Yeah, at the time i was difficult to whip out a camera to capture an image because they were big bulky things that required film and a photo laboratory to process the film.
But now that's no longer an excuse, and the fraudsters who try to perpetuate BS like UFOs, bigfoot, and whatever, are no shown for the goddamn money grubbing thieves that they are.
But, strictly speaking, I think the first "UFO" images were said to be taken around the turn of the century, when snake oil salesmen were being put out of business by the Feds. They then turned to another form of fraud; aliens from outer space.
People who commit fraud are simply legal criminals. They'll lie about something else because they don't want to work for success and are jealous of what everyone else has.
Meaning they'll find something else to lie about.

And in fact there are photos and film of UFOs - check out the footage of mysterious lights over Cranbourne in Victoria Australia, or that footage of the bright flaring light over Culver City in California. I'm sure nowadays there's tons of stuff, but people dismiss it as pranks and such. Which is just what the aliens planned.

Well but the gov't snatches it all up, anyway - just as soon as they hear about someone possessing it.

Interesting point, although I think a lot of ufo sightings happen at night. Even with all of us with our handheld devices ready to go at a moments notice, I don't think our phones would get a clear shot of anything in the night sky. I know that my iPhone can't do it. I live near an airport and a lot of low flying aircraft take off and land at all hours and I've tried to take night shots but none come out. Maybe the new iPhone 7 with its low light function can do the trick?
The daytime footage of ufos that you can find on YouTube is never of great quality either, I think mainly because whatever it is flying around is so darn far up. Same problem with our phones, they can only zoom so much.