disposable cameras) in the United States, Canada and Western Europe, but would continue to sell film cameras in India, Latin America, Eastern Europe and China.  By the end of 2005, Kodak ceased manufacturing cameras that used the Advanced Photo System. Kodak licensed the manufacture of Kodak branded cameras to Vivitar in 2005 and 2006. After 2007 Kodak did not license the manufacture of any film camera with the Kodak name.

Instant cameras

After losing a patent battle with Polaroid Corporation, Kodak left the instant camera business on January 9, 1986. The Kodak instant camera included models known as the Kodamatic and the Colorburst.

Polaroid was awarded damages in the patent trial in the amount of $909,457,567, a record at the time. (Polaroid Corp. v. Eastman Kodak Co., U.S. District Court District of Massachusetts, decided October 12, 1990, case no. 76-1634-MA. Published in the U.S. Patent Quarterly as 16 USPQ2d 1481). See also the following cases: Polaroid Corp. v. Eastman Kodak Co., 641 F.Supp. 828 [228 USPQ 305] (D. Mass. 1985), stay denied, 833 F.2d 930 [5 USPQ2d 1080] (Fed. Cir.), aff'd, 789 F.2d 1556 [229 USPQ 561] (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 850 (1986). 

Kodak was the exclusive supplier of negatives for Polaroid cameras from 1963 until 1969, when Polaroid chose to manufacture its own instant film.

Image sensors

As part of its move toward higher end products, Kodak announced on September 15, 2006 that the new Leica M8 camera incorporates Kodak's KAF-10500 image sensor. This was the second recent partnership between Kodak and the German optical manufacturer. In 2011, Kodak sold its Image Sensor Solutions business to Platinum Equity, who subsequently renamed it Truesense Imaging, Inc. 

Digital cameras and video cameras

Many of Kodak's early compact digital cameras were designed and built by Chinon Industries, a Japanese camera manufacturer. In 2004, Kodak Japan acquired Chinon and many of its engineers and designers joined Kodak Japan.

The Kodak DCS series of digital single-lens reflex cameras and digital camera backs were released by Kodak in the 1990s and 2000s, and discontinued in 2005. They were based on existing 35 mm film SLRs from Nikon and Canon and the range included the original Kodak DCS, the first commercially available digital SLR.

In July 2006, Kodak announced that Flextronics would manufacture and help design its digital cameras.

Digital picture frames

Kodak first entered the digital picture frame market with the Kodak Smart Picture Frame in the fourth quarter of 2000. It was designed by Weave Innovations and licensed to Kodak with an exclusive relationship with Weave's StoryBox online photo network.  Smart Frame owners connected to the network via an analog telephone connection built into the frame. The frame could hold 36 images internally and came with a six-month free subscription to the StoryBox network. 

Kodak re-entered the digital photo frame market at CES in 2007 with the introduction of four new EasyShare-branded models that were available in sizes from 200 to, included multiple memory card slots, and some of which included Wi-Fi capability to connect with the Kodak Gallery—that gallery functionality has now been compromised due to gallery policy changes (see below).

Kodak Gallery

In June 2001, Kodak purchased the photo-developing website Ofoto, later renamed Kodak Gallery. The website enables users to upload their photos into albums, publish them into prints, and create mousepads, calendars, etc. On March 1, 2012, Kodak announced that it sold Kodak Gallery to Shutterfly for $23.8 million. 

Document imaging

Kodak provides document imaging solutions. Historically this industry began when George Eastman partnered with banks to image checks in the 1920s. Through the development of microfilm technology, Eastman Kodak was able to provide business and government with a solution for long term document storage. Document imaging was one of the first imaging solutions to move to "digital imaging" technology. Kodak manufactured the first digital document scanners for high speed document imaging. Today Kodak has a full line of document scanners providing imaging solutions for banking, finance, insurance,  healthcare and other vertical industries. Kodak also provides associated document capture software and business process services. Eastman Kodak acquired the Bowe Bell & Howell scanner division in September 2009.

Photographic film and paper

Kodak continues to produce specialty films and film for newer and more popular consumer formats, while it has also discontinued the manufacture of film in older and less popular formats.

Kodak is a leading producer of silver halide (AgX) paper used for printing from film and digital images. Minilabs located in retail stores and larger central photo lab operations (CLOs) use silver halide paper for photo printing. In 2005 Kodak announced it would stop producing black-and-white photo paper. 

Photo kiosks

Kodak is a manufacturer of self-service photo kiosks that produce "prints in seconds" from multiple sources including digital input, scanned prints, Facebook, the Kodak Gallery and orders placed on-line using thermosublimation printers. The company has placed over 100,000 Picture Kiosks in retail locations worldwide.  Employing similar technology, Kodak also offers larger printing systems with additional capabilities including duplex greeting cards, large format poster printers, photobooks and calendars under the brand name "APEX". 

Operations

Subsidiaries

* [http://wwwuk.kodak.com/UK/en/corp/ Kodak Limited (UK)]
** the Company's sales and marketing headquarters are located at Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire
** manufacturing facilities are sited at Harrow in north-west London, Kirkby near Liverpool, and Annesley in Nottinghamshire
* [http://motion.kodak.com/motion/Products/FPC/index.htm FPC, Inc.]
** FPC, US/Canada
** FPC Italy

Kodak Research Laboratories

The Kodak Research Laboratories were founded in 1912 with Kenneth Mees as the first director.  Principal components of the Kodak Research Laboratories were the Photographic Research Laboratories and then the Imaging Research Laboratories. Additional organizations included the Corporate Research Laboratories. Over nearly a century, scientists at these laboratories produced thousands of patents and scientific publications.

Notable people

Presidents and CEOs

Scientists

* Bryce Bayer, color scientist (1929–2012)
* Harry Coover, polymer chemist (1917–2011)
* F. J. Duarte, laser physicist and author (left in 2006)
* Loyd A. Jones, camouflage physicist (1884–1954)
* Maurice Loyal Huggins, polymer scientist (1897–1981)
* Rudolf Kingslake, optical designer (1903–2003)
* David MacAdam, color scientist (1910–1998)
* Kenneth Mees, film scientist and founder of the research laboratories (1882–1960)
* Perley G. Nutting, physicist and founder of OSA (1873–1949)
* Steven Van Slyke, OLED scientist (left in 2010)
* Warren J. Smith, optical engineer (1922–2008)
* Ching W. Tang, OLED scientist (left in 2006)
* Arthur Widmer, Special Effects Film Pioneer and receiver of an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award of Commendation (1914-2006)

Archive donation

In 2005, Kodak Canada donated its entire historic company archives to Ryerson University in Toronto. The Ryerson University Library also acquired an extensive collection of materials on the history of photography from the private collection of Nicholas M. & Marilyn A. Graver of Rochester, New York.  The Kodak Archives, begun in 1909, contain the company's Camera Collection, historic photos, files, trade circulars, Kodak magazines, price lists, daily record books, equipment, and other ephemera. It includes the contents of the Kodak Heritage Collection Museum, a museum established in 1999 for Kodak Canada's centennial that Kodak closed in 2005 along with the company's entire 'Kodak Heights' manufacturing campus in Mount Dennis, Toronto.  See also: George Eastman House.

Controversies

Better Business Bureau

On March 26, 2007, the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB) announced that Eastman Kodak was resigning its national membership in the wake of expulsion proceedings initiated by the CBBB Board of Directors. 
In 2006, Kodak notified the BBB of Upstate New York that it would no longer accept or respond to consumer complaints submitted by them. In prior years, Kodak responded by offering consumers an adjustment or an explanation of the company’s position. The BBB file contains consumer complaints of problems with repairs of Kodak digital cameras, as well as difficulty communicating with Kodak customer service. Among other complaints, consumers say that their cameras broke and they were charged for repairs when the failure was not the result of any damage or abuse. Some say their cameras failed again after being repaired.

Kodak said its customer service and customer privacy teams concluded that 99 percent of all complaints forwarded by the BBB already were handled directly with the customer. Brian O’Connor, Kodak chief privacy officer, said the company was surprised by the news release distributed by the Better Business Bureau:

Patent litigation

In 2010, Apple filed a patent-infringement claim against Kodak. On May 12, 2011, Judge Robert Rogers rejected Apple's claims that two of its digital photography patents were being violated by Kodak. 

On July 1, 2011, the U.S. International Trade Commission partially reversed a January decision by an administrative law judge stating that neither Apple nor Research in Motion had infringed upon Kodak's patents. The ITC remanded the matter for further proceedings before the ALJ.

Rollfilm or roll film is any type of spool-wound photographic film protected from white light exposure by a paper backing, as opposed to film which is protected from exposure and wound forward in a cartridge. The term originated in contrast to sheet film. Confusingly, roll film was originally often referred to as "cartridge" film because of its resemblance to a shotgun cartridge. The opaque backing paper allows roll film to be loaded in daylight. It is typically printed with frame number markings which can be viewed through a small red window at the rear of the camera. A spool of roll film is usually loaded on one side of the camera and pulled across to an identical take up spool on the other side of the shutter as exposures are made. When the roll is fully exposed, the take up spool is removed for processing and the empty spool on which the film was originally wound is moved to the other side, becoming the take up spool for the next roll of film.

History

In 1881 a farmer in Cambria, Wisconsin, Peter Houston, invented the first roll film camera. His younger brother David, filed the patents for various components of Peter's camera.    
David Henderson Houston (b. June 14, 1841; d. May 6, 1906
), originally from Cambria, Wisconsin,  patented the first holders for flexible roll film.  Houston moved to Hunter in Dakota Territory in 1880. He was issued an 1881 patent for a roll film holder    which he licensed to George Eastman (it was used in Eastman's Kodak 1888 box camera). Houston sold the patent (and an 1886 revision ) outright to Eastman for $5000 in 1889.   Houston continued developing the camera, creating 21 patents for cameras or camera parts between 1881 and 1902.   In 1912 his estate transferred the remainder of his patents to Eastman.

 The most popular rollfilm is the type 120 film format, which is used in most medium-format cameras and roll film magazines for large-format cameras. Until the 1950s, 120 roll film was also used in the then most simplist of snapshot cameras, and box cameras. The use of roll film in consumer cameras was largely superseded by 135 and 126 cartridges, but 120 and 220 (double length) film are still commonly used in medium-format cameras.

A camera is an optical instrument for recording or capturing images, which may be stored locally, transmitted to another location, or both. The images may be individual still photographs or sequences of images constituting videos or movies.The camera is a remote sensing device as it senses subjects without physical contact. The word camera comes from camera obscura, which means "dark chamber" and is the Latin name of the original device for projecting an image of external reality onto a flat surface. The modern photographic camera evolved from the camera obscura. The functioning of the camera is very similar to the functioning of the human eye.

Functional description

A camera may work with the light of the visible spectrum or with other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.  A still camera is an optical device which creates a single image of an object or scene, and records it on an electronic sensor or photographic film. All cameras use the same basic design: light enters an enclosed box through a converging lens/convex lens and an image is recorded on a light-sensitive medium(mainly a transition metal-hallide). A shutter mechanism controls the length of time that light can enter the camera.  Most photographic cameras have functions that allow a person to view the scene to be recorded, allow for a desired part of the scene to be in focus, and to control the exposure so that it is not too bright or too dim.  A display, often a liquid crystal display (LCD), permits the user to view scene to be recorded and settings such as ISO speed, exposure, and shutter speed.  

A movie camera or a video camera operates similarly to a still camera, except it records a series of static images in rapid succession, commonly at a rate of 24 frames per second. When the images are combined and displayed in order, the illusion of motion is achieved. 

Thanks to the help of modern science, A group of photoscientists of MIT has successfully created a camera having frame rate of 1 trillion per second, able to see the light emerging and reflecting or refracting on an opaque or translucent media.

History

The forerunner to the photographic camera was the camera obscura.  In the fifth century B.C., the Chinese philosopher Mo Ti noted that a pinhole can form an inverted and focused image, when light passes through the hole and into a dark area.  Mo Ti is the first recorded person to have exploited this phenomenon to trace the inverted image to create a picture.  Writing in the fourth century B.C., Aristotle also mentioned this principle.  He described observing a partial solar eclipse in 330 B.C. by seeing the image of the Sun projected through the small spaces between the leaves of a tree.  In the tenth century, the Arabic scholar Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) also wrote about observing a solar eclipse through a pinhole,  and he described how a sharper image could be produced by making the opening of the pinhole smaller. English philosopher Roger Bacon wrote about these optical principles in his 1267 treatise Perspectiva. By the fifteenth century, artists and scientists were using this phenomenon to make observations.  Originally, an observer had to enter an actual room, in which a pinhole was made on one wall. On the opposite wall, the observer would view the inverted image of the outside.  The name camera obscura, Latin for "dark room", derives from this early implementation of the optical phenomenon.  The term was first coined by mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler in his Ad Vitellionem paralipomena of 1604. 

The Italian scientist Giambattista della Porta described the camera obscura in detail in his 1558 work Magia Naturalis, and specifically suggested that an artist could project a camera obscura's images onto paper, and trace the outlines.  The camera obscura was popular as an aid for drawing and painting from the 1600s to the 1800s.  Portable set-ups were devised in the 17th century. For example, Kepler had built a portable tent, and outfitted the camera obscura with a lens by 1620.   This set-up remained popular up to the early 1800s.  The scientist Robert Hooke presented a paper in 1694 to the Royal Society, in which he described a portable camera obscura. It was a cone-shaped box which fit onto the head and shoulders of its user.  A hand-held device with a mirror reflex mechanism was first proposed by Johann Zahn in 1685, a design that would later be used in photographic cameras. 

Before the development of the photographic camera, it had been known for hundreds of years that some substances, such as silver salts, darkened when exposed to sunlight.  In a series of experiments, published in 1727, the German scientist Johann Heinrich Schulze demonstrated that the darkening of the salts was due to light alone, and not influenced by heat or exposure to air.  The Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele showed in 1777 that silver chloride was especially susceptible to darkening from light exposure, and that once darkened, it becomes insoluble in an ammonia solution. The first person to use this chemistry to create images was Thomas Wedgwood. To create images, Wedgwood placed items, such as leaves and insect wings, on ceramic pots coated with silver nitrate, and exposed the set-up to light. These images weren't permanent, however, as Wedgwood didn't employ a fixing mechanism. He ultimately failed at his goal of using the process to create fixed images created by a camera obscura. 

Image:Pinhole-camera.svg|Camera obscura. Light enters a dark box through a small hole and creates an inverted image on the wall opposite the hole.
Image:View from the Window at Le Gras, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce.jpg|View from the Window at Le Gras (1826), the earliest surviving photograph 
Image:Susse Frére Daguerreotype camera 1839.jpg|The Giroux daguerreotype camera, the first to be commercially produced 

The first permanent photograph of a camera image was made in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce using a sliding wooden box camera made by Charles and Vincent Chevalier in Paris.  Niépce had been experimenting with ways to fix the images of a camera obscura since 1816. The photograph Niépce succeeded in creating shows the view from his window. It was made using an 8-hour exposure on pewter coated with bitumen.  Niépce called his process "heliography".  Niépce corresponded with the inventor Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, and the pair entered into a partnership to improve the heliographic process. Niépce had experimented further with other chemicals, to improve contrast in his heliographs. Daguerre contributed an improved camera obscura design, but the partnership ended when Niépce died in 1833.  Daguerre succeeded in developing a high-contrast and extremely sharp image by exposing on a plate coated with silver iodide, and exposing this plate again to mercury vapor.  By 1837, he was able to fix the images with a common salt solution. He called this process Daguerreotype, and tried unsuccessfully for a couple years to commercialize it. Eventually, with help of the scientist and politician François Arago, the French government acquired Daguerre's process for public release. In exchange, pensions were provided to Daguerre as well as Niépce's son, Isidore. 

In the 1830s, the English scientist Henry Fox Talbot independently invented a process to fix camera images using silver salts.  Although dismayed that Daguerre had beaten him to the announcement of photography, on January 31, 1839 he submitted a pamphlet to the Royal Institution entitled Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing, which was the first published description of photography. Within two years, Talbot developed a two-step process for creating photographs on paper, which he called calotypes. The calotyping process was the first to utilize negative prints, which reverse all values in the photograph - black shows up as white and vice versa.   Negative prints allow, in principle, unlimited duplicates of the positive print to be made.  Calotyping also introduced the ability for a printmaker to alter the resulting image through retouching.  Calotypes were never as popular or widespread as daguerreotypes,  owing mainly to the fact that the latter produced sharper details.  However, because daguerreotypes only produce a direct positive print, no duplicates can be made. It is the two-step negative/positive process that formed the basis for modern photography. 

The first photographic camera developed for commercial manufacture was a daguerreotype camera, built by Alphonse Giroux in 1839. Giroux signed a contract with Daguerre and Isidore Niépce to produce the cameras in France,  with each device and accessories costing 400 francs.  The camera was a double-box design, with a landscape lens fitted to the outer box, and a holder for a ground glass focusing screen and image plate on the inner box. By sliding the inner box, objects at various distances could be brought to as sharp a focus as desired. After a satisfactory image had been focused on the screen, the screen was replaced with a sensitized plate. A knurled wheel controlled a copper flap in front of the lens, which functioned as a shutter. The early daguerreotype cameras required long exposure times, which in 1839 could be from 5 to 30 minutes. 

After the introduction of the Giroux daguerreotype camera, other manufacturers quickly produced improved variations. Charles Chevalier, who had earlier provided Niépce with lenses, created in 1841 a double-box camera using a half-sized plate for imaging. Chevalier’s camera had a hinged bed, allowing for half of the bed to fold onto the back of the nested box. In addition to having increased portability, the camera had a faster lens, bringing exposure times down to 3 minutes, and a prism at the front of the lens, which allowed the image to be laterally correct.  Another French design emerged in 1841, created by Marc Antoine Gaudin. The Nouvel Appareil Gaudin camera had a metal disc with three differently-sized holes mounted on the front of the lens. Rotating to a different hole effectively provided variable f-stops, letting in different amount of light into the camera.  Instead of using nested boxes to focus, the Gaudin camera used nested brass tubes.  In Germany, Peter Friedrich Voigtländer designed an all-metal camera with a conical shape that produced circular pictures of about 3 inches in diameter. The distinguishing characteristic of the Voigtländer camera was its use of a lens designed by Josef Max Petzval.  The f/3.5 Petzval lens was nearly 30 times faster than any other lens of the period, and was the first to be made specifically for portraiture. Its design was the most widely used for portraits until Carl Zeiss introduced the anastigmat lens in 1889. 

Within a decade of being introduced in America, 3 general forms of camera were in popular use: the American- or chamfered-box camera, the Robert’s-type camera or “Boston box”, and the Lewis-type camera. The American-box camera had beveled edges at the front and rear, and an opening in the rear where the formed image could be viewed on ground glass. The top of the camera had hinged doors for placing photographic plates. Inside there was one available slot for distant objects, and another slot in the back for close-ups. The lens was focused either by sliding or with a rack and pinion mechanism. The Robert’s-type cameras were similar to the American-box, except for having a knob-fronted worm gear on the front of the camera, which moved the back box for focusing. Many Robert’s-type cameras allowed focusing directly on the lens mount. The third popular daguerreotype camera in America was the Lewis-type, introduced in 1851, which utilized a bellows for focusing. The main body of the Lewis-type camera was mounted on the front box, but the rear section was slotted into the bed for easy sliding. Once focused, a set screw was tightened to hold the rear section in place.  Having the bellows in the middle of the body facilitated making a second, in-camera copy of the original image. 

Daguerreotype cameras formed images on silvered copper plates. The earliest daguerreotype cameras required several minutes to half an hour to expose images on the plates. By 1840, exposure times were reduced to just a few seconds owing to improvements in the chemical preparation and development processes, and to advances in lens design.  American daguerreotypists introduced manufactured plates in mass production, and plate sizes became internationally standardized: whole plate (6.5 x 8.5 inches), three-quarter plate (5.5 x 7 1/8 inches), half plate (4.5 x 5.5 inches), quarter plate (3.25 x 4.25 inches), sixth plate (2.75 x 3.25 inches), and ninth plate (2 x 2.5 inches).  Plates were often cut to fit cases and jewelry with circular and oval shapes. Larger plates were produced, with sizes such as 9 x 13 inches (“double-whole” plate), or 13.5 x 16.5 inches (Southworth & Hawes’ plate). 

The collodion wet plate process that gradually replaced the daguerreotype during the 1850s required photographers to coat and sensitize thin glass or iron plates shortly before use and expose them in the camera while still wet. Early wet plate cameras were very simple and little different from Daguerreotype cameras, but more sophisticated designs eventually appeared. The Dubroni of 1864 allowed the sensitizing and developing of the plates to be carried out inside the camera itself rather than in a separate darkroom. Other cameras were fitted with multiple lenses for photographing several small portraits on a single larger plate, useful when making cartes de visite. It was during the wet plate era that the use of bellows for focusing became widespread, making the bulkier and less easily adjusted nested box design obsolete.

For many years, exposure times were long enough that the photographer simply removed the lens cap, counted off the number of seconds (or minutes) estimated to be required by the lighting conditions, then replaced the cap. As more sensitive photographic materials became available, cameras began to incorporate mechanical shutter mechanisms that allowed very short and accurately timed exposures to be made.

The use of photographic film was pioneered by George Eastman, who started manufacturing paper film in 1885 before switching to celluloid in 1889. His first camera, which he called the "Kodak," was first offered for sale in 1888. It was a very simple box camera with a fixed-focus lens and single shutter speed, which along with its relatively low price appealed to the average consumer. The Kodak came pre-loaded with enough film for 100 exposures and needed to be sent back to the factory for processing and reloading when the roll was finished. By the end of the 19th century Eastman had expanded his lineup to several models including both box and folding cameras.

Films also made possible capture of motion (cinematography) establishing the movie industry by end of 19th century.

The first camera using digital electronics to capture and store images was developed by Kodak engineer Steven Sasson in 1975. He used a charge-coupled device (CCD) provided by Fairchild Semiconductor, which provided only 0.01 megapixels to capture images. Sasson combined the CCD device with movie camera parts to create a digital camera that saved black and white images onto a cassette tape.  The images were then read from the cassette and viewed on a TV monitor.  Later, cassette tapes were replaced by flash memory.

Gradually in the 2000s and 2010s, digital cameras became the dominant type of camera across consumer, television and movies.

Mechanics

Image capture

Traditional cameras capture light onto photographic plate or photographic film. Video and digital cameras use an electronic image sensor, usually a charge coupled device (CCD) or a CMOS sensor to capture images which can be transferred or stored in a memory card or other storage inside the camera for later playback or processing.

Cameras that capture many images in sequence are known as movie cameras or as ciné cameras in Europe; those designed for single images are still cameras.

However these categories overlap as still cameras are often used to capture moving images in special effects work and many modern cameras can quickly switch between still and motion recording modes.

Lens

The lens of a camera captures the light from the subject and brings it to a focus on the sensor. The design and manufacture of the lens is critical to the quality of the photograph being taken. The technological revolution in camera design in the 19th century revolutionized optical glass manufacture and lens design with great benefits for modern lens manufacture in a wide range of optical instruments from reading glasses to microscopes. Pioneers included Zeiss and Leitz.

Camera lenses are made in a wide range of focal lengths. They range from extreme wide angle, and standard, medium telephoto. Each lens is best suited to a certain type of photography. The extreme wide angle may be preferred for architecture because it has the capacity to capture a wide view of a building. The normal lens, because it often has a wide aperture, is often used for street and documentary photography. The telephoto lens is useful for sports and wildlife but it is more susceptible to camera shake.

Focus

Due to the optical properties of photographic lenses, only objects within a limited range of distances from the camera will be reproduced clearly.  The process of adjusting this range is known as changing the camera's focus.  There are various ways of focusing a camera accurately. The simplest cameras have fixed focus and use a small aperture and wide-angle lens to ensure that everything within a certain range of distance from the lens, usually around 3 metres (10 ft) to infinity, is in reasonable focus. Fixed focus cameras are usually inexpensive types, such as single-use cameras. The camera can also have a limited focusing range or scale-focus that is indicated on the camera body. The user will guess or calculate the distance to the subject and adjust the focus accordingly. On some cameras this is indicated by symbols (head-and-shoulders; two people standing upright; one tree; mountains).

Rangefinder cameras allow the distance to objects to be measured by means of a coupled parallax unit on top of the camera, allowing the focus to be set with accuracy. Single-lens reflex cameras allow the photographer to determine the focus and composition visually using the objective lens and a moving mirror to project the image onto a ground glass or plastic micro-prism screen. Twin-lens reflex cameras use an objective lens and a focusing lens unit (usually identical to the objective lens.) in a parallel body for composition and focusing. View cameras use a ground glass screen which is removed and replaced by either a photographic plate or a reusable holder containing sheet film before exposure. Modern cameras often offer autofocus systems to focus the camera automatically by a variety of methods.

Some experimental cameras, for example the planar Fourier capture array (PFCA), do not require focusing to allow them to take pictures. In conventional digital photography, lenses or mirrors map all of the light originating from a single point of an in-focus object to a single point at the sensor plane. Each pixel thus relates an independent piece of information about the far-away scene. In contrast, a PFCA does not have a lens or mirror, but each pixel has an idiosyncratic pair of diffraction gratings above it, allowing each pixel to likewise relate an independent piece of information (specifically, one component of the 2D Fourier transform) about the far-away scene. Together, complete scene information is captured and images can be reconstructed by computation.

Some cameras have post focusing. Post focusing means take the pictures first and then focusing later at the personal computer. The camera uses many tiny lenses on the sensor to capture light from every camera angle of a scene and is called plenoptics technology. A current plenoptic camera design has 40,000 lenses working together to grab the optimal picture. 

Exposure control

The size of the aperture and the brightness of the scene controls the amount of light that enters the camera during a period of time, and the shutter controls the length of time that the light hits the recording surface. Equivalent exposures can be made using a large aperture size with a fast shutter speed and a small aperture with a slow shutter.

Shutters

Although a range of different shutter devices have been used during the development of the camera only two types have been widely used and remain in use today.

The Leaf shutter or more precisely the in-lens shutter is a shutter contained within the lens structure, often close to the diaphragm consisting of a number of metal leaves which are maintained under spring tension and which are opened and then closed when the shutter is released. The exposure time is determined by the interval between opening and closing. In this shutter design, the whole film frame is exposed at one time. This makes flash synchronisation much simpler as the flash only needs to fire once the shutter is fully open. Disadvantages of such shutters are their inability to reliably produce very fast shutter speeds ( faster than 1/500th second or so) and the additional cost and weight of having to include a shutter mechanism for every lens.

The focal-plane shutter operates as close to the film plane as possible and consists of cloth curtains that are pulled across the film plane with a carefully determined gap between the two curtains (typically running horizontally) or consisting of a series of metal plates (typically moving vertically) just in front of the film plane. The focal-plane shutter is primarily associated with the single lens reflex type of cameras, since covering the film rather than blocking light passing through the lens allows the photographer to view through the lens at all times except during the exposure itself. Covering the film also facilitates removing the lens from a loaded camera (many SLRs have interchangeable lenses).

Complexities

Professional medium format SLR (single-lens-reflex) cameras (typically using 120/220 roll film) use a hybrid solution, since such a large focal-plane shutter would be difficult to make and/or may run slowly. A manually inserted blade known as a dark slide allows the film to be covered when changing lenses or film backs. A blind inside the camera covers the film prior to and after the exposure (but is not designed to be able to give accurately controlled exposure times) and a leaf shutter that is normally open is installed in the lens. To take a picture, the leaf shutter closes, the blind opens, the leaf shutter opens then closes again, and finally the blind closes and the leaf shutter re-opens (the last step may only occur when the shutter is re-cocked).

Using a focal-plane shutter, exposing the whole film plane can take much longer than the exposure time. The exposure time does not depend on the time taken to make the exposure over all, only on the difference between the time a specific point on the film is uncovered and then covered up again. For example, an exposure of 1/1000 second may be achieved by the shutter curtains moving across the film plane in 1/50th of a second but with the two curtains only separated by 1/20th of the frame width. In fact in practice the curtains do not run at a constant speed as they would in an ideal design, obtaining an even exposure time depends mainly on being able to make the two curtains accelerate in a similar manner.

When photographing rapidly moving objects, the use of a focal-plane shutter can produce some unexpected effects, since the film closest to the start position of the curtains is exposed earlier than the film closest to the end position. Typically this can result in a moving object leaving a slanting image. The direction of the slant depends on the direction the shutter curtains run in (noting also that as in all cameras the image is inverted and reversed by the lens, i.e. "top-left" is at the bottom right of the sensor as seen by a photographer behind the camera).

Focal-plane shutters are also difficult to synchronise with flash bulbs and electronic flash and it is often only possible to use flash at shutter speeds where the curtain that opens to reveal the film completes its run and the film is fully uncovered, before the second curtain starts to travel and cover it up again. Typically 35mm film SLRs could sync flash at only up to 1/60th second if the camera has horizontal run cloth curtains, and 1/125th if using a vertical run metal shutter.

Formats

A wide range of film and plate formats have been used by cameras. In the early history plate sizes were often specific for the make and model of camera although there quickly developed some standardisation for the more popular cameras. The introduction of roll film drove the standardization process still further so that by the 1950s only a few standard roll films were in use. These included 120 film providing 8, 12 or 16 exposures, 220 film providing 16 or 24 exposures, 127 film providing 8 or 12 exposures (principally in Brownie cameras) and 135 (35 mm film) providing 12, 20 or 36 exposures – or up to 72 exposures in the half-frame format or in bulk cassettes for the Leica Camera range.

For cine cameras, film 35 mm wide and perforated with sprocket holes was established as the standard format in the 1890s. It was used for nearly all film-based professional motion picture production. For amateur use, several smaller and therefore less expensive formats were introduced. 17.5 mm film, created by splitting 35 mm film, was one early amateur format, but 9.5 mm film, introduced in Europe in 1922, and 16 mm film, introduced in the US in 1923, soon became the standards for "home movies" in their respective hemispheres. In 1932, the even more economical 8 mm format was created by doubling the number of perforations in 16 mm film, then splitting it, usually after exposure and processing. The Super 8 format, still 8 mm wide but with smaller perforations to make room for substantially larger film frames, was introduced in 1965.

Camera accessories

Accessories for cameras are mainly for care, protection, special effects and functions.
*Lens hood: used on the end of a lens to block the sun or other light source to prevent glare and lens flare (see also matte box).
*Lens cap: covers and protects the lens during storage.
*Lens adapter: sometimes called a step-ring, adapts the lens to other size filters.
*Lens filters: allow artificial colors or change light density.
*Lens extension tubes allow close focus in macro photography.
*Flash equipment: including light diffuser, mount and stand, reflector, soft box, trigger and cord.
*Care and protection: including camera case and cover, maintenance tools, and screen protector.
*Large format cameras use special equipment which includes magnifier loupe, view finder, angle finder, focusing rail /truck.
*Battery and sometimes a charger.
*Some professional SLR could be provided with interchangeable finders for eye-level or waist-level focusing, focusing screens, eye-cup, data backs, motor-drives for film transportation or external battery packs.
*Tripod, microscope adapter, cable release, electric wire release.

Camera designs

Plate camera

The earliest cameras produced in significant numbers used sensitised glass plates were plate cameras. Light entered a lens mounted on a lens board which was separated from the plate by an extendible bellows.There were simple box cameras for glass plates but also single-lens reflex cameras with interchangeable lenses and even for color photography (Autochrome Lumière). Many of these cameras had controls to raise or lower the lens and to tilt it forwards or backwards to control perspective.

Focussing of these plate cameras was by the use of a ground glass screen at the point of focus. Because lens design only allowed rather small aperture lenses, the image on the ground glass screen was faint and most photographers had a dark cloth to cover their heads to allow focussing and composition to be carried out more easily.  When focus and composition were satisfactory, the ground glass screen was removed and a sensitised plate put in its place protected by a dark slide. To make the exposure, the dark slide was carefully slid out and the shutter opened and then closed and the dark slide replaced.

Glass plates were later replaced by sheet film in a dark slide for sheet film; adaptor sleeves were made to allow sheet film to be used in plate holders. In addition to the ground glass, a simple optical viewfinder was often fitted. Cameras which take single exposures on sheet film and are functionally identical to plate cameras were used for static, high-image-quality work; much longer in 20th century, see Large-format camera, below.

Folding camera

The introduction of films enabled the existing designs for plate cameras to be made much smaller and for the base-plate to be hinged so that it could be folded up compressing the bellows. These designs were very compact and small models were dubbed vest pocket cameras. Folding rollfilm cameras were preceded by folding plate cameras, more compact than other designs.

Box camera

Box cameras were introduced as a budget level camera and had few if any controls. The original box Brownie models had a small reflex viewfinder mounted on the top of the camera and had no aperture or focusing controls and just a simple shutter. Later models such as the Brownie 127 had larger direct view optical viewfinders together with a curved film path to reduce the impact of deficiencies in the lens.

Rangefinder camera

As camera a lens technology developed and wide aperture lenses became more common, rangefinder cameras were introduced to make focussing more precise. Early rangefinders had two separate viewfinder windows, one of which is linked to the focusing mechanisms and moved right or left as the focusing ring is turned. The two separate images are brought together on a ground glass viewing screen. When vertical lines in the object being photographed meet exactly in the combined image, the object is in focus. A normal composition viewfinder is also provided. Later the viewfinder and rangefinder were combined. Many rangefinder cameras had interchangeable lenses, each lens requiring its own range- and viewfinder linkages.

Rangefinder cameras were produced in half- and full-frame 35 mm and rollfilm (medium format).

Instant picture camera

After exposure every photograph is taken through pinch rollers inside of the instant camera. Thereby the developer paste contained in the paper 'sandwich' distributes on the image. After a minute, the cover sheet just needs to be removed and one gets a single original positive image with a fixed format. With some systems it was also possible to create an instant image negative, from which then could be made copies in the photo lab. The ultimate development was the SX-70 system of Polaroid, in which a row of ten shots - engine driven - could be made without having to remove any cover sheets from the picture. There were instant cameras for a variety of formats, as well as cartridges with instant film for normal system cameras.

Single-lens reflex

In the single-lens reflex camera, the photographer sees the scene through the camera lens. This avoids the problem of parallax which occurs when the viewfinder or viewing lens is separated from the taking lens. Single-lens reflex cameras have been made in several formats including sheet film 5x7" and 4x5", roll film  220/120 taking 8,10, 12 or 16 photographs on a 120 roll and twice that number of a 220 film. These correspond to 6x9, 6x7, 6x6 and 6x4.5 respectively (all dimensions in cm). Notable manufacturers of large format and roll film SLR cameras include Bronica, Graflex, Hasselblad, Mamiya,  and Pentax. However the most common format of SLR cameras has been 35 mm and subsequently the migration to digital SLR cameras, using almost identical sized bodies and sometimes using the same lens systems.

Almost all SLR cameras use a front surfaced mirror in the optical path to direct the light from the lens via a viewing screen and pentaprism to the eyepiece. At the time of exposure the mirror is flipped up out of the light path before the shutter opens. Some early cameras experimented with other methods of providing through-the-lens viewing, including the use of a semi-transparent pellicle as in the Canon Pellix  and others with a small periscope such as in the Corfield Periflex series. 

Twin-lens reflex

Twin-lens reflex cameras used a pair of nearly identical lenses, one to form the image and one as a viewfinder. The lenses were arranged with the viewing lens immediately above the taking lens. The viewing lens projects an image onto a viewing screen which can be seen from above. Some manufacturers such as Mamiya also provided a reflex head to attach to the viewing screen to allow the camera to be held to the eye when in use. The advantage of a TLR was that it could be easily focussed using the viewing screen and that under most circumstances the view seen in the viewing screen was identical to that recorded on film. At close distances however, parallax errors were encountered and some cameras also included an indicator to show what part of the composition would be excluded.

Some TLR had interchangeable lenses but as these had to be paired lenses they were relatively heavy and did not provide the range of focal lengths that the SLR could support.  Most TLRs used 120 or 220 film; some used the smaller 127 film.

Large-format camera

The large-format camera, taking sheet film, is a direct successor of the early plate cameras and remained in use for high quality photography and for technical, architectural and industrial photography. There are three common types, the view camera with its monorail and field camera variants, and the press camera. They have an extensible bellows with the lens and shutter mounted on a lens plate at the front. Backs taking rollfilm, and later digital backs are available in addition to the standard dark slide back. These cameras have a wide range of movements allowing very close control of focus and perspective. Composition and focusing is done on view cameras by viewing a ground-glass screen which is replaced by the film to make the exposure; they are suitable for static subjects only, and are slow to use.

Medium-format camera

Medium-format cameras have a film size between the large-format cameras and smaller 35mm cameras. Typically these systems use 120 or 220 rollfilm. The most common image sizes are 6×4.5 cm, 6×6 cm and 6×7 cm; the older 6×9 cm is rarely used. The designs of this kind of camera show greater variation than their larger brethren, ranging from monorail systems through the classic Hasselblad model with separate backs, to smaller rangefinder cameras. There are even compact amateur cameras available in this format.

Subminiature camera

Cameras taking film significantly smaller than 35 mm were made. Subminiature cameras were first produced in the nineteenth century. The expensive 8×11 mm Minox, the only type of camera produced by the company from 1937 to 1976, became very widely known and was often used for espionage (the Minox company later also produced larger cameras). Later inexpensive subminiatures were made for general use, some using rewound 16 mm cine film. Image quality with these small film sizes was limited.

Movie camera

A ciné camera or movie camera takes a rapid sequence of photographs on image sensor or strips of film. In contrast to a still camera, which captures a single snapshot at a time, the ciné camera takes a series of images, each called a "frame" through the use of an intermittent mechanism.

The frames are later played back in a ciné projector at a specific speed, called the "frame rate" (number of frames per second). While viewing, a person's eyes and brain merge the separate pictures to create the illusion of motion. The first ciné camera was built around 1888 and by 1890 several types were being manufactured. The standard film size for ciné cameras was quickly established as 35mm film and this remained in use until transition to digital cinematography. Other professional standard formats include 70 mm film and 16mm film whilst amateurs film makers used 9.5 mm film, 8mm film or Standard 8 and Super 8 before the move into digital format.

The size and complexity of ciné cameras varies greatly depending on the uses required of the camera. Some professional equipment is very large and too heavy to be hand held whilst some amateur cameras were designed to be very small and light for single-handed operation.

Camcorders

A camcorder is an electronic device combining a video camera and a video recorder. Although marketing materials may use the colloquial term "camcorder", the name on the package and manual is often "video camera recorder". Most devices capable of recording video are camera phones and digital cameras primarily intended for still pictures; the term "camcorder" is used to describe a portable, self-contained device, with video capture and recording its primary function.

Professional video camera

A professional video camera (often called a television camera even though the use has spread beyond television) is a high-end device for creating electronic moving images (as opposed to a movie camera, that earlier recorded the images on film). Originally developed for use in television studios, they are now also used for music videos, direct-to-video movies, corporate and educational videos, marriage videos etc.

These cameras earlier used vacuum tubes and later electronic sensors.

Digital camera

A digital camera (or digicam) is a camera that encodes digital images and videos digitally and stores them for later reproduction.  Most cameras sold today are digital,  and digital cameras are incorporated into many devices ranging from mobile phones (called camera phones) to vehicles.

Digital and film cameras share an optical system, typically using a lens with a variable diaphragm to focus light onto an image pickup device.  The diaphragm and shutter admit the correct amount of light to the imager, just as with film but the image pickup device is electronic rather than chemical. However, unlike film cameras, digital cameras can display images on a screen immediately after being recorded, and store and delete images from memory. Most digital cameras can also record moving videos with sound.  Some digital cameras can crop and stitch pictures and perform other elementary image editing.

Consumers adopted digital cameras in 1990s. Professional video cameras transitioned to digital around the 2000s-2010s. Finally movie cameras transitioned to digital in the 2010s.

panoramic camera

Panoramic cameras are fixed-lens digital action cameras. They usually have a single fish-eye lens or multiple lenses, to cover the entire 180° up to 360° in their field of view.

VR Camera 

VR cameras are panoramic cameras that also cover the top and bottom in their field of view. . There have also been camera rigs employing multiple cameras to cover the whole 360° by 360° field of view. The most famous VR camera rig is known as 'Google Jump'.

Image gallery

File:Susse Frére Daguerreotype camera 1839.jpg|The Giroux daguerreotype camera, the first to be commercially produced
File:Studijskifotoaparat.JPG|19th century studio camera, with bellows for focusing
File:Leica IIIa Rangefinder.jpg|Rangefinder camera, Leica c. 1936
Image:Leica M9.jpg|Leica M9 with a Summicron-M 28/2 ASPH Lens
File:Olympus E-420.jpg|Olympus Four Thirds single-lens reflex camera
File:Rolleiflex camera.jpg|Twin-lens reflex camera
File:Institut Lumière - CINEMATOGRAPHE Camera.jpg|Cinématographe Lumière at the Institut Lumière, France
File:Canon PowerShot A95 - front and back.jpg|Front and back of Canon PowerShot A95, a typical pocket-size digital camera
File:Digital_television_camera.jpg| Digital television camera by Sony
File:Arri Alexa camera.jpg|Arri Alexa, a digital movie camera
File:Zenit - E camera with Helios 44-2 lens.JPG

George Eastman -  invented the roll of film - Famous Inventor
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz  - invented calculus independently of Newton
George Eastman -  invented the roll of film
George Eastman (July 12, 1854 – March 14, 1932) founded the Eastman Kodak Company and invented the roll of film, helping to bring photography to the mainstream. The roll film was also the basis for the invention of the motion picture film in 1888 by world's first filmmaker, Louis Le Prince, and a decade later by his followers Léon Bouly, Thomas Edison, the Lumière Brothers and Georges Méliès.
Biography
He was the third and youngest child of George Washington Eastman and Maria Kilbourn, both from the bordering town of Marshall. His third sister died shortly after her birth. In 1854, his father established the Eastman Commercial College in Rochester. The Eastman family moved to Rochester in 1865. Two years later after his father's death, George Eastman left high school to support his mother and sisters. At age 14 he began working as an office boy.
In 1874, Eastman became intrigued with photography, but found the process awkward. It required coating a glass plate with a liquid emulsion, which had to be quickly used before it dried. After three years of experimentation with British gelatin emulsions, Eastman developed a dry photographic plate, and patented it in both England and the US. In 1880 he began a photographic business.
In 1884, Eastman patented a photographic medium that replaced fragile glass plates with a photo-emulsion coated on paper rolls. The invention of roll film greatly sped up the process of recording multiple images.
Ad for the Kodak camera.
Eastman then received a patent in 1888 for a camera designed to use roll film. He coined the marketing phrase, "You press the button, we do the rest." The phrase entered the public consciousness. It was even incorporated into a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta (Utopia, Limited).
The camera owner could send in the camera with a processing fee of $10. The company would develop the film, print 100 pictures, and also send along a new roll of 100-exposures film.
On September 4, 1888 Eastman registered the trademark Kodak. The letter "K" had been a favorite of Eastman's. He said, "[I]t seems a strong, incisive sort of letter". Eastman and his mother devised the name Kodak with an anagram set. He used three principal concepts to create the name: it must be short, it could not be mispronounced, and it could not resemble anything else or be associated with anything but Kodak.
By 1896, 100 Kodak cameras had been sold. The first Kodak cost USD $25. In an effort to bring photography to the masses, Eastman introduced the Brownie in 1900 at a price of just $1. It became a great success.
In 1925, Eastman gave up his daily management of Kodak, to become chairman of the board. He thereafter concentrated on philanthropic activities, to which he had already donated substantial sums. He was one of the major philanthropists of his time, ranking only slightly behind Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and a few others, but did not seek publicity for his activities. He concentrated on institution-building and causes which could help people's health. He donated to the University of Rochester, establishing the Eastman School of Music and School of Dentistry; to Tuskegee Institute; and to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), donations which provided the capital to build several of their first buildings at their second campus along the Charles River.
In his final two years, Eastman was in intense pain, caused by a degenerative disorder affecting his spine. He had trouble standing and his walking became a slow shuffle. Today it might be diagnosed as spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal canal caused by calcification in the vertebrae. Eastman grew depressed, as he had seen his mother spend the last two years of her life in a wheelchair from the same condition. On March 14, 1932, Eastman committed suicide. He left a suicide note that read, "To my Friends, My work is done. Why wait?" His funeral was held at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Rochester. Eastman, who never married, was buried on the grounds of the company he founded at Kodak Park in Rochester, New York.
Legacy
During his lifetime, he donated $100 million, mostly to the University of Rochester and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (under the alias "Mr. Smith"). The Rochester Institute of Technology has a building dedicated to Mr. Eastman, in recognition of his support and substantial donations. He endowed the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester.
MIT has a plaque of Eastman (the rubbing of which is traditionally considered by students to bring good luck) in recognition of his donation. Eastman also made substantial gifts to the Tuskegee Institute and the Hampton Institute. Upon his drew, his entire estate went to the University of Rochester, where his name can be found on the Eastman Quadrangle of the River Campus. His former home at 900 East Avenue in Rochester, New York was opened as the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in 1949. On the 100th anniversary of his birth in 1954, Eastman was honored with a postage stamp from the United States Post Office.
A First Day Cover Honoring George Eastman 1954.
Eastman had a very astute business sense. He focused his company on making film when competition heated up in the camera industry. By providing quality and affordable film to every camera manufacturer, Kodak managed to turn its competitors into de facto business partners.
In 1926 George Eastman was approached by Lord Riddell, the Chairman of Royal Free Hospital, to fund a dental clinic in London. He agreed to give £200,000 which was matched by £50,000 each from Lord Riddell and Sir Albert Levy, the Royal Free's honorary treasurer.
The Eastman Dental Clinic was opened in 20 November 1931 by the American Ambassador in the presence of Neville Chamberlain. The building, which resembled the Rochester Dispensary, was totally integrated into the Royal Free Hospital and included three wards for oral, ear, nose, and throat and cleft lip and palate surgery and was dedicated to providing dental care for children from the poor districts of central London.
See also
•Eastman Dental Institute London
References
1.^ George Eastman - The Man: About His Life. Kodak: History of Kodak. Retrieved on December 7, 2006.
2.^ Kodak film patented on October 14, 1884
3.^ Men of 1914: An Accurate Biographical Record of Prominent Men in All Walks of Life Who Have Achieved Success in Their Chosen Vocations in the Various Civil, Industrial, and Commercial Lines of Activity, Chicago: American Publishers' Association, 1915, OCLC 49777827
4.^ Building the Foundation. Kodak: History of Kodak. Retrieved on December 7, 2006.
5.^ Kodak Origins. Retrieved on 2007-02-02.
6.^ Rochester's History. George Eastman. Retrieved on 2007-02-02.
7.^ - George Eastman Biography (2006) nnbd.com.
8.^ - Famous Suicide Notes (2006) corsinet.com.
9.^ Ford, Carin T. (2004). George Eastman: The Kodak Camera Man. Enslow Publishers, INC..
• ^ - History of the Eastman Dental Institute (2007) eastman.ucl.ac.uk
•
Books
•Carl W. Ackerman, George Eastman: Founder of Kodak and the Photography Business (1930), Beard Books, ISBN 1-89312299-9
•Elizabeth Brayer, George Eastman: A Biography (1996), John's Hopkins University Press, ISBN 0-8018-5263-3, University of Rochester Press 2006 reprint: ISBN 1-58046247-2
External links
•George Eastman archive at the University of Rochester
•The George Eastman Memorial

Milestones | Kodak
MILESTONES
1878 1930 1960 1980 1990 2000 2010
George Eastman was one of the first to demonstrate the great convenience of gelatin dry plates over the cumbersome and messy wet plate photography prevalent in his day. Dry plates could be exposed and developed at the photographer's convenience; wet plates had to be coated, exposed at once, and developed while still wet.
1878
Eastman invented an emulsion-coating machine which enabled him to mass-produce photographic dry plates.
1879
Eastman began commercial production of dry plates in a rented loft of a building in Rochester, N.Y.
1880
In January, Eastman and Henry A. Strong (a family friend and buggy-whip manufacturer) formed a partnership known as the Eastman Dry Plate Company. ♦ In September, Eastman quit his job as a bank clerk to devote his full time to the business.
1881
The Eastman Dry Plate Company completed transfer of operations to a four-story building at what is now 343 State Street, Rochester, NY, the company's worldwide headquarters.
1883
The business was changed from a partnership to a $200,000 corporation with 14 shareowners when the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company was formed. ♦ EASTMAN Negative Paper was introduced. ♦ Eastman and William H. Walker, an associate, invented a roll holder for negative papers.
1884
EASTMAN American Film was introduced - the first transparent photographic "film" as we know it today. ♦ The company opened a wholesale office in London, England.
1885
George Eastman became one of the first American industrialists to employ a full-time research scientist to aid in the commercialization of a flexible, transparent film base.
1886
The name "Kodak" was born and the KODAK camera was placed on the market, with the slogan, "You press the button - we do the rest." This was the birth of snapshot photography, as millions of amateur picture-takers know it today.
1888
The first commercial transparent roll film, perfected by Eastman and his research chemist, was put on the market. The availability of this flexible film made possible the development of Thomas Edison's motion picture camera in 1891. ♦ A new corporation - The Eastman Company - was formed, taking over the assets of the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company.
1889
The company marketed its first daylight-loading camera, which meant that the photographer could now reload the camera without using a darkroom. ♦ The manufacture of photographic film and paper was transferred to four newly-constructed buildings at Kodak Park, in Rochester. Also, the company's first manufacturing plant outside the U.S. was opened in Harrow, England.
1891
The company became Eastman Kodak Company of New York.
1892
A six-story Camera Works was built on State Street, in Rochester, to manufacture the growing line of box and folding roll-film cameras.
1893
The Pocket KODAK Camera was announced. It used roll film and incorporated a small window through which positioning numbers for exposures could be read.
1895
One year after the discovery of x-rays, Eastman entered into an agreement to supply plates and paper for the new process. ♦ Kodak also marketed the first film especially coated for motion picture use.
1896
Kodak established a wholly-owned subsidiary in France, expanding a branch office which had been opened in 1891.
1897
Kodak marketed the Folding Pocket KODAK Camera, now considered the ancestor of all modern roll-film cameras. It produced a 2 1/4-inch by 3 1/4-inch negative, which remained the standard size for decades. ♦ The company's suggestion system began. It provided cash payments to employees for suggestions that improved the company's operations.
1898
The company developed the continuous wheel process for manufacturing transparent film base, which had previously been coated on long tables. ♦ Eastman awarded Kodak employees a bonus from his personal funds for their "extra good work." ♦ Kodak Canada Limited was organized as a distribution center in Toronto.
1899
The first of the famous BROWNIE Cameras was introduced. It sold for $1 and used film that sold for 15 cents a roll. For the first time, the hobby of photography was within the financial reach of virtually everyone.
1900
Eastman Kodak Company of New Jersey, the present parent company, was formed. George Eastman became president of the New Jersey holding company. Henry A. Strong, Eastman's original partner, remained at the head of the New York company until his death in 1919.
1901
The KODAK Developing Machine made it possible for amateurs to process their own film without a darkroom.
1902
KODAK Non-Curling Film, which would remain the standard for amateur photography for nearly 30 years, was introduced.
1903
Kodak's worldwide employment passed the 5,000 mark.
1907
Kodak produced the world's first commercially practical safety film using cellulose acetate base instead of the highly flammable cellulose nitrate base. ♦ A manufacturing plant was opened in Australia.
1908
The company's Blair Camera factory in Rochester was renamed the Hawk-Eye Works, and a department for the design of optics was established there in 1912. ♦ Eastman created a benefit, accident, and pension fund for employees. ♦ The company's first safety committee was organized to study accident prevention.
1911
Eastman hired Dr. C.E. Kenneth Mees, a British scientist, to organize and head a research laboratory in Rochester, one of the first industrial research centers in the U.S. ♦ Kodak employees received their first Wage Dividend, a profit-sharing program that continues in the U.S. today.
1912
The introduction of EASTMAN Portrait Film began a transition to the use of sheet film instead of glass plates for professional photographers.
1913
A 16-story office building, the company's present worldwide headquarters, was completed at 343 State Street in Rochester. Three more stories were added in 1930.
1914
Kodak developed aerial cameras and trained aerial photographers for the U.S. Signal Corps during World War I. Eastman also offered the U.S. Navy supplies of cellulose acetate for coating airplane wings and producing unbreakable lenses for gas masks.
1917
Tennessee Eastman Company was organized to manufacture wood alcohol for film base.
1920
The Eastman Savings and Loan Association was established to help employees save and to finance home purchases. It remained part of the company until it became a self-standing credit union in 1994.
1921
Kodak made amateur motion pictures practical with the introduction of 16 mm reversal film on cellulose acetate (safety) base, the first 16 mm CINE-KODAK Motion Picture Camera, and the KODASCOPE Projector. The immediate popularity of 16 mm movies resulted in a network of Kodak processing laboratories throughout the world.
1923
Eastman became chairman of Kodak's board of directors. William G. Stuber, whom Eastman had hired in 1894 to direct emulsion-making, was elected president.
1925
Kodak employment throughout the world passed the 20,000 mark.
1927
Motion pictures in color became a reality for amateur cinematographers with the introduction of 16 mm KODACOLOR Film. ♦ The first microfilm system, designed to simplify the management of bank records, was introduced by Recordak Corporation, a newly-formed subsidiary of Kodak. ♦ Retirement annuity, life insurance, and disability benefit programs were established for Kodak men and women.
1928
The company introduced its first motion picture film designed especially for making the then new sound motion pictures.
1929
Kodak purchased a gelatin manufacturing plant in Peabody, Massachusetts, and formed Eastman Gelatin Corporation.
1930
Tennessee Eastman began marketing its first cellulose acetate yarn in the textile field. ♦ Kodak introduced KODALITH Film and Plates, which replaced the collodion wet plates used in the graphic arts industry. ♦ KODAK VERICHROME Film was introduced, offering greater latitude and finer grain than the KODAK NC (Non-Curling) Film that had been the standard since 1903. ♦ Kodak bought the Nagel Camera Company in Stuttgart, Germany. This became Kodak A.G., which for decades served as an equipment manufacturing site for Kodak. Another German factory in Koepenick was lost in the division of Germany after World War II.
1931
The first 8 mm amateur motion picture film, cameras, and projectors were introduced. ♦ Tennessee Eastman began production of its first plastic - EASTMAN TENITE Acetate. ♦ George Eastman died, leaving his entire residual estate to the University of Rochester. In 1949, his Rochester home was opened as an independent public museum - The International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House.
1932
Kodak and Western Electric jointly commercialized high-speed industrial photography with a high-speed camera, synchronized with an electric timer.
1933
Kodak A.G. (Germany) introduced the first of its 35 mm precision KODAK RETINA Cameras. ♦ Kodak and General Mills, Inc. began a joint research program on molecular distillation, based on earlier Kodak research. By 1938, Distillation Products, Incorporated was manufacturing vitamin concentrates and, in 1948, Kodak bought General Mills' interest in the company. ♦ William G. Stuber became chairman of the board of directors and Frank Lovejoy succeeded him as president.
1934
KODACHROME Film was introduced and became the first commercially successful amateur color film. It was initially offered in 16 mm format for motion pictures; 35 mm slides and 8 mm home movies followed in 1936.
1935
Kodak introduced a new home movie camera - the 16 mm Magazine CINE-KODAK Camera - that used film in magazines instead of rolls. A year later, Kodak introduced its first 16 mm sound-on-film projector, the Sound KODASCOPE Special Projector.
1936
Kodak introduced its first slide projector, the KODASLIDE Projector. A top-load model, it took one slide at a time.
1937
Kodak developed the first camera with built-in photoelectric exposure control – the Super KODAK Six-20 Camera.
1938
Kodak added a READY-MOUNT Service for 35 mm KODACHROME Film. This made it possible to project slides as soon as they were received from a Kodak processing laboratory. ♦ The company began a program of annual fellowship grants to colleges and universities throughout the nation.
1939
Kodak marketed the versatile KODAK EKTRA Camera, with a shutter-speed range from 1/1000 to 1 second. ♦ Airgraph, or "V-Mail," was developed by Kodak as a system for microfilming letters to conserve shipping space during World War II. ♦ Frank Lovejoy was elected chairman of the board and Thomas J. Hargrave, previously head of the company's legal department, became president.
1941
KODACOLOR Film for prints, the world's first true color negative film, was announced. ♦ Kodak's Rochester plants were awarded the U.S. Army-Navy "E" for high achievement in the production of equipment and films for the war effort.
1942
Perley S. Wilcox succeeded Frank Lovejoy as chairman of the board of directors. He had previously directed the formation of Tennessee Eastman Company in 1920.
1945
Kodak marketed KODAK EKTACHROME Transparency Sheet Film, the company's first color film that photographers could process themselves using newly marketed chemical kits. ♦ Kodak employment worldwide passed the 60,000 mark.
1946
The world's first commercial production of synthetic vitamin A began at Distillation Product Industries (DPI); DPI discontinued vitamin A production in 1973. ♦ Kodak introduced the EASTMAN Television Recording Camera, in cooperation with DuMont Laboratories and NBC, for recording images from a television screen.
1947
Kodak announced a 35 mm tri-acetate safety base film for the motion picture industry to replace the flammable cellulose nitrate base - and received an Oscar® for it two years later. ♦ Fully automatic processing of snapshots was made possible by the KODAK Continuous Paper Processor. The machine produced 2,400 finished snapshots an hour.
1948
The company unveiled the first in its long-running series of KODAK COLORAMA Display transparencies - 18 feet high and 60 feet wide - overlooking the main terminal floor of Grand Central Station in New York City. An estimated 650,000 commuters and tourists viewed this popular attraction every business day, and many of the dramatic photographs displayed over the years were the subject of widespread newspaper and magazine coverage. The exhibit was permanently dismantled in early 1989 as part of Grand Central's restoration.
1950
The low-priced BROWNIE 8 mm Movie Camera was introduced. The BROWNIE Movie Projector was added in 1952, and the BROWNIE Turret Camera was introduced in 1955. ♦ Recordak Corporation introduced the new BANTAM Microfilmer with the highest reduction ratio ever achieved - 40:1. ♦ The Texas Eastman Company began operations in Longview, Texas, for the production of alcohols and aldehydes for the chemical trade. ♦ Dr. Albert K. Chapman succeeded Thomas J. Hargrave as president of the company when Hargrave became chairman of the board.
1951
KODAK TRI-X Film, a high-speed black-and-white film, was introduced. ♦ Texas Eastman constructed a new plant to produce EASTMAN TENITE polyethylene plastic. ♦ Kodak Brasileira began operating a sensitizing plant in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
1954
Kodak began selling color films without the cost of processing included, as the result of a consent decree signed in 1954. The long-term result was the creation of a new market for Kodak, providing products and services to independent photofinishers. ♦ The company's employment throughout the world reached 73,000.
1955
Black-and-white KODAK VERICHROME Pan Film was introduced, replacing the popular KODAK VERICHROME Film that was launched in 1931. ♦ Tennessee Eastman introduced VEREL Fiber for use in rugs, draperies and other household furnishings. ♦ Kodak formed the Apparatus and Optical Division, which included the Camera Works and the Hawk-Eye Works in Rochester.
1956
The KODAK BROWNIE STARMATIC Cameras were introduced. These cameras eventually included seven models, and more than 10 million were sold over the next five years.
1957
The KODAK CAVALCADE Projector, the company's first fully automatic slide projector, was introduced. ♦ The KODAK X-OMAT Processor reduced the processing time for x-ray films from one hour to six minutes. ♦ The company's first single-lens reflex camera, the KODAK RETINA Reflex Camera, was manufactured by Kodak A.G. in Stuttgart, Germany. ♦ KODAK Polyester Textile Fiber, developed by Tennessee Eastman, was made available for use in clothing. A plant for large-scale production of EASTMAN KODEL Fiber was built in 1960.
1958
KODAK High Speed EKTACHROME Film became the fastest color film on the market. ♦ Fully automatic exposure control was introduced on two Kodak still cameras and four 8 mm movie cameras. ♦ The number of Kodak shareowners passed the 100,000 mark.
1959
KODAK ESTAR Film Base (a polyester film base) was introduced to give improved dimensional stability to KODALITH Graphic Arts Film. ♦ The RECORDAK RELIANT 500 Microfilmer was introduced and was capable of photographing up to 500 checks or 185 letters in one minute. ♦ Dr. Albert K. Chapman became vice-chairman of the board of directors and William S. Vaughn became president and chief executive officer.
1960
The company introduced the first in its very successful line of KODAK CAROUSEL Projectors, which featured a round tray holding 80 slides. ♦ KODACHROME II Film was introduced, providing a significant improvement over the long-established KODACHROME Film.
1961
The company's U.S. consolidated sales exceeded $1 billion for the first time and worldwide employment passed the 75,000 mark. ♦ John Glenn became the first American astronaut to orbit the earth, and Kodak film recorded his reactions to traveling through space at 17,400 miles per hour. ♦ Dr. Albert K. Chapman became chairman of the board of directors following the death of Thomas J. Hargrave.
1962
The line of KODAK INSTAMATIC Cameras was introduced, featuring easy-to-use cartridge-loading film, which brought amateur photography to new heights of popularity. More than 50 million INSTAMATIC Cameras were produced by 1970.
1963
The Kodak Pavilion at the New York World's Fair was one of the ten largest buildings at the international exposition. The "Tower of Photography" featured the largest outdoor color prints ever exhibited.
1964
Kodak developed the super 8 format and launched super 8 movies with new cartridge-loading KODACHROME II Film. ♦ KODAK INSTAMATIC Cameras enabled picture-takers to take four flash pictures without changing flashbulbs. ♦ New automated processing systems reduced the processing time for x-ray films to a mere 90 seconds.
1965
The KODAK 2620 Color Printer incorporated an electronic memory to produce 2,000 to 3,000 prints an hour. ♦ "The photograph of the century," a close-up of the crater Copernicus on the moon, was made by Lunar Orbiter II, using a dual-lens camera, film, processor, and readout device supplied by Kodak. ♦ Combined sales of all Kodak units around the world surpassed $4 billion, and Kodak employment throughout the world passed the 100,000 mark.
1966
Relocation of the Camera Works plant was begun on a 600-acre site in the town of Gates, NY. The site, Elmgrove Plant, was the center of U.S. equipment manufacturing until its sale in 2000. Afterwards, its operations moved to other Kodak locations. ♦ William S. Vaughn became chairman of the board of directors and Dr. Louis K. Eilers succeeded him as president.
1967
Carolina Eastman Company was dedicated in Columbia, South Carolina, for the manufacture of KODEL Polyester fibers and yarn.
1968
Construction began on Kodak Colorado Division - a manufacturing unit for films and papers, located in Windsor, Colorado. ♦ A very special stereo camera made by Kodak accompanied astronauts Aldrin and Armstrong when they set foot on the moon. ♦ Kodak received an Emmy® Award for its development of fast color film processing for television use. ♦ The KODAK EKTAGRAPHIC Slide Projector, Kodak's first slide projector designed for the professional audio-visual market, was introduced. ♦ The number of shareowners passed the 200,000 mark.
1969
A new film manufacturing plant in Guadalajara, Mexico was dedicated. ♦ The company's suggestion system received its one millionth suggestion. ♦ Dr. Louis K. Eilers became chairman of the board and Gerald B. Zornow was named president. ♦ More than 50 million KODAK INSTAMATIC Cameras were produced from 1963 to 1970.
1970
Kodak introduced KODAK EKTACHROME 160 Movie Film (Type A) and two new super 8 movie cameras which, in combination, made possible "existing light" movies for home use. ♦ The Marketing Education Center (also known as the Riverwood site), opened as a training facility that offered a variety of educational services to professionals who used Kodak products.
1971
Kodak reduced the popular INSTAMATIC Camera to pocket size with the introduction of five different KODAK Pocket INSTAMATIC Cameras, using a new KODAK 110 Film Cartridge. The line was so popular that more than 25 million cameras were produced in slightly under three years. ♦ Walter A. Fallon became president and chief executive officer and Gerald B. Zornow was elected chairman of the board.
1972
The company unveiled sound home movies with the introduction of two super 8 sound movie cameras and cartridge-loading super 8 film, magnetically striped for sound recording. ♦ Worldwide employment passed the 120,000 mark.
1973
Kodak invented the world's first digital camera. The prototype was the size of a toaster and captured black-and-white images at a resolution of 10,000 pixels (.01 megapixels). ♦ Kodak introduced the KODAK EKTAPRINT 100 Copier-Duplicator, which received immediate industry acclaim for its high-quality copies and the user conveniences made possible by an on-board microcomputer.
1975
The line of KODAK EKTAPRINT Copier-Duplicators was expanded to six different models. ♦ New KODAK ORACLE and KODAK STARVUE Microfilm Products were introduced, providing high-speed, automated retrieval of microfilmed images. ♦ New KODAK Instant Cameras, and a print film for self-developing color prints, were announced.
1976
Arkansas Eastman Company, the newest member of the Eastman Chemicals Division, began commercial production of organic chemicals. ♦ Walter A. Fallon was elected chairman of the board and Colby H. Chandler became president.
1977
Eastman Chemicals Division introduced EASTMAN KODAPAK Thermoplastic Polyester for use in manufacturing beverage bottles.
1978
Kodak celebrated its 100th anniversary. ♦ The company announced its entry into the clinical diagnostic market with the KODAK EKTACHEM 400 Analyzer, utilizing dry-chemistry blood serum analysis.
1980
Company sales surpassed the $10 billion mark. ♦ Kodak acquired Atex, Inc., a manufacturer of computer-based publishing systems. ♦ The introduction of KODAK EKTAFLEX PCT Color Printmaking Products made it easy for home darkroom enthusiasts to make color enlargements.
1981
Kodak launched "disc photography" with a line of compact, "decision-free" cameras built around a rotating disc of film. ♦ KODACOLOR VR 100 Film was introduced, using a new T-GRAIN Emulsion Technology which represented a major break-through in silver-halide emulsions. ♦ The Kodak pavilion opened in Walt Disney World's new EPCOT Center near Orlando, Florida.
1982
Colby H. Chandler was elected chairman and chief executive officer and Kay R. Whitmore became president. ♦ The KODAK KAR 4000 Information System provided advanced capabilities for computer-assisted storage and retrieval of microfilm images. ♦ Tennessee Eastman began operation of the only commercial plant in the U.S. for making industrial chemicals from coal. ♦ The KODAK EKTACHEM DT60 Analyzer, a desktop unit, brought the convenience of dry-chemistry blood serum analysis to the physician's office.
1983
Kodak entered the video market with the KODAVISION Series 2000 8 mm video system and introduced KODAK Videotape Cassettes in 8 mm, Beta, and VHS formats. ♦ The company announced a full line of flexible floppy disks for personal computers.
1984
The company introduced two new image management systems - the KODAK EKTAPRINT Electronic Publishing System (KEEPS) and the KODAK Information Management System (KIMS). ♦ Minilab systems for photofinishers were introduced, offering consumers exceptionally fast photo print service.
1985
The company introduced two new KODACOLOR VR-G 35 Films and re-entered the 35 mm camera market with two new Kodak VR 35 Cameras. ♦ The company announced KODAK ULTRALIFE Lithium Power Cells, the world's first 9-volt lithium cells for consumer use, and entered the general consumer battery market with a line of KODAK SUPRALIFE Batteries. ♦ Kodak entered a new health-care business with the establishment of its Eastman Pharmaceuticals Division.
1986
The company entered the electronic still-video market with seven products for recording, storing, manipulating, transmitting and printing electronic still video images. ♦ Construction began on a new state-of-the-art sensitizing plant in Rochester, N.Y., for coating color films for professional use. ♦ Kodak announced its first one-time-use camera - the KODAK FLING Camera - which contained a 110 KODACOLOR Film Cartridge.
1987
Kodak acquired Sterling Drug Inc., providing the infrastructure and marketing ability Kodak needed to participate in markets for ethical/prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Kodak eventually sold its non-imaging health-related businesses in 1994. ♦ Qualex, Inc. was established as a joint venture between Kodak and Fuqua Industries, Inc., merging the operations of about 90 photographic processing labs owned by the two parties. ♦ The first line of color negative films created especially for photojournalists was introduced with KODAK EKTAPRESS GOLD Films. ♦ Black-and-white film technology progressed with KODAK T-MAX P3200 Film. ♦ The KODAK CREATE-A-PRINT 35 mm Enlargement Center enabled consumers to crop and make their own enlargements in a few minutes.
1988
Kodak celebrated the 100th anniversary of motion pictures by introducing EASTMAN EXR Color Negative Films. ♦ The KODAK XL 7700 Digital Continuous Tone Printer, which produced large format thermal color prints, was introduced. ♦ The one-time-use KODAK STRETCH 35 Camera produced 3 1/2 x 10 - inch prints for panoramic scenes. ♦ The one-time-use KODAK WEEKEND 35 Camera was an all-weather camera capable of taking pictures underwater down to a depth of 8 feet. ♦ The KODAK IMAGELINK Component Series (for document imaging) and KODAK OPTISTAR Products (for computer output) offered a choice of micrographic or digital capture of images. ♦ The KODAK X-OMATIC RA cassette significantly reduced radiographic exposure for pediatric patients.
1989
Kay Whitmore was elected Kodak Chairman and CEO. ♦ Kodak announced the development of its Photo CD system for playing images on television screens, and proposed a worldwide standard for defining color in the digital environment of computers and computer peripherals. ♦ The KODAK PREMIER Image Enhancement System helped commercial and industrial photography labs achieve new levels of quality and productivity by combining silver-halide and electronic technologies to scan photographs, digitize the information, and then output to photographic film or paper. ♦ The company announced its first product in a new family of document management systems, providing high-speed printing capability for centralized duplicating departments. ♦ Kodak began a recycling program for one-time use cameras and also began using recycled paperboard for film boxes.
1990
Sterling Drug Inc. announced an agreement with Sanofi, a leading French pharmaceutical company, that would result in a number of joint ventures between the companies. ♦ The KODAK Professional Digital Camera System (DCS) was introduced, enabling photojournalists to take electronic pictures with a Nikon F-3 camera equipped by Kodak with a 1.3 megapixel sensor. ♦ New copiers from Kodak offered innovative digital features, such as the ability to customize copies of original documents. ♦ Kodak completed construction, started in 1986, of a new state-of-the-art sensitizing plant in Rochester, N.Y., for coating color professional and motion picture films.
1991
The KODAK FUN SAVER Telephoto 35 Camera was added to the popular line of one-time use cameras. ♦ Kodak sold its 100,000th X-OMAT X-ray film processor, first introduced in 1956. ♦ The company announced a joint R&D project with Canon, Fuji, Minolta and Nikon to develop an Advanced Photographic System. ♦ New digital products included the KODAK Professional DCS 200 Digital Camera and the KODAK XLT 7720 Digital Continuous Tone Printer. ♦ KODAK EKTAPRO Projectors became the first Kodak slide projectors to connect to a computer. ♦ Kodak received an R&D 100 Award for its INSIGHT Thoracic Imaging System, which produced significantly improved X-ray images of soft tissues. ♦ KODACOLOR film celebrated its 50th anniversary.
1992
Kodak introduced 20 new photographic products, including the sleek, compact CAMEO 35 mm Camera Line; new EKTACHROME LUMIERE Films; an underwater version of EKTACHROME Film; and the KODAK FUN SAVER Portrait 35 One-Time Use Camera. ♦ The company launched a stream of new software products and Photo CD formats for commercial use, in addition to a portable Photo CD player. ♦ Using Kodak's new CINEON Technology, Kodak technicians digitally restored Walt Disney's 1937 classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. ♦ George M.C. Fisher, previously CEO of Motorola, became Kodak's Chairman and CEO. ♦ At year-end, Eastman Chemical Company (including Distillation Products business), founded in 1920, was spun off to shareholders and became an independent company with its own board of directors and New York Stock Exchange listing.
1993
Kodak announced 30 new products, including KODAK ROYAL GOLD Film and new digital imaging products and services. Digital products included the KODAK Copyprint Station, for making new prints from old prints; the KODAK Digital Enhancement Station 100, enabling retailers to help consumers eliminate defects such as "red-eye;" and the KODAK Creation Station, an easy-to-use walk-up center for making digital prints from negatives, slides, prints and Photo CD images. ♦ Kodak divested its non-imaging health-related businesses - Sterling Winthrop, L&F Products and Clinical Diagnostics - enabling the company to focus all of its resources on its core imaging business.
1994
Kodak introduced its Internet website, kodak.com, providing an opportunity for Internet users all over the world to learn more about Kodak's people, products, services, and history. ♦ Kodak advanced its digital imaging business with the KODAK DC40 Point-and-Shoot Digital Camera, and new premium-grade paper and transparency film formulated to provide high-quality color images from ink-jet printers. ♦ Kodak announced that Danka Business Systems PLC would sell and service KODAK High-Volume Copiers throughout the U.S. and Canada.
1995
The Advanced Photo System format was introduced. Features included drop-in film cartridge loading, mid-roll change enabling the film to be removed before being completely exposed, and three picture formats (Classic, Group, and Panoramic). Kodak unveiled the ADVANTIX Brand, for its related products. ♦ The company unveiled the first in a series of pocket-sized digital cameras for the rapidly growing consumer digital market. ♦ Kodak television commercials featured the theme, "Take Pictures. Further.," a campaign designed to broaden the appeal of the Kodak brand. ♦ The company shipped its 10,000th medical laser printer, the KODAK EKTASCAN 2180 Laser Printer. ♦ Daniel A. Carp was appointed Kodak's President and Chief Operating Officer.
1996
Kodak sold the sales, marketing, and equipment service operations of its Office Imaging business and its facilities management business (formerly known as Kodak Imaging Services) to Danka Business Systems PLC. ♦ The company introduced four new KODAK GOLD Films (100, 200, 400 and Max 800 speeds) that employed COLORSHARP Technology. ♦ By February, the company had recycled more than 100 million one-time-use cameras since the program began in 1990. ♦ The KODAK Picture Network was announced, enabling people to view their photos, order reprints, and share their pictures with friends and family around the world via the Internet. ♦ In April, the company unveiled the KODAK DIGITAL SCIENCE DC120 Zoom Digital Camera, the first point-and-shoot megapixel quality digital camera under $1,000. ♦ Kodak and Sun Chemical Corporation agreed to form a joint venture, Kodak Polychrome Graphics, to supply the graphic arts market with sensitized products as well as computer-to-plate and other digital solutions. ♦ An advanced Kodak image sensor allowed NASA's Mars Rover to "see" as it moved about to explore that planet's surface.
1997
KODAK PROFESSIONAL PORTRA Color Negative Films, and KODAK PROFESSIONAL SUPRA III Color Paper were introduced. ♦ America Online and Kodak announced "You've Got Pictures!" a service where AOL members could have their processed pictures delivered online. ♦ Kodak acquired most of Imation Corporation's worldwide medical imaging business, including the DRYVIEW Laser Imaging business. ♦ Astronaut John Glenn and the other members of the STS-95 crew used a KODAK PROFESSIONAL DCS 460 Digital Camera to capture high-resolution images for real-time transmission back to Earth during their space flight.
1998
Kodak sold its digital printer, copier/duplicator, and roller assembly operations to Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG. The two companies also expanded their NEXPRESS Joint Venture, which was created in 1989. ♦ The company announced New DURALIFE Paper for snapshots set performance benchmarks for tear-resistance, durability, brightness/whiteness, image sharpness, and curl resistance. ♦ Kodak's Commercial & Government Systems business introduced an Earth-imaging digital camera capable of showing surface objects as small as one meter in length. ♦ Kodak and Lexmark International, Inc. teamed up to introduce the KODAK Personal Picture Maker for home printing of digital images. ♦ The Health Imaging business announced the KODAK DRYVIEW 8600 Laser Imaging System for mammography and three state-of-the-art digital radiography systems for capturing x-ray images. ♦ Kodak and Sanyo Electric Co. unveiled the world's first commercial model of a full-color, active matrix organic electroluminescent (OLED) display.
1999
Daniel A. Carp became Kodak's CEO in addition to his role as President. ♦ Kodak's Health Imaging unit introduced 45 new products during the year, including, KODAK INSIGHT Intraoral Dental Film, a dental radiography film that helped dentists reduce radiation exposure to patients while delivering excellent images, and two new digital radiography systems, the KODAK DirectView DR 9000 and DirectViewDR 5000. ♦ Kodak's Entertainment Imaging unit and Qualcomm Inc. launched an initiative to collaborate on testing, core technologies for the creation of a high-quality digital cinema system. ♦ At year-end, Kodak completed the acquisition of Lumisys, Inc., a leading provider of desktop computed radiography systems and x-ray film digitizers.
2000
Daniel A. Carp became Kodak's Chairman in addition to his role as President and CEO. ♦ The company completed its acquisition of Bell & Howell Company's imaging businesses. ♦ Kodak announced a new worldwide advertising campaign, "Share Moments. Share Life." ♦ The KODAK EASYSHARE System, a new line of digital cameras and docking systems that set the standard for ease of use for digital photography, was launched. ♦ In June, the company acquired Ofoto, Inc., a leading online photography service.
2001
Kodak acquired Encad, Inc., a subsidiary focused on the wide-format inkjet printing industry. ♦ KODAK PERFECT TOUCH Processing was introduced. It improved sharpness, contrast and color in photographic prints by individually scanning and digitally processing each picture. ♦ The company introduced the KODAK 8500 Digital Photo Printer, a photo-quality, thermal desktop printer. ♦ Low-volume KODAK i200 Series Scanners featured much of the technology found in Kodak’s higher-speed scanners, plus the market’s first dockable flatbed accessory ♦ Kodak and Sanyo Electric Co. unveiled a prototype of a fifteen-inch flat-panel display based on Kodak's patented organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology. ♦ The company unveiled KODAK VISION2 Motion Picture Color Negative Film, a descendant of the VISION Films which were introduced in 1995 and quickly became the most widely used motion-picture films in the world.
2002
The KODAK EASYSHARE Printer Dock 6000, which enabled consumers to produce durable, borderless 4" x 6" KODAK Prints at home, was introduced. ♦ New digital cameras included the KODAK EASYSHARE LS633 Zoom Digital Camera, the first digital camera to feature an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display, and the KODAK EASYSHARE DX6490 Camera for advanced amateur photographers.. ♦ Kodak made several acquisitions including PracticeWorks, Inc., a provider of dental practice management software; 20% of Lucky Film Co., Ltd., the largest maker of photo film headquartered in China; Laser-Pacific Media Corporation, a provider of post-production services for filmmakers; Algotec Systems Ltd., developer of picture archiving and communications systems for the health industry; and Applied Science Fiction's Digital PIC rapid film processing technology. ♦ Antonio M. Perez joined the company as President and Chief Operating Officer. ♦ The company unveiled a new digitally oriented strategy to expand into a range of commercial businesses.
2003
KODAK EASYSHARE Digital Cameras ranked highest in the J.D. Power and Associates 2004 Digital Camera Satisfaction Study for the $200-$399 and $400-$599 price segments. ♦ Kodak became sole owner of the former NEXPRESS Joint Venture (centered on electrophotographic variable-data printing systems), and Scitex Digital Printing (a leader in high-speed variable data inkjet printing). The latter was renamed Kodak Versamark, Inc. ♦ The company bought remaining shares of Chinon Industries, a digital camera manufacturer, acquired the imaging sensor business of National Semiconductor, and formed an alliance with IBM to manufacture CMOS image sensors. ♦ To more closely focus on its growth areas, Kodak sold its Remote Sensing Systems business, which served defense and aerospace customers, to ITT Industries. ♦ Construction began on a manufacturing facility at Kodak's Windsor, Colorado site to expand capacity for thermal media used in products like Kodak's popular picture kiosks. ♦ The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted approval for Kodak's innovative mammography computer-aided detection system designed to aid radiologists in early detection of breast cancer. ♦ KODAK Ultima Picture Paper, with COLORLAST technology, was introduced. When used with the latest inks, photos printed on this inkjet paper will last for more than 100 years in typical home display.
2004
The EASYSHARE-ONE Zoom Digital Camera provided an unprecedented ability to hold up to 1,500 pictures for instant display and to wirelessly transmit images for printing, e-mailing or online viewing. ♦ Smaller than a deck of playing cards, EASYSHARE V-Series Cameras offered the ability to take print-quality still images from video, or torecord up to 80 continuous minutes of TV-quality videos with sound. ♦ The company's OFOTO Online Photo Service changed its name to KODAK EASYSHARE Gallery. ♦ Kodak acquired OREX Computed Radiography Ltd., a leading provider of compact computed radiography systems that digitally acquire x-ray images. ♦ Continuing to grow its Graphic Communications business, the company became sole owner of former joint venture Kodak Polychrome Graphics and acquired Creo Inc.— a premier supplier of prepress and workflow systems. ♦ New offerings for the graphics industry included the KODAK Enterprise Management Solution for business workflow, and the KODAK VERSAMARK VX5000e printing system which offered an effective resolution twice that previously available with continuous inkjet printheads. ♦ Antonio M. Perez became Kodak CEO, in addition to his role as President. ♦ Kodak announced availability of the first CMOS image sensor (CIS) devices to come from its manufacturing alliance with IBM. ♦ Kodak introduced molecular imaging systems that, through a non-invasive procedure, help identify molecular abnormalities that signal disease at a very early stage. At this point the systems are not intended for human use, but they will aid laboratory researchers in fields like cancer study. ♦ The world's first 39 million pixel image sensor, the KODAK KAF-39000 Image Sensor, was introduced. ♦ Strengthening its leading position in retail printing, Kodak introduced the KODAK Picture Kiosk G4, offering faster uploading and printing of images.
2005
Antonio M. Perez became Chairman of Kodak, in addition to his role as CEO. ♦ New cameras included: the world's first dual-lens digital still camera, the KODAK EASYSHARE V570 Zoom Digital Camera; the KODAK EASYSHARE V610 dual lens digital camera, the world's smallest camera to feature a 10x optical zoom; and the KODAK EASYSHARE V705 dual-lens digital camera, the world's smallest ultra-wide-angle optical zoom digital camera. ♦ Kodak updated its brand logo, providing a fresh, contemporary look for today's digital world. ♦ Kodak and Motorola entered a global product, cross-licensing and marketing alliance around mobile imaging. ♦ The KODAK Scan Station 100 allowed office workers to simultaneously scan, store and share documents on an office network, and send them anywhere — without a computer. ♦ Enhanced KODAK PROFESSIONAL PORTRA Color Negative Films, for professional photographers, delivered finer grain, spectacular skin tones and superb color in mixed lighting conditions. ♦ Kodak celebrated the 10th anniversary of the first thermal computer-to-plate system for imaging printing plates. The Kodak system uses heat to digitally image plates, a departure from earlier systems that used light. The faster turnaround times, lower cost and improved quality provided by thermal technology continue to benefit commercial printers today.
2006
Kodak provided an alternative to the high-cost of inkjet printing, introducing KODAK EASYSHARE All-In-One Printers to affordably print crisp, sharp documents and Kodak lab-quality photos using premium pigment-based inks. ♦ KODAK EASYSHARE Digital Picture Frames were introduced, giving consumers an easy and exciting way to play slideshows of favorite pictures and videos – even set to music. ♦ Two new offerings expanded the KODAK NEXPRESS Platform of digital color printing presses, making it easier for commercial print providers to enter - or grow their presence in - the digital printing market. ♦ Kodak completed the sale of its Health Group to an affiliate of Onex Corporation of Canada. ♦ The KODAK TRACELESS System –designed to protect against counterfeiting of items like tickets, documents, and luxury goods – was launched. Invisible markers are embedded in a product or label. Kodak readers then detect these markers to verify authenticity. ♦ Kodak installed its 10,000th computer-to-plate (CTP) device, further cementing its position as a technology leader in this printing market. ♦ Kodak announced a groundbreaking advance in image sensor technology – a filter pattern array that provides a 2X to 4X increase in light sensitivity versus current sensor designs. ♦ Kodak introduced its first camera featuring the company's innovative CMOS image sensor technology. The KODAK EASYSHARE C513 Digital Camera offered 5-megapixel resolution for under $100. ♦ The KODAK FLEXCEL NX Digital Flexographic System was introduced for the packaging industry, providing near-offset print quality on flexible films, foil, labels and other packaging materials. ♦ Kodak launched KODAK PROFESSIONAL T-MAX 400 Black-and-White Film, offering photographers a level of clarity normally available only from 100-speed film. ♦ A new generation of color motion picture film – KODAK VISION3 Film – was introduced, improving exposure in brightest highlights and darkest shadows.
2007
Kodak received its ninth Oscar® statuette, this time for developing emulsions for KODAK VISION2 Color Negative Films for the motion picture industry. ♦ Kodak launched the APEX system, a dry lab solution for retailers to produce photographic prints, photo books, cards, and other custom photo items. ♦ Using the new KODAK TRUESENSE CMOS pixel and recent color filter pattern technology, Kodak introduced the world's first 1.4 micron, 5 megapixel sensor – designed for consumer applications like mobile phones. ♦ KODAK CCD Image Sensors were used on the space shuttle Discovery to help assess the orbiter's exterior before reentry. ♦ Motorola announced the MOTOZINE ZN5, a camera phone featuring KODAK Imaging Technology for convenient, high quality picture-taking. ♦ Kodak introduced the first 50 million pixel CCD image sensor, offering unprecedented resolution and detail for professional photography. ♦ Kodak introduced high-definition (HD)-enabled products including The KODAK Zi6 Pocket Video Camera for easy shooting and sharing of videos. ♦ KODAK PROFESSIONAL EKTAR 100, offering the finest grain of any color negative film, was launched. ♦ Wireless versions of Kodak's consumer inkjet printers – the Kodak ESP 7 and ESP 9 AiO Printers – were introduced. By year end, more than one million Kodak AiO printers had been sold to consumers since the product's 2007 introduction.
2008
Kodak's single-use camera recycling program reached the milestone of recycling 1.5 billion cameras, including both Kodak and competitive models. ♦ Kodak's breakthrough Stream commercial inkjet technology – which delivers offset class, variable data printing – entered the market under the KODAK PROSPER family name. The first product available was the KODAK PROSPER S10 Imprinting System, a printhead for use on existing presses. ♦ Kodak continued to grow its line of popular pocket video cameras, introducing the KODAK Zi8 Pocket Video Camera offering full 1080p High Definition video capture. ♦ KODACHROME Color Film was retired, concluding its 74-year run as a photography icon. ♦ The KODAK EASYSHARE S730 Digital Picture Frame, featuring a rechargeable battery that lets you unplug the frame and pass it around for easy viewing – was introduced. ♦ Kodak acquired the document scanner division of BÖWE BELL + HOWELL, a leading supplier of document scanners to value-added resellers, system integrators and end users. ♦ Kodak subsidiary Cinesite won an Emmy® Award for "Special Visual Effects for a TV Special or Miniseries" for its work on the HBO production "Generation Kill." ♦ Kodak announced it will sell the assets of its OLED business to a group of LG companies.
2009
New Kodak consumer products promoted ease of sharing pictures. Offerings included the KODAK PULSE Digital Frame – featuring an e-mail address to receive images from KODAK Gallery, Facebook and e-mail messages – and new KODAK EASYSHARE Digital Cameras – featuring a unique Share Buttonthat let users tag pictures for e-mailing and uploading to popular sharing sites or the PULSE Frame. ♦ The KODAK PLAYSPORT Video Camera was the first waterproof offering in Kodak's popular line of consumer pocket video cameras ♦ KODAK TRILLIAN SP Thermal Plates were introduced, providing outstanding quality, efficiency, and environmental benefits for offset printing. ♦ The first full PROSPER Presses – the monochrome KODAK PROSPER 1000 Press and the color KODAK PROSPER 5000 Press – entered the market. ♦ KODAK Picture Saver Scanning Systems were introduced to enable retailers and niche marketers to help consumers digitize photo prints, keepsake documents and other "printed memories." ♦ The KODAK ESP Office 6150 All-in-One Inkjet Printer, with connectivity to print from multiple sources, brought Kodak's revolutionary affordable ink to home-based businesses. ♦ Kodak continued to innovate in film, introducing KODAK PROFESSIONAL PORTRA 400 Film – which features the finest grain structure available in a 400 speed color negative film – and making KODAK PROFESSIONAL EKTAR 100 Film available in large formats. ♦ Retired Kodak researcher Steve Sasson received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation for invention of the digital camera in 1975. It is the highest U.S. honor for scientists, engineers and inventors. ♦ Kodak announced the highest resolution interline transfer CCD image sensor for demanding applications like industrial inspection, aerial photography and security. ♦ The 100th KODAK FLEXCEL NX Digital Flexographic System – an innovative platemaking solution for the printing of flexible packaging materials – was installed.
2010
Kodak introduced its first waterproof digital still camera, the KODAK EASYSHARE SPORT Camera. ♦ New offerings were launched to meet the growing demand for high-quality photo books and other photo products. The KODAK NEXPRESS Photo Platform lets photo labs, commercial printers, and others digitally print such product offerings; KODAK PROFESSIONAL ENDURA EP-D and EP-L Papers provide the look and feel of photo paper when used in electrophotographic digital presses. ♦ Sharpening its operational focus, Kodak sold its Image Sensor Solutions (ISS) and Eastman Gelatine businesses, as well as parts of its microfilm products and equipment business. Kodak acquired the relief plates business of Tokyo Ohka Kogyo Co., Ltd., helping expand capabilities for flexographic/packaging markets. The unit operates as Yamanashi RPB Supply Company. ♦ KODAK Picture Kiosks were enhanced to allow users to access – and easily make prints or photo products from – the increasing number of images stored on social sites like Facebook. ♦ A wide-format version of the KODAK FLEXCEL NX System, used to produce plates for flexible packaging products, was introduced. It enables printing of larger materials or printing of multiple jobs at one time. ♦ A new generation of KODAK VERSAMARK Printing Systems – with a 40% smaller footprint than competitive systems – was introduced. The units benefit transactional, newsletter, direct mail and newspaper printers where space is at a premium. ♦ Kodak shipped its 100 millionth digital still camera, placing the company among top manufacturers worldwide over the past 15 years. ♦ Kodak introduced a line of home inkjet printers – KODAK HERO All-in-One Printers – that combined high quality output with affordable ink. ♦ KODAK VISION3 50D Color Negative Film 5203/7203 was introduced, giving filmmakers more flexibility for shooting in natural or simulated daylight.
2011
Kodak entered Chapter 11 reorganization and embarked on a series of changes to focus the company on commercial markets. The changes included phasing out the digital capture business, and selling assets of the KODAK Gallery (on-line photo services) and Cinesite (Kodak's subsidiary for motion picture effects). Toward year's end, the company announced agreements that would bring it approximately $525 million for sale of its digital imaging patents .♦ Ten new commercial technologies were introduced, including the KODAK PROSPER 6000XL Press, a commercial inkjet system capable of printing 1,000 feet per minute; the KODAK FLEXCEL Direct System, for producing in-the-round sleeves for flexographic package printing; and KODAK SONORA XP Process Free Plates that provide the quality, productivity and print capability of mainstream plates without processing equipment or chemistry. ♦ KODAK NEXPRESS Red Fluorescing Ink received the industry's prestigious 2012 Intertech Technology Award. The ink is virtually invisible when printed but shows up under ultraviolet light and is used for fraud protection on printed documents and promotions. ♦ Kodak negotiated new contracts for motion picture film with four key studios: NBC-Universal, Paramount, Disney and Warner Brothers.
2012
As part of its business reorganization, Kodak sold its consumer imaging patents and spun off its Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses. ♦ As a first step into the functional printing market, Kodak entered agreements with two technology firms engaged in manufacturing touch-screen sensors. Each firm is pursuing a different Kodak technology for its offering. ♦ Key product introductions included the KODAK PROSPER 5000XLi Press, which continuously calculates imaging improvements to enhance quality and productivity; and KODAK PRINERGY Workflow 6, which automates the flow of work through a print shop. ♦ After entering new contracts with four of Hollywood's six major motion picture studios in 2012, in 2013 Kodak added new film supply agreements with the remaining two. ♦ KODAK NEXPRESS Gold Dry Ink was launched, enabling users of KODAK NEXPRESS Digital Production Color Presses to add attention-getting gold ink to printed pieces. ♦ Kodak relocated its Europe, Africa and Middle East Region headquarters and commercial demo center to a state-of-the-art building in Eysins (near Lausanne), Switzerland. ♦ Kodak installed its 300th KODAK FLEXCEL NX System. This digital flexographic platemaking system was introduced in 2008. ♦ On September 3, Kodak emerged from Chapter 11 reorganization as a technology company focused on imaging for business. ♦ Kodak and Bobst formed a strategic development agreement to integrate Kodak technology into the Bobst portfolio of packaging production equipment. ♦ James V. Continenza was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors. ♦ Kodak was relisted on the New York Stock Exchange under the new ticker symbol "KODK."
2013
On January 8, Kodak celebrated its recent relisting on the New York Stock Exchange by ringing the opening bell. ♦ Jeff Clarke was named Kodak's new CEO. ♦ To meet growing demand for KODAK SONORA Process Free Plates, Kodak announced plans to add manufacturing lines in China and the U.S. In July, the company marked its 1,000th customer to adopt use of the plates. ♦ Kodak introduced the industry's fastest full-color inkjet presses, the KODAK PROSPER 6000C and 6000P Presses, for commercial printing and publishing applications. ♦ New extensions to the KODAK FLEXCEL NX System were introduced for use in printing of corrugated packaging printing. ♦ The Kodak Technology Solutions unit was formed as an incubator to accelerate development of new technologies coming out of the Kodak Research Labs. ♦ Kodak opened a Technology Center in Shanghai to act as a showcase and demonstration/ training center for its print industry offerings.
2014

Patents: George Eastman and the Roll Film Camera
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Patents: George Eastman and the Roll Film Camera
Posted September 4, 2014 by Amanda | One Comment
Do you remember the days when cameras used film rolls? Today most of us take photos digitally, either with our phones, tablets or a digital camera and it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t always so easy to snap a picture. Nearly fifty years after the world was first introduced to the daguerrotype, American inventor and entrepreneur George Eastman sought to find a way to make photography less cumbersome and easier for the average person to enjoy.
A few weeks ago, we took a look at the early history of photographs on the anniversary of the daguerreotype . Today let’s take a look at the invention that made photography accessible to everybody with just the push of a button.
Kodak camera
On September 4, 1888, Eastman received a patent for a roll-film camera and registered the trademark “Kodak.”  The name “Kodak” came from Eastman’s fondness for the letter “K.” He found it a “strong, incisive sort of letter.” He and his mother devised the name Kodak with an anagram set.
Patent filed by George Eastman (click to view full patent)
By popularizing the use of roll film, Eastman succeeded in bringing photography to the mainstream. Small, affordable, and easy-to-use, Kodak cameras were an instant hit. They even coined the motto: “You press the button, we do the rest.”
Kodak camera ad, 1889
Each camera had enough film for 100 exposures. When the roll was finished, the user would send it back to Kodak to be processed and developed. The end result would be a circular photograph.
Picture of George Eastman with a Kodak camera taken with a Kodak camera, 1890
In 1892, Eastman established the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York. The company was the first of its kind to mass produce standardized photography equipment. In 1900, Kodak introduced their famous Brownie cameras. At just $1 and using film that sold for only 15 cents, the Brownie was easy for people of all ages to use.
Eastman Kodak Company, c.1900-1910
Eastman’s contributions revolutionized the industry of photography and transformed the world’s relationship with photos. His improvements also proved to be vital to the invention of motion picture film by some of the world’s first film-makers.

George Eastman: The Invention of the Kodak Hand-Held Camera
The Invention of the Kodak Hand-Held Camera
Hands On Activity: Build a Victorian or Modern Detective / Spy Camera
First Steps in Photography
Eastman's first Kodak hand-held camera from 1888
The original concept of camera dates from Grecian times, when Aristotle referred to the principle of the camera obscura (Latin=dark chamber) known also as pinhole camera.
The first diagram of a camera obscura appeared in a manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci in 1519.
In 16th century brightness and clarity of camera obscuras were improved by enlarging the hole and inserting lens.
In 1800 Thomas Wedgwood makes "sun pictures" by placing opaque objects on leather treated with silver nitrate; resulting images (shadows) deteriorated rapidly, however, if displayed under light stronger than from candles.
In 1814 Joseph Nic�phore Ni�pce achieved first photographic image with a camera obscura - however, the image required eight hours of light exposure and later faded.
In 1837 Louis Jacques Mand� Daguerre uses his daguerreotype method (called after his name) - the first image that was fixed and did not fade and needed under thirty minutes of light exposure but could not be reproduced.
In 1841 William Henry Talbot patented the Calotype process - the first negative-positive process making possible the first multiple copies, but suffered from the fact that any print would also show the imperfections of the paper.
In 1851 Frederick Scott Archer invented the Collodion process - glass plates coated with collodion (guncotton dissolved in ether and alcohol) . The glass had the effect of greatly increasing the speed of the plates enabling shorter exposure times - images required only two or three seconds of light exposure and it was also possible to reproduce quality pictures. But the disadvantage was the awkward handling of the wet plates by the photographer.
In 1859 the panoramic camera is patented by Thomas Sutton - the Sutton.
George Eastman's Contribution and Inventions
In 1880 George Eastman (1854 - 1932) perfected a process for making gelatin dry plates (invented in 1971 by Richard Maddox) for photography that were manufactured by The Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company. Before that, photographers had to coat a plate with wet chemical each time they wanted to take a picture (the Collodion process) - a very discouraging process. The increased speed and sensitivity to light of the dryplates freed the camera from the tripod and paved the way for the handheld camera - instant photography at low cost - of this the most popular was the Kodak handheld camera.
George Eastman founded the Eastman Kodak Co. (1881) and invented the roll paper film (1885) and celluloid film in 1889 which brought photography to everybody. The roll film was also the basis for the invention of the motion picture film, used by early filmmakers Thomas Edison , the Lumiere Brothers , and Georges M�li�s .
On September 4, 1888 Eastman registered the trademark Kodak, and received a patent (388850) for his hand-held box camera which used roll film containing a 100 exposure of roll of paper stripping film and the entire camera was sent back to the manufacturer for developing, printing, and reloading with a new film. He coined the phrase "You Press The Button and We Do The Rest."
Kodak No. 2 Brownie box camera, circa 1910.
In 1900, Eastman took mass-market photography one step further with the Brownie, a simple and very inexpensive box camera that introduced the concept of the snapshot. The Brownie was extremely popular and various models remained on sale until the 1960s.
Upon Eastman�s death, his entire residuary estate went to the University of Rochester. His former home at 900 East Avenue in Rochester, New York, was opened as the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House in 1947. On the 100th anniversary of his birth in 1954, Eastman was honored with a postage stamp from the United States Post Office.
In 1936 was developed Kodachrome by Eastman Kodak, the first color multi-layered color film.
Later Photography Developments
In 1936 was developed in Germany the Kine Exakta, a pioneering 35mm single-lens reflex (SLR) camera.
In 1963 Polaroid introduces instant color film.
In 1980 Sony demonstrates first consumer camcorder.
In 1990 Eastman Kodak announces Photo CD as a digital image storage medium.
Many contributed to the development of the camera and photography, during the years, in the fields of chemistry, optics and mechanics but we dedicated this page to George Eastman since we think his inventions of dry rolled film and the hand-held camera that could utilize it revolutionized photography in a manner not seen before.
Build Your Own Detective Camera
Background
During the 1880s a revolution in photography took place (see above): increase in the speed of the new dry plates that shortened the required exposure times, smaller negative formats and new lenses with shorter focal lengths enabled the invention of miniaturized handheld cameras without the need of tripods and with the ability to take fast snapshots of rapidly moving objects.
A little terminology:  The term �hand cameras� or �handheld cameras� denotes all types and sizes of cameras which were fitted with mechanical shutters, dry plates or film, and which could be used off the tripod enabling instantaneous photography. But other terms were used synonymously, including �pocket cameras,� �detective cameras,� and so on.  Although each of these terms had specific connotations, 19th century writers often mixed the terms and as a matter of fact, sometimes cameras referred as "detective" were quite big since the public was used, till then, to large tripod mounted cameras. Today, sometimes, the term �detective camera� is used for �spy camera�.
Strictly speaking, detective cameras were popular Victorian cameras before the turn of the 19th century that were designed to look something other than a camera. Most were box cameras designed to look like parcels, disguised as watches, binoculars,  books, purses, walking sticks, revolvers and rifles, alarm clocks, spyglasses, and so on. Some models were designed to be worn underneath a vest with lens peaking out through a buttonhole and the shutter operated by a long cord.  These cameras were popular all over Europe, especially in England, France and Germany. Most are rare and valuable today.
As its name implies, Detective cameras were for taking surreptitious pictures and at the beginning the �detective� camera was used by the police and prison authorities. The idea was immediately adopted by the public who used detective cameras for surreptitious snapshots of strangers. This is part of a general trend of the time: the late Victorians loved similar gadgets, and the craze included music boxes that looked like books and boats that looked like giant swans, etc.
Stirn's Waistcoat Detective Camera, Germany, 1886.
A few detective cameras were patented during the 1880s.
The earliest detective camera was a twin-lens reflex camera designed for police use by the British inventor Thomas Bolas who also coined the term in 1881 (GB provisional patent No. 4823).
The Schmid detective camera from 1883 (patent No. 270133) was the first hand-held camera manufactured for sale. This camera employed a newly introduced rapid dry plate film which was fast enough that a tripod was not required in bright daylight.
In 1886 a detective camera was patented by George Eastman and F. M. Cossitt (patent No. 353545) which failed in the market but was a precursor of the famous Kodak handheld camera from 1888. Some of the concepts in the detective camera design were used later in 1888.
In 1890 Thomas H. Blair patented the Hawk-Eye Detective Camera (patent No. 428448) which was a large wood box camera that took 4 x 5 inch photographs on dry glass plates.
See also:

Original Kodak Camera, Serial No. 540 | National Museum of American History
Original Kodak Camera, Serial No. 540
Description
This Original Kodak camera, introduced by George Eastman, placed the power of photography in the hands of anyone who could press a button. Unlike earlier cameras that used a glass-plate negative for each exposure, the Kodak came preloaded with a 100-exposure roll of flexible film. After finishing the roll, the consumer mailed the camera back to the factory to have the prints made. In capturing everyday moments and memories, the Kodak's distinctive circular snapshots defined a new style of photography--informal, personal, and fun.
George Eastman invented flexible roll film and in 1888 introduced the Kodak camera shown to use this film. It took 100-exposure rolls of film that gave circular images 2 5/8" in diameter. In 1888 the original Kodak sold for $25 loaded with a roll of film and included a leather carrying case.
The Original Kodak was fitted with a rotating barrel shutter unique to this model. The shutter was set by pulling up a string on top of the camera and operated by pushing a button on the side of the camera. After taking a photograph, a key on top of the camera was used to wind the film onto the next frame. There is no viewfinder on the camera; instead two V shaped lines on the top of the camera leather are intended to aid aiming the camera at the subject. The barrel shutter proved to be expensive to manufacture and unreliable in operation. The following year the shutter was replaced by a simpler sector shutter in the No 1 Kodak.
After 100 pictures had been taken on the film strip, the camera could be returned to the Kodak factory for developing and printing at a cost of $10. The camera, loaded with a fresh roll of film was returned with the negatives and mounted prints. Kodak advertisements from 1888 also state that any amateur could "finish his own pictures" and spare rolls of film were sold for $2.
Location

Heritage | Kodak
Heritage
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Cultural Icon
With the slogan "you press the button, we do the rest," George Eastman put the first simple camera into the hands of a world of consumers in 1888. In so doing, he made a cumbersome and complicated process easy to use and accessible to nearly everyone.
Just as Eastman had a goal to make photography "as convenient as the pencil," Kodak continues to expand the ways images touch people's daily lives. Read on to Learn More.
Laying the Foundation
In 1880, George Eastman, a young hobbyist photographer and school dropout, became one of the first to successfully manufacture dry plates commercially in the United States. One year later Eastman and Henry Strong formed a partnership called the Eastman Dry Plate Company.
Learn More
Photography
Our founder, George Eastman, devoted his life to making photography “as convenient as the pencil.” His company has been at the center of most milestones in photography and digital imaging ever since.
Learn More
Motion Pictures
When George Eastman marketed the first commercial transparent roll film in 1889, it enabled Thomas Edison to develop the first motion picture camera. Since then, Kodak has earned nine Oscar® statuettes – more than any other non-studio company – for its technical contributions to the movie industry.
Learn More
Printing and Publishing
Kodak first sold materials designed for the printing industry in 1912. During the 1950’s and 60’s we helped fuel the color revolution in books and magazines. Today, we are part of a new revolution – to bring sustainable, as well as digital, solutions to commercial printers and publishers.
Learn More
Document Imaging
Given young George Eastman’s experience as a bank clerk, it’s not surprising Kodak created a variety of technologies to preserve, copy and manage documents. One descendant of Kodak’s document technologies is the fastest commercial inkjet print engine in today’s printing industry.
Learn More
Space Imaging
From John Glenn’s first orbit to his historic return to space more than 35 years later… from man’s first walk on the moon, to the Mars Rover’s exploration of that planet’s rough terrain. Our technology has enabled many Kodak Moments from space.
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Health Imaging
Kodak’s role in health imaging began less than a year after Wilhelm Roentgen discovered the x-ray. In the decades that followed, Kodak technology helped medical professionals get an inside look at their patients’ health.
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Milestones
The Kodak name is recognized around the world for its long heritage of delivering imaging innovations. The company is now writing its next chapter as a technology company focused on imaging.

George Eastman | Kodak
George Eastman
1884: Eastman at age 30
He was a high school dropout, judged "not especially gifted" when measured against the academic standards of the day. He was poor, but even as a young man, he took it upon himself to support his widowed mother and two sisters, one of whom had polio.
He began his business career as a 14-year old office boy in an insurance company and followed that with work as a clerk in a local bank.
He was George Eastman, and his ability to overcome financial adversity, his gift for organization and management, and his lively and inventive mind made him a successful entrepreneur by his mid-twenties, and enabled him to direct his Eastman Kodak Company to the forefront of American industry.
But building a multinational corporation and emerging as one of the nation's most important industrialists required dedication and sacrifice. It did not come easily.
Photo Credit: Steven Doane, © Eastman Kodak Company
Boyhood
The youngest of three children, George Eastman was born to Maria Kilbourn and George Washington Eastman on July 12, 1854 in the village of Waterville, some 20 miles southwest of Utica, in upstate New York. The house on the old Eastman homestead, where his father was born and where George spent his early years, has since been moved to the Genesee Country Museum in Mumford, N.Y., outside of Rochester
Early photos of Eastman (Click to view gallery)
When George was five years old, his father moved the family to Rochester. There the elder Eastman devoted his energy to establishing Eastman Commercial College. Then tragedy struck. George's father died, the college failed and the family became financially distressed.
George continued school until he was 14. Then, forced by family circumstances, he had to find employment.
His first job, as a messenger boy with an insurance firm, paid $3 a week. A year later, he became office boy for another insurance firm. Through his own initiative, he soon took charge of policy filing and even wrote policies. His pay increased to $5 per week.
But, even with that increase, his income was not enough to meet family expenses. He studied accounting at home evenings to get a better paying job.
In 1874, after five years in the insurance business, he was hired as a junior clerk at the Rochester Savings Bank. His salary tripled -- to more than $15 a week.
© Eastman Kodak Company
Trials of an Amateur
When Eastman was 24, he made plans for a vacation to Santo Domingo. When a co-worker suggested he make a record of the trip, Eastman bought a photographic outfit with all the paraphernalia of the wet plate days.
The camera was as big as a microwave oven and needed a heavy tripod. And he carried a tent so that he could spread photographic emulsion on glass plates before exposing them, and develop the exposed plates before they dried out. There were chemicals, glass tanks, a heavy plate holder, and a jug of water. The complete outfit "was a pack-horse load," as he described it. Learning how to use it to take pictures cost $5.
Eastman did not make the Santo Domingo trip. But he did become completely absorbed in photography and sought to simplify the complicated process.
He read in British magazines that photographers were making their own gelatin emulsions. Plates coated with this emulsion remained sensitive after they were dry and could be exposed at leisure. Using a formula taken from one of these British journals, Eastman began making gelatin emulsions.
Box of EASTMAN Dry Plates, early 1880s
He worked at the bank during the day and experimented at home in his mother's kitchen at night. His mother said that some nights Eastman was so tired he couldn't undress, but slept on a blanket on the floor beside the kitchen stove.
After three years of photographic experiments, Eastman had a formula that worked. By 1880, he had not only invented a dry plate formula, but had patented a machine for preparing large numbers of the plates. He quickly recognized the possibilities of making dry plates for sale to other photographers.
© Eastman Kodak Company
Birth of a Company
In 1879, London was the center of the photographic and business world. George Eastman went there to obtain a patent on his plate-coating machine. An American patent was granted the following year.
Early sites in Rochester (Click to view gallery)
In April 1880, Eastman leased the third floor of a building on State Street in Rochester, and began to manufacture dry plates for sale. One of his first purchases was a second-hand engine priced at $125.
"I really needed only a one horse-power," he later recalled. "This was a two horse-power, but I thought perhaps business would grow up to it. It was worth a chance, so I took it."
Success of the dry plate venture so impressed businessman Henry A. Strong, that he invested some money in the infant concern.
On January 1, 1881, Eastman and Strong formed a partnership called the Eastman Dry Plate Company. Late that year, Eastman resigned from his position at the Rochester Savings Bank to devote all his time to the new company and its business. While actively managing all phases of the firm's activities, he continued research in an effort to simplify photography.
1906: Employees making film boxes at the Kodak Park site
In 1884, the Eastman-Strong partnership had given way to a new firm -- the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company -- with 14 shareowners. A successive concern -- the Eastman Company, was formed in 1889.
The company has been called Eastman Kodak Company since 1892, when Eastman Kodak Company of New York was organized. In 1901, the Eastman Kodak Company of New Jersey was formed under the laws of that state.
Eastman built his business on four basic principles:
a focus on the customer
mass production at low cost
worldwide distribution
extensive advertising
He saw all four as being closely related. Mass production could not be justified without wide distribution. Distribution, in turn, needed the support of strong advertising. From the beginning, he imbued the company with the conviction that fulfilling customer needs and desires is the only road to corporate success.
© Eastman Kodak Company
Customer Focus
As Eastman’s young company grew, it faced total collapse at least once when dry plates in the hands of dealers went bad. Eastman recalled them and replaced them with a good product. "Making good on those plates took our last dollar," he said. "But what we had left was more important -- reputation."
"The idea gradually dawned on me," he later said, "that what we were doing was not merely making dry plates, but that we were starting out to make photography an everyday affair." Or as he described it more succinctly "to make the camera as convenient as the pencil."
1910: Woman with camera
Eastman's experiments were directed to the use of a lighter and more flexible support than glass. His first approach was to coat the photographic emulsion on paper and then load the paper in a roll holder. The holder was used in view cameras in place of the holders for glass plates.
In 1883, Eastman startled the trade with the announcement of film in rolls, with the roll holder adaptable to nearly every plate Camera on the market.
The first film advertisements in 1885 stated that "shortly there will be introduced a new sensitive film which it is believed will prove an economical and convenient substitute for glass dry plates both for outdoor and studio work."
This system of photography using roll holders was immediately successful. However, paper was not entirely satisfactory as a carrier for the emulsion because the grain of the paper was likely to be reproduced in the photo.
Eastman's solution was to coat the paper with a layer of plain, soluble gelatin, and then with a layer of insoluble light-sensitive gelatin. After exposure and development, the gelatin bearing the image was stripped from the paper, transferred to a sheet of clear gelatin, and varnished with collodion -- a cellulose solution that forms a tough, flexible film.
As he perfected transparent roll film and the roll holder, Eastman changed the whole direction of his work and established the base on which his success in amateur photography would be built.
He later said: "When we started out with our scheme of film photography, we expected that everybody who used glass plates would take up films. But we found that the number which did so was relatively small. In order to make a large business we would have to reach the general public."
With the KODAK Camera in 1888, Eastman put down the foundation for making photography available to everyone. Pre-loaded with enough film for 100 exposures, the camera could be easily carried and handheld during operation. It was priced at $25. After exposure, the whole camera was returned to Rochester. There the film was developed, prints were made and new film was inserted -- all for $10.
© Eastman Kodak Company
Advertising
Eastman's faith in the importance of advertising, both to the company and to the public, was unbounded. The very first Kodak products were advertised in leading papers and periodicals of the day -- with ads written by Eastman himself.
Eastman introduced the Kodak camera in 1888. Thanks to his inventive genius, anyone could now take pictures with a handheld camera simply by pressing a button. He coined the slogan, "you press the button, we do the rest," and within a year it became a well-known phrase. Later, with advertising managers and agencies carrying out his ideas, magazines, newspapers, displays and billboards bore the Kodak banner.
Vintage Kodak advertisements (Click to view gallery)
Space was taken at world expositions, and the "Kodak Girl," with the style of her clothes and the camera she carried changing every year, smiled engagingly at photographers everywhere. In 1897, the word "Kodak" sparkled from an electric sign on London's Trafalgar Square -- one of the first such signs to be used in advertising.
The word "Kodak" was first registered as a trademark in 1888. There has been some fanciful speculation, from time to time, on how the name was originated. But the plain truth is that Eastman invented it out of thin air.
He explained: "I devised the name myself. The letter 'K' had been a favorite with me -- it seems a strong, incisive sort of letter. It became a question of trying out a great number of combinations of letters that made words starting and ending with 'K.' The word 'Kodak' is the result." Eastman also selected Kodak's distinctive yellow trade dress, which is widely known throughout the world.
© Eastman Kodak Company
To his basic principles of business, Eastman added these policies:
1920: Synthetic Chemical Laboratory, Kodak Park site
foster growth and development through continuing research
reinvest profits to build and extend the business, and
treat employees in a fair, self-respecting way
In regards to his employees and in building his business, Eastman blended human and democratic qualities, with remarkable foresight. He believed employees should have more than just good wages -- a way of thinking that was far ahead of management people of his era.
Early in his business, Eastman began planning for "dividends on wages" for employees. His first act, in 1899, was the distribution of a substantial sum of his own money -- an outright gift -- to each person who worked for him
Later he set up a "Wage Dividend" – an innovation for its time – in which each employee benefited above his or her wages in proportion to the yearly dividend on the company stock.
Eastman felt that the prosperity of an organization was not necessarily due to inventions and patents, but more to workers' goodwill and loyalty, which in turn were enhanced by forms of profit sharing.
1923: Woman assembling winding keys at the Camera Works, Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester
In 1919, Eastman gave one-third of his own holdings of company stock – then worth $10 million – to his employees. Still later came the fulfillment of what he felt was a responsibility to employees with the establishment of retirement annuity, life insurance, and disability benefit plans.
Carl W. Ackerman, a biographer writing in 1932, said: "Mr. Eastman was a giant in his day. The social philosophy, which he practiced in building his company, was not only far in advance of the thinking during his lifetime, but it will be years before it is generally recognized and accepted."
© Eastman Kodak Company
Giving Away His Fortune
Eastman is almost as well known for his philanthropy as he is for his pioneering work in photography. In this field, as in others, he put the direction of an enthusiastic amateur to work.
He began giving to nonprofit institutions when his salary was $60 a week -- with a donation of $50 to the young and struggling Mechanics Institute of Rochester, now the Rochester Institute of Technology.
He was an admirer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology because he had hired some of its graduates, who had become his best assistants. This admiration, after thorough study, was translated into a handsome gift to M.I.T., eventually reaching $20 million. It was given anonymously from a "Mr. Smith," and for several years the identity of the mysterious "Mr. Smith" was speculated about, even finding expression in a popular M.I.T. song.
"If a man has wealth, he has to make a choice, because there is the money heaping up. He can keep it together in a bunch, and then leave it for others to administer after he is dead. Or he can get it into action and have fun, while he is still alive. I prefer getting it into action and adapting it to human needs, and making the plan work."
- George Eastman
Dental clinics were also of great interest to Eastman. He devised complete plans and financial backing for a $2.5 million dental clinic for Rochester. He then started a large-scale, remedial dental program for children. Dental clinics were also given to London, Paris, Rome, Brussels and Stockholm.
When asked why he favored dental clinics, he replied, "I get more results for my money than in any other philanthropic scheme. It is a medical fact that children can have a better chance in life with better looks, better health and more vigor if the teeth, nose, throat and mouth are taken proper care of at the crucial time of childhood."
Eastman loved music and wanted others to enjoy the beauty and pleasure of music. He established and supported the Eastman School of Music, a theatre, and a symphony orchestra. "It is fairly easy to employ skillful musicians. It is impossible to buy appreciation of music. Yet without a large body of people who get joy out of it, any attempt to develop musical resources of any city is doomed to failure," he said. So his plan had a practical formula for exposing the public to music -- with the result that the people of Rochester have for decades supported their own philharmonic orchestra.
Library Of University Of Rochester
Interest in hospitals and dental clinics had grown with Eastman's work and study of the field. He promoted and brought to fruition a program to develop a medical school and hospital at the University of Rochester, which became as nationally prominent as the university's music school. Rochester is filled with Eastman landmarks that contribute to the enrichment of community life.
His sincere concern for the education of African Americans brought gifts to the Hampton and the Tuskegee Institutes. One day in 1924, Eastman signed away $30 million to the University of Rochester, M.I.T., Hampton and Tuskegee. As he laid down the pen he said, "Now I feel better."
In explaining these large gifts, he said, "The progress of the world depends almost entirely upon education. I selected a limited number of recipients because I wanted to cover certain kinds of education, and felt I could get results with those named quicker and more directly than if the money were spread."
Eastman often made the beneficiary match his gift in some way, so the institution would have the confidence of standing on its own. For him, great wealth brought the greater opportunity to serve.
© Eastman Kodak Company
Leisure Hours
Eastman was reticent and shunned publicity. It seems paradoxical that the man whose name is synonymous with photography should have fewer photographs taken of him than many other outstanding leaders of his time. He could walk down the main street of Rochester without being recognized.
Eastman, fishing in Canada
Eastman lived his philosophy, "What we do during our working hours determines what we have; what we do in our leisure hours determines what we are." A tough competitor, hard-bitten and practical in business, he was gentle and congenial at home or in the field of outdoor enjoyment.
In his yearly visits to Europe, he toured the art galleries methodically -- even cycling from place to place. By the time he could afford masterpieces, he had learned enough to say, "I never buy a painting until I have lived with it in my home." The result: his home became the showplace of one of the finest private collections of paintings.
© Eastman Kodak Company
The Vision of a Pioneer
He was a modest, unassuming man... an inventor, a marketer, a global visionary, a philanthropist, and a champion of inclusion.
1929: Eastman (second from left) with Dr. Lewis Perry, Charles A. Lindbergh, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Dr. Samuel Wesley Stratton
Eastman died by his own hand on March 14, 1932 at the age of 77. Plagued by progressive disability resulting from a hardening of the cells in the lower spinal cord, Eastman became increasingly frustrated at his inability to maintain an active life, and set about putting his estate in order.
"Eastman was a stupendous factor in the education of the modern world," said an editorial in The New York Times following his death. "Of what he got in return for his great gifts to the human race he gave generously for their good; fostering music, endowing learning, supporting science in its researches and teaching, seeking to promote health and lessen human ills, helping the lowliest in their struggle toward the light, making his own city a center of the arts and glorifying his own country in the eyes of the world."
Learn More by visiting the George Eastman House
Learn More about Kodak, photography, and the legacy of George Eastman by visiting the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y.