The Kodak Disc Camera and Disc Film

The Eastman Kodak Company launched the disc camera in 1982; however, six short years later, Kodak announced that it would stop producing the camera. Deemed ‘idiotproof,’ the disc camera initially took the amateur photography market by storm, selling 8 million units in its first year of release and 25 million units in total in the 1980s. Today, disc film is one of the various late twentieth century photography technologies that has, essentially, been forgotten. Documentation on this particular format in photography research and history is virtually non-existent, and our knowledge sources on its preservation may soon be obsolete. In this thesis, I will examine current literature on disc technology, provide a historical overview of the camera and film, inspect a disc camera model, detail current digitisation practices of disc film with commercial vendors, and discuss the cultural importance of the disc camera in the 1980s and its implications in the archival and heritage spaces.