Leica’s First Digital Camera from 1996

This strange looking device is the Leica S1, the first digital camera created by the company back in 1996. At at time when film was still the medium of choice in the photo industry, the S1 packed a whopping 26-megapixels, shooting 5140x5140px medium format images. The strange looking handles on either side help the user frame the shot, but aren’t designed for handheld stabilization — each shot took three minutes to expose. Only about 160 of these cameras were built, and were mostly sold to museums and research institutions.

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