Modern cameras are complicated pieces of technology but in the camera's earliest form, the concepts that led to its invention were formed in the most basic manner, simply the interplay of light, reflection, and shadow. Since our earliest history is unrecorded, we'll never know the exact date some of these techniques were first discovered and who deserves credit for any undocumented observations that contributed to this area of study in the distant past.
Steve Sasson is an electrical engineer who invented the digital camera while working for Kodak. The Rochester, New York, company, which had made its fortune by selling photographic film and paper for most of the 20th century, did not think that Sasson's digital camera had any place in photography, and that lack of foresight ironically put Kodak out of business.
Canon’s first consumer digital camera was the PowerShot 600, which launched in 1996 and sports a fixed 50mm equivalent lens, half a megapixel of resolution, and a surprisingly large body. It cost just shy of a grand at the time and was the debut of the PowerShot series.
Back in 1996, Sony launched its first consumer digital camera, the DSC-F1. It had one-third of a Megapixel, four megabytes of built-in memory, a 1.8-inch screen, and a lens housing that could rotate 180 degrees for comfortable waist-level shooting or selfies.