ReVisiting Classic Digital

One of the few enjoyable things about cleaning up your old storage areas is the discovery of carefully preserved but long-abandoned treasures. In a case at the back of my storage unit I found my old digitals which had been supplanted by the march of technology. They reminded me of the classic manual cameras that I have recently decided to put back into service.

In the box I found my Mavica MVC-FD7 (which I remember paying over Can$1000 for), the MVC-FD91, a DSC-D700, the DSC-F55, a DSC-F505V.and my favorite DSC-V3 All Sonys because I liked the Zeiss lenses.

For the most part, I have got them all back in working order with some interesting challenges.

Replacement batteries ae not a problem because there are still Chinese knock-offs available for all of them which work but, I have no illusions that they are as good as the Sony originals. The D700 appears to have a completely inaccessible backup battery for date/time etc that is, of course, completely dead now.

While I could still scrounge up some floppy discs for the Mavicas, I no longer had any computers that had floppy drives. Well a thrift store external USB foppy drive seemed like a good idea before I discovered that Windows 10 has abandoned support for floppy drives. I am going to try a modern external floppy drive to see if that is supported. Also, the majority of the Sony Memorysticks aailale online also relect changing technology in that the memorysticks generally available online are the PRO variety which the F55 and F505V are not compatible with. Also, those old MS are incredibly low capacity...4 - 128 Megabyte...NOT Gigabyte. The 4MB card I found in one can only hold 2 shots from the 2Mp F505's highest setting. Larger cards are on the way from ebay.

Still, these old cameras are a lot of fun to shoot with again and they really highlight how far the technology has come in the last 20 years.

Anybody else revisiting their old digitals??

Not really. My problems are: With those cameras you need quite a lot of light, as found outdoors, during the day, when I need to sleep or work.

What to do, if you encounter a great(!) subject? - I guess answers will vary: "Take the D850 / A7RII+x, dangling from my other shoulder and shoot." is acceptable. But why carry an obsolete P&S along with such? Isn't the good camera heavy enough?

Is looking at dinosaur captured thumbnails of landscape shots you missed, due to no (real) camera, rewarding? Minimalism has its places, but while I love cameras in general, I prefer them on a "daily driver" tech level, about 8+x MP APS C, while I do admit that there must still be use cases for less than that. Maybe taking inferior cameras out is a way to get motivated, to give the better ones a go, again?

 

I own elderly digital bridge and pocket cameras but never seriously warmed up with them. Partially due to being vexed by them being "point & wait". Not much fun but lots of frustration in shooting pets or people with such.

Luckily the batteries of what I have here Sony DSC-P10 & P200, some Samsung and a roughed Pentax seem intact. The Sonys' previous owner bought 128 & 512MB Memory sticks, the rest eat SD cards. I also have a Coolpix 990 eating CFs & 4 Eneloops, just like my first own digital, a Pentax *istD.

Nothing wrong about a trip down memory lane. - I guess it makes us rethink things and be gratefuller for what we have now?

I don't feel any nostalgia at all for my first DSLRs--they were slow to operate, had small buffers (anyone else remember taking 5 raw files and then waiting a minute to take 5 more pictures in a portrait session...) and really poor low light performance. I enjoy using old film cameras like my Contax cameras from the 1930's and 1950's for their Zeiss lenses and exquisite workmanship, but early digital cameras are not charming for me in the slightest.

My first decent digital was a Nikon Coolpix 5000. it was slow and the user interface was so counter intuitive, with odd little buttons scattered around, but I eventually got my head around it Nowadays the interfaces have become somewhat standardised and I can usually pick up a new camera and find my way around it in a few minutes. More recently I acquired a Coolpix 5700 and realised that I'd forgotten how how tricky these old digitals were to master. Despite my experience of the very similar 5000 I more or less had to start from scratch with it.

(anyone else remember taking 5 raw files and then waiting a minute to take 5 more pictures in a portrait session...)

You aren't the only Pentax guy in the world (yet). Yes, I filled my buffer, dropped it, grabbed something else and squeezed off a few frames with that other during that writing break. The 5 frames buffer wasn't THAT bad. - The later K100 had only 3 but wrote faster and my prosumer Nikon takes ages to write a RAW file too and has no buffer at all.

While these early DSLR specs aren't "whopping", they seem to benchmark "pretty close to quite usable" at least to me. - Yes I have a recent(ish) EOS focusing faster, taking 5x the MP at 2x the speed, that writes comparably swiftly and squeezes out single frames even with a filled buffer, but the early DSLRs seemed like a 1st step onto solid ground and it seems less challenging to figure out how to use them up, even these days.

I (luckily?) didn't fall for Contax but the other side and ended with it's (not that) early digitals, that float my nostalgia boat well enough, but have their quirks and flaws too.

The film photography people have their dedicated "Lomo" crowd who actually seek out limited and "quirky" gear which has a certain....character...you could say. I get a lot of enjoyment out of shooting old manual film cameras...oh...like a Contaflex for example. I suppose a 0.3Mp camera like the Sony Mavica FD7 might have a similar "character" that might attract a certain type of photographer. Sometimes it is interesting to see what you can do with the hardware imposed limitations and how you, as the photographer, can still produce something of interest.

Nikon's old CP5000 and 6000 are immensely pocketable; smaller even than most of the diminutive 35mm film cameras that fetch silly money. Plus they offer a zooming direct vision finder that, AFAIK, no modern digital offers.

 

I've had some great shots from the CP6000, simply because it was in my pocket when I'd left a less portable DSLR at home.

 

Like this amazing sunset that I stopped the car to shoot.

Or this interesting flaking tree bark.

Plenty of detail there from 12 megapixels and a tiny 3x zoom lens.

I recently got a D1 for about $50, which I think isn't a bad price.

I don't have the official charger, but got some charge into the battery with

a current regulated power supply.

 

I suspect that, like old film cameras, there is some fun that can be had with old

digital cameras. I have had some film cameras that I put one roll through, which

was enough fun for some time.

 

Film cameras have the additional challenge of using old film to go along with

them. That doesn't especially apply to digital.

(Old CF cards really don't change things.)

I have acquired a few early digital cameras, and I will eventually (I hope) get around to posting on them. The biggest problem for me has been finding batteries that work.

Kodak DCS ProSLRc w Sigma 28mm EOS lens

I have acquired a few early digital cameras, and I will eventually (I hope) get around to posting on them. The biggest problem for me has been finding batteries that work.

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Kodak DCS ProSLRc w Sigma 28mm EOS lens

 

I haven't done it for cameras yet, but for some other things, I have taken battery packs apart, and

replaced the batteries inside.

 

I now have a TI-58 calculator using NiCd AA cells to fix and get working again.

 

For many years, it was AA and sub-C NiCd batteries that powered just about

everything with rechargeable batteries.

 

As with darkroom photography, I do it partly because it is fun.

 

I recently replaced the batteries in the pack for a cordless drill, though

I could have just bought a new drill instead.

I DIYed the fresh cells thing for my Metz 60 NC pack once. Yes it can be done. But if you are limited to soldering instead of spot welding IDK how healthy it is for the cells. I turned lazy. If possible I make a battery pack dummy with cords leading out and hook an off the mill RC model sub-C pack to them and bungee it somehow to the device.

There is a Leica certified DMR and electric drills' battery packs refurbishing company in town. I'd rather hire them than mess around on my own.

Soldering is hard, so I get cells with tabs.

 

About 50 years ago, my father had a (small) Metz flash unit, with button cell

(well, large button sized) NiCd. Twice he replaced the cells, soldering them as

they didn't have tabs, before finding out that it was the rectifier that was bad,

not the cells.

 

I then had a bunch of these cells to use in things, like my bike light, but

again had to solder them.

 

Most recently, I found someone selling battery packs of sub-C NiCd cells that,

as the story goes, some company ordered and then shut down. So, already

in the shape of 15 cell packs, with spot welded tabs. I cut the tabs halfway

between cells, to leave enough to solder onto.

I may pick up a Canon D30 at some point. Samples I've seen look to have unique JPEG color palette that look almost pastel to me. It may just be an artifact of the samples I've seen, but for ~$50, why not find out for myself?

 

Oops - just realized I've revived an OLD thread - please disregard.