The "tv camera" for Pioneer 2 was a direct-transmission scanner. If it had worked, it would have made a very crude picture of the moon. An orbital successor is going to have the same camera and launch in a few months to take a low resolution picture of the Earth.

It may well be that the first orbital observation satellites will physically send film to Earth in recoverable capsules for development on the ground. I'm willing to bet that this won't be pioneered by civilian agencies...