Traditional cameras dont work well in space

Right, at least outside the magnetosphere. We used to send film cameras up on massively heavy satellites. Spying purposes, you know. When the film was full, the vessels containing them would be conveyed to a return capsule that detached from the satellite (now worthless) and fell back to Earth to be retrieved and developed.

Transistors did a lot for spaceflight. Specifically: they destroyed human spaceflight.