Digital Cameras of Ten years ago

[Rhodes]

Ten years ago this thing, this digital camera, this Leica was top of the game, with cable to connect to TV, serial pc connection, a full set of various options! It cost 750€ (150.000$00 escudos, at the time, very expensive)!







Today, it's 1.3 or 1.5 megapixels(never know which one is) it's noting...This photos were taken by my 2.0 megapixels sony ericsson mobile phone (crapy)camera!
My father bought this camera in 2002 in a second hand material shop, for half the price, what capture his attencion was the brand! I even didn't know what leica was, with was my introduction to leica.
Funny, it was a digital leica with 10 years, that has no quallity compared with today cameras (or even five/four years ago cameras), but with my IIIc with 60 years I can still take good photos.
Of course several things here are at side like films/lenses, development,print,scanner, etc!

 

[robklurfield]

I've still got one. It still works. And, I use it occasionally.

 

[panerai]

My first was a Sony Mavica with 3.5 floppy disk that cost the same as my recent Panasonic LX3.

I only kept it as my previous camera was a Casio and not great for macro which the Sony was.

Still keeping the Sony as It cost me $500 and not tossing it out

DON

 

[TEZillman]

15 years ago

15 years ago

This beauty was introduced in 1995. It would have set you back about $10,000. It delivers a whopping 1.8mp. That thing lying next to it is the drive it records on. I bought it in May at a Goodwill Store with 5 Minolta lenses and a nice case for $49.95. It still works. I took the second photo with it, just playing around.

 

[greyelm]

About 10 years ago my first digital camera was 0.3 MP (VGA), it had no LCD screen and only had an optical viewfinder. It was pretty useless even at the time so I gave it to my son after a short while. He didn't use it much. It cost £90!!!

 

[Roger Hicks]

What about the S1?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

1993, 1.6MPixel, monochrome Infrared. 80MByte SCSI disk internal to the camera.

Kodak DCS200

Still works. With Digital and Film.

$12,400.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Brian,

Still works? Nah, you've got to be mistaken. EVERYONE knows that ALL digital cameras cease to work after 5 years or less, and that anyone who pretends otherwise is a liar or fantasist. All M8s are due to explode shortly.

Never let the facts stand in the way of the internet.

Cheers,

R.

 

[BillBingham2]

Funny, digital film that works.

Too bad they don't take a swing at this today......

B2 (;->

 

[BillBingham2]

.... EVERYONE knows that ALL digital cameras cease to work after 5 years or less, ......

I give my digital cameras away to a needy program out on the west coast every 5 years so I think what you say must be true!

Except for a D-100 I had for many years till the call went out from a needy graduate student wanting to show OSHA violations......

B2

 

[Colin Corneau]

There really ought to be a digital museum, especially given that these items flash by and disappear so quickly.

 

[cidereye]

There really ought to be a digital museum, especially given that these items flash by and disappear so quickly.

I agree Colin, would be very interesting to find out how many digital models have been launched in the last 10 years or so ..... must be 100's.

I always find this page worth a look to remember just the old Nikon DSLR's so far :- http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/htmls/models/digitalSLRs/index.htm

 

[Sonnar Brian]

There really ought to be a digital museum, especially given that these items flash by and disappear so quickly.

I've never seen a Museum with a "Digital Camera Display" showing the fast evolution that took place. Too recent in History I guess. I have some Pop Photo's going back to 1990 that featured a Digital camera section in their annual "Camera Guide" issue. Fuji had the first digital camera that stored to a solid state memory card. Kodak did not do that until the DCS400 series, 1994~1995. The 6MPixel Kodak DCS460 ran $30,000. John Glenn took one into space on the Shuttle, it is at the Udvar Hazy Air and Space Museum in Virginia.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Dear Brian,

Still works? Nah, you've got to be mistaken. EVERYONE knows that ALL digital cameras cease to work after 5 years or less, and that anyone who pretends otherwise is a liar or fantasist. All M8s are due to explode shortly.

Never let the facts stand in the way of the internet.

Cheers,

R.

Still works, the original SCSI disk is still going. I have a spare if it dies.

I use this 1997 Nikon E3 for my projects, and still use it at work when I need the ringlight.

Used for this shot:

My 10 year old Nikon D1 still works, used to take this picture.

I guess I'll revisit this thread in 2020 to post a shot with the M8.

I have good luck with Digital Cameras.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

It's interesting to see what the Nikon E series DSLR's are going for on Ebay. A Kodak DCS200 goes for $50, a Nikon goes for $400.

 

[Keith]

Landfill ... the lot of them! :angel:

😀

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I have a big sinkhole in the backyard.

Send them to me, I will dispose of them at no cost to you.

 

[Alpacaman]

Is it just me, or did humanity lose all sense of aesthetic in the 90's?

 

[Colin Corneau]

People have said that about almost every decade since the....well, since forever.

It seems as though soon as one decade is past, we abhor its aesthetic. Then 20 or 25 years pass and it becomes 'retro' and hip and ironic.

 

[peterm1]

I have one of those old Leica cameras (see photo at the bottom of the page) which at the time were based on the architecture of a Fujifilm camera (a classic case of rebadged engineering.) Leica later went on to do similar rebadging of Panasonic cameras.

I actually like this particular camera's aethetic - I have never figured out why the "portrait" (ie upright) form factor of this camera never caught on more widely for small digital cameras - it's much more functional than the normal horizontal format ones when you have large hands. I suppose it may have something to do with the industry moving away from viewfinders for these small cameras as this design works best when you have a viewfinder.

In use these cameras were very sluggish. Writing and rendering an image seemed to take forever. But I cannot deny that they were the very personification of "chic" at the time.

Even now they are not bad if you wish to take a small image for the web. To demonstrate the poitn that there may be some use for these older cmaeras, my favorite photo store uses an old 2 megapixel camera from this era for taking passport photos for their clients who want this service - I suppose its much more functional than taking the image with a later 9(and more expensive) camera and having to downsize the image.