For anyone pondering the secret behind Japan's postwar economic miracle, a visit to a small museum near Tokyo's Imperial Palace may offer some clues.

At the Japan Camera Industry Institute Camera Museum, a cozy space with a collection of about 8,000 still cameras -- most Japanese -- 150 cameras are on permanent display and offer a look back over the history of Japan's photographic industry.

The museum's collection includes one of the only two existing prototypes of Sony Corp.'s MAVICA, the world's first digital still camera, which debuted in 1981, and the world's first commercial camera, which first appeared in 1839 in Paris.