Early spy satelites even used film; I remember reading about one design that took a film picture, developed, and then used a CCD to scan it and send it back to earth, which is a bit mind boggling to me.
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The lunar Orbiter used an adapted E-1 camera from SAMOS. The E-2 and (canceled) E-3 also used the semi-dry development process and photomultiplier readout method.
The idea makes sense to me, generally, in that film is high res, high speed, can have a fadt shutter. Given where digital computers & imaging were, the idea of turning digitization into a batch slow process decoupled from capture makes all the sense in the world.
Can't say about recon sats but there are two reasons:
a) you need things fast
b) you can't drop it - you are too far
As sibling points out Lunar Orbiter used this and IMMSMV - some Soviet space probes (Venus?) too.
> Scanners in the 60s?
In the late 60s - just fine. Don't forget, TV existed back then already.
E-1 SAMOS launched in 1960. I was wrong about it using a CCD though, it used a photomultiplier.