It's official, vintage digital compacts are trending (Petapixel)

[Archiver]

Around 2008-2009, I used a Canon G10 as my main compact camera. It went with me on long interstate work trips and the usual walkaround activities. When processed with Canon DPP, the raws were surprisingly good, and I enjoyed getting back to the 28mm equivalent focal length that I enjoyed with the Canon S70.

G10 - Glebe Point Road Church by Archiver, on Flickr

 

[David Hughes]

Dear David,

Well over 1000 photos. IIRC with a freshly formatted card the camera lists over 1200 available shots. That's about 5 sets of AA batteries worth of pictures.

Regards,

Tim Murphy

Harrisburg PA 🙂

Many thanks; I wondered about that because I was impressed by a C-4000 (now on my second one) and thought of moving up a little.

Anyone who is shocked by the 5 sets of batteries should think about CR-V3's which can replace two AA's if the camera was designed for them both. Be warned that there are two types of CR-V3 and they are both rechargeable but the terminals are different and so is the charger. The newer ones have three terminals like this O ° O and the middle one is the distinguishing one. They are lithium unlike AA's. The CR-V3's I use are labelled "vhbw", FWIW.

Thanks again.

Regards, David

 

[jsrockit]

I thought my Canon S100 was a great travel camera on my trip to Britain 10 years ago and the trip to Colorado 5 years later. I still use it.

12mp cmos is not the same.

 

[David Hughes]

To be vintage it should be at least 20 years old. But for typical forums gearheads camera becomes vintage after Mark next is released. 🙂

Some think that when the makers stop the 4 page double spreads in camera magazines. I wonder what they buy them for as taking photo's doesn't seem to come into their thinking; that's probably giving them more credit than they deserve.

Regards, David

 

[Shafovaloff1]

My favorite older digital is the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 with the Leica Design ~28mm Elmar and 10X Optical Zoom....what great detail. It isn't a point and shoot exactly but at the moment my favorite carry around.

 

[aw614]

I have an SD1000 somewhere in my messy desk, will need to find it, but was shocked to see prices up to 100 dollars on ebay. It was my sister's back when she was in school, but she doesn't care to have it and I haven't used it much and I probably wont get rid of it. I know my sister's kids love playing with old point and shoot cameras, and taking pictures so its fun for them.

I also bought an sd600 at an estate sale a few months back for 5 bucks. I've been using it instead of my phone when I work on my car It is just easier to use a point and shoot when wearing working gloves and not dealing with the touch screen.

Since the rage seems to be CCD compacts, will my first gen EP1 and GF1 get over with the younger gen? lol

 

[jsrockit]

Since the rage seems to be CCD compacts, will my first gen EP1 and GF1 get over with the younger gen? lol

In 10 more years, but they were CMOS too...not CCD.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I l

Based on my experience with young generation, where are several trends. Some like film, but lab developed only. Don’t know how they are getting it scanned.
i see young ones with MF cameras, even with MF SLRs.

Another group was after fancy film P&S, which they drove to $1K price range. Which could trigger interest in low cost digital P&S and not so low cost. One recent and decent young vloger posted fresh yt video about Canon g7x Ii as cult camera with film like rendering imperfections.

Another trend among young ones on digital are Canon 5D MKII and 5D. They rave about rendering.

CCD sensors cult seems to be with older population.
I really liked E-PL1 rendering, but nobody wanted this camera. I sold it as attachment for EVF2.

It is easy to find if camera is popular. Check sold prices in eBay. Pentax K10D seems to be more popular than K20D, because it was last Pentax DSLR with CCD. And antique by its age Pentax * ist is high priced on resale as well.

 

[bcostin]

Another trend among young ones on digital are Canon 5D MKII and 5D. They rave about rendering.

CCD sensors cult seems to be with older population.
I really liked E-PL1 rendering, but nobody wanted this camera. I sold it as attachment for EVF2.

I just lent my 5DMkII to a youngling at work. He's primarily a Sony mirrorless shooter but he wants to try out a DSLR and become more comfortable with judging exposure.

Personally I prefer the original Canon 5D "Classic" to the MkII for rendering. It's one of my all-time favorite cameras, digital or film.

The good old E-P1 is another one of my favorites. Identical rendering to the E-PL1. The early M43 bodies are starting to become popular again, based on the rising prices.

FWIW, One Month, Two Cameras and Snappiness are two popular YouTube channels focusing on older digital gear. They're coming from very different perspectives but both are pretty easygoing and fun to watch.

 

[JeffS7444]

The beauty of this newfound appreciation of old junk is that there's mountains of it to be had, much of it is high precision, high-quality, long-lasting, and all but impossible to compost or recycle. Asking prices tend to be high for the more appealing and colorful (Japanese-market special editions!) products. But that still leaves a vast number of undiscovered products out there.

I just realized that the original Sony RX100 design is now more than a decade old! That's one that I've never stopped using. I'd consider it's performance to be modern, and for most of what I do, that's a good thing.

IMO, older digicams offering a really appealing "something" are not so common! Heavy-handed use of noise reduction, hot pixels or unappealing lines / grid patterns at higher ISO are common. But there's always the hope that the next awesome discovery will be right around the corner.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I just lent my 5DMkII to a youngling at work. He's primarily a Sony mirrorless shooter but he wants to try out a DSLR and become more comfortable with judging exposure.

Personally I prefer the original Canon 5D "Classic" to the MkII for rendering. It's one of my all-time favorite cameras, digital or film.

The good old E-P1 is another one of my favorites. Identical rendering to the E-PL1. The early M43 bodies are starting to become popular again, based on the rising prices.

FWIW, One Month, Two Cameras and Snappiness are two popular YouTube channels focusing on older digital gear. They're coming from very different perspectives but both are pretty easygoing and fun to watch.

+ snappiness and Mattias Burling on old gear second life views.

I had 5D for years. Only sold it because it was end of support and shutter started acting up. Got 5D MKII, it was acting up with 50L, sold both and... we purchased 5D MKII from our daughter after she quit from paid photog gigs. 🙂

With cold weather the only camera which doesn't crap out too soon I have is 5D MKII. Amazing how long it lasts on single charge in freezing weather. Hours and days even with liveview and video.

The only drawback with all Canon cameras, they are not really weather sealed. Even 1D series. I'm looking for old Pentax K DSLR now.

 

[Pál_K]

…
It is easy to find if camera is popular. Check sold prices in eBay. Pentax K10D seems to be more popular than K20D, because it was last Pentax DSLR with CCD. …

When I was born the doctors told my parents that I had a birth defect which prevents me from seeing the difference between CCD images and CMOS images.

However, I do have a K-10D and it is my favorite digital camera - I like it more than my D700 or X-Pro1. I discovered the K-10D only because I was offered it a few years ago from a friend for only $10.

There are several reasons I like it:

• The controls are well positioned and intuitive in use.
• The menu system is logical and uncluttered.
• The features of the camera - all of the features - are just easy to grasp and are so well designed. The camera is just intuitive to use - you don’t feel like you’re having to fight the user interface to get something done.

 

[gzisis69]

Are there any ccd compacts with viewfinder and a prime lens ? I cant remember of one..

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Are there any ccd compacts with viewfinder and a prime lens ? I cant remember of one..

Just get Ricoh GRD III or IV. Slap matching VF on it. Few weeks later you will realize what vf is next to useless 🙂

 

[Abbazz]

My first digital camera was the Canon S45 in 2002, a 3.8mp camera with 35mm wide end, 3.6x zoom and a lousy 15fps 360p video mode that last for three minutes. It was, however, capable of raw capture, something I never used in the day of highly expensive CF cards. The S45 is still functioning, believe it or not. It cost close to AUD $900 twenty years ago! In today's money, that's $1350. Think of what kind of digital camera you can now buy for AUD $1350, a Panasonic LX100 II, a Sony RX100 VI, a Fuji X-E4 and lens. But in 2002, the S45 was the bomb.

I bought an S45 too, with all the accessories I could find at that time (in 2002), including the underwater housing. I even ordered a custom filter adapter for it so I could use all kind of filters and optical converters..

I also bought an S50 (5 MPix) when it was released in 2003.

I still have beautiful 13"x19" (A3+) prints from these cameras, which are not lacking in the sharpness department. Of course, specialists will tell you that with a native 2272 x 1704 resolution, it is not possible to print larger than letter size, but the raw files from the little Canon P&S are indeed able to deliver some really nice images when printed at much larger sizes!

My S45 is not functionning anymore but the S50 still works today, although all the batteries I have don't hold a charge anymore. I just tried it with the mains adapter and it came back to life. Maybe I should start looking for a new battery...

Cheers!

Abbazz

 

[raydm6]

There's a nice little CCD Sensor Compacts thread here on RFF:
https://www.rangefinderforum.com/node/4768956

 

[David Hughes]

Are there any ccd compacts with viewfinder and a prime lens ? I cant remember of one..

Try looking at (say) the Olympus Brio D-230 and the Fuji MX-700 (or the similar Leica) for starters. My favourite from back then was the Fuji A303.

A simple search with the right key words should throw up more but beware; they are all very vintage and the specification may shock you.
Calm down by looking for the above Leica's sales brochure, it's out there as a pdf...

Regards, David

 

[PRJ]

I guess I was ahead of this trend... A few years back I repurchased a Minolta G400 4mp that I had had back in the day and lent to someone and of course never got back. At the time it was released I think it was the best camera from what I recall. I bought it again because it did one thing I really like, which was make truly terrible images in low light. In sunshine though it was pretty good. Biggest issue was finding a memory card that was small enough to use. Turned out that 512mb was the max it could use, and those were few and far between. Ended up with a new old stock one that cost more than the camera.... That card will hold over 200 pictures on it but the battery will be dead long before that which brings up the biggest problem going forward- battery replacement. The little camera batteries won't last much longer I don't think and replacements are practically as old as the originals at this point, if you can find one.

 

[Pál_K]

… the biggest problem going forward- battery replacement. The little camera batteries won't last much longer I don't think and replacements are practically as old as the originals at this point, if you can find one.

Correct. Praise be to those manufacturers who chose AA for their cameras.

However, as we know, for endurance the manufacturers chose lithium ion to power their higher performance cameras. But, obviously, there was no standardization on this and so now there’s a plethora of custom batteries. Even today Fuji, for just one example, has a variety of batteries for their X series.

When I bought my new Konica Minolta DiMAGE X1, I bought six batteries because I knew that if I could not find batteries, then my camera was dead. But maybe that was stupid. Even though I rotated usage of the batteries, they all started to lose capacity within about six years. Surprisingly, I was able to buy a new third-party battery for it just this year from Batteries Plus. At first it seemed that this was just a new old-stock battery that would not hold a charge long and die quickly, but after a few cycles it seems to be doing well.

I also bought a new sealed lead-acid battery for my big AG-456 S-VHS camcorder - supposedly a big seller to television stations in the 1990’s - and that battery works as well. I’m amazed that batteries for this vintage equipment are still being made.

 

[JeffS7444]

This was one I remember fondly...

Well shoot, I found a few nice examples of DSC-U10, 20 and 30, but they date back to the early aughties, when Sony produced a bunch of faulty image sensors, and the ones being auctioned have dead sensors.

Links to affected Canon, Sony, Konica Minolta, Fujifilm, Nikon and Olympus products is here:
https://www.dpreview.com/articles/1978984737/sony-ccds
Not listed, but also affected, were Panasonic and Leica products such as the Lumix DMC-LC1 / Digilux 2