How has digital photography developed over the past five years?

In 2011, the digital camera has all
but completely replaced film as the photography medium of choice.
Film is so rare that Kodak, the famous camera and film company, has
almost stopped producing film cameras entirely in the United States; the only Kodak film
cameras available are disposable.

Digital photography dates
back to at least the 1950s, with the advent of Video Tape. Video
tape recorded an image as a coded signal instead of as an actual negative image, and so
was the first type of "digital" photography.

Two of the
major changes in digital photography are the widespread availability of High
Definition images, also known as Multiple Megapixel
images, and the worldwide changeover in movies from 35mm film
to digital projection.

When the first
digital cameras for still photography became available, most were low-quality, offering
a standard definition of 640x480 at best. The first megapixel camera, with resolutions
better than one million pixels per image, was released by Kodak in 1991. In 2011,
cameras with 8, 12, or 16 megapixel resolutions are
common.

In motion pictures, 35mm film projection was common
as recently as 2008, when many major theater chains started to roll out digital
projectors to show newly created 3D movies. By 2011, Regal
Entertainment, the largest theater chain in the world, was installing digital projectors
in all its locations, replacing 35mm entirely for all films shown. Production and
distribution of 35mm film prints has dropped dramatically between 2007-2011 for this
reason.

Kodak still produces film for certain specialty
cameras and for filming movies, but it is likely that film will become a rarity in the
coming years. HD cameras are common and cheap, and it is easy for amateurs to take
pictures and upload them to social networking sites, eliminating the need for physical
prints entirely.