Dean M. Peterson

Dean McCormack Peterson (1931 to 2004) was an American inventor responsible for two of the largest revolutions in consumer photography, the Kodak Instamatic camera introduced in 1963 and the point-and-shoot cameras that followed in the late 1970s. Raised in South Dakota, he earned a bachelor's degree from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in 1954, went to work for Eastman Kodak, and took a master's degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Rochester in 1963. The Project Beehive camera developed by Peterson and his team and introduced by Honeywell at photokina in 1972 featured autofocus, off-the-film metering, automatic film advance and a built-in electronic flash; Honeywell never marketed it but successfully sued makers who infringed his autofocus and light metering patents. He also co-developed the Nimslo 3D camera, designed Fisher-Price's childproof cassette recorder and phonograph, held nearly 50 patents, and was named a Fellow of the Society for Imaging Science and Technology in 1975.