Photos: The history of the digital camera

Colani's concepts: the future of cameras?
In 1983, Canon commisioned outspoken designer Luigi Colani to envision the future of camera design. The chap who believed that "an egg represents the highest form of packaging since the dawn of time" drew on his "no straight lines in the universe" philosophy to create the 5 Systems. These designs included (top left to right) the Hy-Pro, an SLR design with an LCD viewfinder, a novice camera named (rather politically incorrectly) the Lady, the Super C. Bio with power zoom and built-in flash, and the underwater Frog.

Our main picture shows the HOMIC (Horizontal Memorychip Integral storobo Camera). This was a Gerry Anderson-esque concept for a still video camera recording to solid-state memory. Unusually, the lens and viewfinder were on the same axis, while the flash fired through the objective lens.

The HOMIC was exhibited at the 1984 Photokina, but was never marketed.