Go, Gen Z! (Or, Got An Old Digicam You Want To Get Rid Of?)

Now would be the time, according to a new article published in the New York Times today. You'll get a lot of it from the title: "The Hottest Gen Z Gadget Is a 20-Year-Old Digital Camera."

I'll quote a few choice quotations from the article*:

"The cameras of Generation Z’s childhoods, seen as outdated and pointless by those who originally owned them, are in vogue again."

(GenZ or "Zoomers" refers to the generation born between 1997 and 2012, meaning, people between 10 and 26 years of age right now. The generation currently being born and under age 10 are called "Gen Alpha," a term I would swear I never once heard till today. Although maybe it went in one ear and out the other.)

"Gen Z-ers grew up with smartphones that increasingly had it all, making stand-alone cameras, mapping devices and other gadgets unnecessary. They are now in search of a break from their smartphones."

The article immediately goes on to say that they're spending too much time online and want to get away from it—and then, that what they're doing with their "blurry, overlit" early-digicam pics is posting them on TikTok and Instagram. Online. But then, fashions 'n' fads don't have to follow internal logic.

"...People are turning to thrift stores and secondhand e-commerce sites to find cameras with sufficiently vintage looks. On eBay, searches for 'digital camera' increased by 10 percent from 2021 to 2022, with searches for specific models seeing even steeper jumps, said Davina Ramnarine, a company spokeswoman. For example, searches for 'Nikon COOLPIX' increased by 90 percent, she said."

Old and in the way

In other words, if you periodically look at the 10- to 25-year-old digicams in your camera closet and think to yourself that they're utterly useless to anyone now and you'll never be able to get a dime for them—well, their moment has come; 10- to 26-year-old digicams are in demand among 10- to 26-year-old people! Time to slap those quaint old artifacts up on eBay and get in on the action. 

And let's applaud the trend. This is how some of tomorrow's great photographers are going to get their start. One last quotation:

"Young people are reveling in the novelty of an old look."

...In images that have character, distinctiveness, and feeling rather than sterile perfectionism. Sometimes, in the words of the old Dave Edmunds song, bad is good.

(The article was written by Kalley Huang.)

This was kinda how Leica got so famous
The trend has historical precedent. Looking for cheap, available alternatives that are funky and have an identifiable gestalt is why the generation of photographers who got famous in the Photo Boom of the late '60s early '70s—the cohort profiled in Gilles Mora's 2007 book The Last Photographic Heroes: American Photographers of the Sixties and Seventies, who dominated photography (and photography teaching posts) for the next half century—used Leica rangefinders and valued the "snapshot aesthetic" and the photojournalistic ethos. SLRs took the camera market by storm starting in 1959 and continuing throughout the 1960s; by the late '60s and early '70s, the used shelves of camera stores were lousy with the old rangefinders that had been popular in the '50s and early '60s and that nobody wanted any more. (I think I first heard this from Bruce Davidson, in one of his books or an interview or something). Among these, Leicas were built like a cross between a Tiger tank and a 1980s Mercedes, and hadn't even started to break down. (Another reason for Leica's rise is that its sturdy shutter design was bulletproof, in an era when Zeiss, which had once been the overpowering market leader, settled on a shutter design that was overcomplicated, delicate, and finicky, and unreliable as a result. But let's not get too far into the weeds here.) Those old 'fifties M3's were plentiful and cheap, and of course they still worked. What better for impecunious young photographers with artistic aspirations who couldn't afford the latest Nikon F?

Another precedent was the view camera craze of the 1970s, when commercial photographers all had to have sleek metal monorails, and discarded fuddy-duddy old wooden Deardorffs were going begging. My friend and former art school teacher Paul Kennedy bought an 8x10 Deardorff in very nice condition for $300 in that era just because it was too cheap to pass up—he didn't even really want it; he did his commercial work with a Hasselblad and a Nikon F3 named Darth. (He called my F4 "Luke.")

And so on. There's the life, and then there's the afterlife.

Speaking of an afterlife, I'll trot out a story many of you longtime readers have heard from me before, about another occurrence I consider extraordinary. The desire for a distinctive look is what drove the recent fad among cinematographers for my onetime favorite lens, the old Olympus OM Zuiko 40mm ƒ/2. Time was when that wee little lens with its very distinctive imaging properties was on closeout forever in the tiny print of the classified ads in the back of the big camera magazines. It listed for as little as $69—nobody wanted them and retailers could hardly give them away. Yet, recently, old used ones were going for three grand and up on eBay! Why? Because modern lenses approach perfection, and are starting to all look the same. With a look that is "samey." And what is that look? One my friend Oren once referred to as "analytical/clinical," which is, in the end, just one more look among many. (The demand for the Zuiko 40mm has cooled a bit since then—discarding the high and low outliers, the last ten that sold on eBay have ranged from $1,000 to $1,700. Still pretty astonishing for a lens that Olden camera couldn't unload for $69 forty years ago.)  

Any of you youngsters want to buy my 10-year-old Sony NEX-6? Works fine. Cheap!

When it comes down to it, there's never a magic bullet: mere equipment isn't enough to make pictures sing. But what people—well, some people—really seek from gear is character, not perfection. Having fun with funky old cameras nobody seems to want is one way to get there. This trend, if it really is a trend, is hilarious. But it's also wonderful, and I wish to cheer it on. Go, Gen Z!

Mike
(Hat tip to Gordon Lewis and many others)

*I've been working on setting it in my mind that "quote" is the verb and "quotation" the noun, and I'd been looking for a place to include both words in one sentence. Learning never ends.

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

David Raboin: "My fifteen-year-old daughter has expressed interest in digital point-and-shoot cameras from the early 2000s. She told me that those old cameras take better-looking photos than current cellphones, that phone pics are too detailed or the colors and contrast are so boosted that the photos look unrealistic. She also said that on-camera flash is a popular look on TikTok. We found my old Canon Powershot S30 in a box in the attic but couldn't get it to turn on. The battery wouldn't charge. Too bad."

Mike adds: Can we (collectively) help David's daughter? Does anyone have an old digicam that works that they would be willing to give her? If you do, contact me (mcjohnston at mac dot com) and I'll put you in touch with David.

Richard Alan Fox: "About those 'bullet proof' Leica cloth shutters. Back in the mid-seventies I was the manager of the Brooks Camera repair shop in San Francisco. Annie Leibovitz and Jim Marshall, both Leica users, were among our clients. I remember several Leica shutters (not belonging to AL or JM) coming in with pinholes burned by the sun focused through the lens. Got a Leica? Get a lens cap."

Mike replies: Hmm, would we classify that under "user error"? Seems so. I'll note in passing that the unusual viewfinder on my Sigma fp-M comes with a cap for the eyepiece printed with a bold warning to never let the sun shine through the eyepiece onto the viewing screen. So it's obvious that's a potential problem.

Jeff: "In dictionaries I checked, 'quote' is also properly used as a noun, meaning 'quotation.'"

Mike replies: Yes, my dictionary also acknowledges that the two tend to be used interchangeably in colloquial writing. But I like those subtleties and try to at least be aware of them. I have a Webster's Second. Although I seldom refer to it.

(Re Webster's Second: one of the best-known controversies in lexicography was the publication of Webster's Third New International Dictionary in September 1961, which switched from a prescriptive [i.e., strict/"we'll tell you what's correct"] to a descriptive [permissive/"anything goes and we'll just tell you what people do"] approach. Many sticklers for language were outraged—well, at least troubled—and kept their old Second Editions rather than capitulate to the barbarians at the gate.)  

Dale: "You didn't mention another retro trend that seems to be going on. Anecdotally, the last few times I've been walking around in urban areas (Seattle and San Francisco), I've encountered younger people (20s–30s) carrying film cameras. I recently visited a photo processing lab in Berkeley, California; there was group of people going in as I was leaving, and they all looked to be in their early 20s."

Mike Plews: "I am on the middle of a project that has me printing pictures going from last month back to scans of K25 slides from the '80s. Two older digital cameras are reminding me of why I enjoyed them so much. Of the 61 landscapes I ended up printing, five were shot on a Canon S95 and 15 on a Nikon D70. You can get either one now for under a hundred bucks and the files from both are really gorgeous. The D70 files are lush. It meters snow scenes better than my D7100. Go figure."

Bill Tyler: "That search for imperfection and a distinctive look is what drove art photographers to the Diana way back when, and later to the Holga."

hugh crawford: "Digicams do daylight fill-flash competently, which phones and cameras that don't start with the letter H pretty much fail at. That's what I keep them around for."

Mike replies: Kind of ironic, isn't it, as flash was considered a weakness of point-and-shoots when they became popular. Built-in flashes on point-and-shoots and digicams were puny and weak, and being too close to the lens they produced the dreaded red-eye, which various makers tried to find solutions for.

George: "Perhaps I am now more 'in' than I thought? I still use a Sony NEX-5R as my main camera. When they were on clearance, being replaced, I bought a second body (which is still untouched in the box), in case mine ever breaks."

Mike replies: You are a hipster now, George, no question.  :-)

Mark Sampson: "Ha. In 1978 I was an 'impecunious young photographer with artistic aspirations' when I went into a local camera store, thinking to buy my first top-level camera...a Nikon FM, or perhaps an Olympus OM-1. Yet I walked out with a 1959 Leica M3. Never realized until today that I was part of a trend. I seldom met another Leica user, and after 44 years of professional photography (and a few artistic accomplishments) that Leica still sits on my shelf."

Comments

[Chuck Albertson]

History is cyclical. I bought (and still shoot) a nearly new Hasselblad for a song, when all the wedding photographers were dumping them at the start of the digital fad.

I believe the Dave Edmunds line is "From bad things, mama, good things sometimes come." I'll have to look for the LP, I know it's around here somewhere.

[The line is "Sometimes bad is bad." The song "Bad Is Bad" was on the 1979 album Repeat When Necessary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN4t83RhTNo

--Mike]

[Bob G.]

Mike,
Saw that early digitals reborn article this morning in the NYT. I had been experimenting with them over the last several years with the premise that some of them, notably Olympus, had some interesting takes on in-camera software conversion that were applied to the low digital input, even with small chips. Some of the cameras really made their output sing. The goldilocks area seemed to be cameras that had good lenses, minimal zooms and a 1/2.3”, but under 1” sensor to keep them affordable. Now I can purge the herd!

[Olybacker]

I did wonder out loud, possibly at a Photo Society meeting, whether people would start to buy old DSLRs and digi-compacts to obtain 'the grain' in their photos which was fast becoming an endangered species with the camera makers' chase for ever-greater pixel counts. There was a bit of a murmur; some agreeing and, no doubt, some disagreeing.

The thing for us oldie photographers is that you want a camera that is straightforward to use, especially if you are a professional (or retired professional) using a range of equipment. That is sadly not the case for the current crop of Olympus eFinder cameras about which I could tell a tale. A few years back, I bought an E-520 because I knew it was simple and straightforward to use and could access quickly the essentials: ISO, file size, picture quality, etc.

[Mike Ferron]

I think it is one’s own vision plus the given moment that makes a picture sing.
(To be honest if I had a choice between shooting with an old digicam and my iPhone the latter would be my pick.)

[Ernest Zarate]

I read that article this morning and thought of you, Michael. I knew you’d read it and comment on it (you’re so predictable).

I sent it on to my two adult sons, one of whom (36) has been into retro gear for well over ten years. Dumb phones, Casio watches, LPs and turntables, and a slew of “ancient” cameras. Including one he got this past weekend, a Sony Cyber-Shot with 7 (count ‘em - 7!) MP with Carl Zeiss lens.

All of which got me thinking of my very first digital camera, a Panasonic LUMIX DMC-LC5. 4 MP, it made some very nice files. Cut my teeth on digital photography and PS on that camera in a community college summer class.

It’s very cool to see the “kids” rummaging around in their parent's (or grandparent's) junk drawers, digging up these digicams. I wonder how long the fascination will last…

[Kirk]

The new trends are not just about Gen Z and are not just about cameras. A lot of people in our own ancient generation seems to have the same retro perspective about tons and tons of "black and white photo masters" and their photographs. Much of the adulation of past generations of photographers' work is misplaced. Many of the supposed masters of the day (1950's to 1980's) were respected and revered merely because they were able to operate their tools and muddle through the routine darkroom tasks better than the less experienced amateurs of the day. In retrospect so much of their work is mundane and always was. Just because we saw someone's work in the 1969 March edition of Modern Photo or Pop Photo certainly didn't mean that the bulk of the work would stand the test of time or that we should worship it endlessly without some sort of informed re-appraisal. But sadly that seems the case today. Sentiment trumping informed observation. The vintage of the work out-performing the content.

[David Aiken]

English usage is such a fun area in which to find nits to pick and I must state at the outset that there have been quite a few who have found nits in my own usage.

Having said that I think I found a nit in your struggle with "quote" and "quotation":

What you do when you quote something is to create a quotation within your own text but the text you are quoting, in its original source document. is not a quotation unless the author of your document was themself quoting that text from a different source.

We can tell the difference because we enclose our own quotation within quotation marks and when we quote text which itself included a quotation, we reproduce the quotation marks shown in the text we're quoting from. A quote of a quotation is identifiable in print because within the quotation marks we use to denote our act of quotation there will appear the quotation marks the author of the text we're quoting from used to denote their own quotation of someone else's text. The texts you quoted were only within single quotation marks which tells us that you were not quoting something which actually was a quotation, you were quoting original statements made by the author of the text from which you quoted.

The verb "quote" refers to an act which creates a quotation so quotations can only exist within text other than their original source. In order to quote a quotation one has to quote something which itself was a quotation within the text one is quoting from. You did not do that.

[Monty Python voice: My brain hurts! --Mike]

[Kye Wood]

I have two 'as new' Canon G6. In great light, with care, they take more pleasing images thank my Lumix G85 processed through ON1.

It shouldn't be possible. It simply is.

[David Drake]

This is great! I have an old barely used digicam which used those little micro- cassettes. It was a gift from my mother to take ‘movies’ of my kids when they were small. It’s been collecting dust and I feel guilty that it really didn’t get used. Now it actually might have some value!

I still have the Super8 camera which was used to take real movies of my sister and I. I had thought of using it for my kids, but, even though the film was still available, it was outrageously expensive. So I didn’t do it. Would have been fun though! Super 8- now that has character!

[John Camp]

Hmm. I still have a working, almost pristine, Epson R-D1 with either a Voightlander 35 or 50mm lens. (I'm not near the camera to look, and haven't looked in a couple of years.) 6mp, if I'm not mistaken. This trend could make my fortune!

[Speed]

"Young people are reveling in the novelty of an old look."

Doesn't Photoshop have a setting for that?

[Richard Sloves]

Enjoyed your commentary today . Well done. Should I sell my Fujifilm and Ricoh GRIII cameras and regress to Daguerreotype plates? Perhaps a pin-hole camera constructed from a Quaker Oats container? I think not. You do not want to be 14 years old unless your parents decide to give you a Sigma FP/45mm monochrome for your birthday.

[Gaspar Heurtley]

My current go-to camera is a first generation Olympus EM5 from 2012 and I don’t think neither that or your NEX-6 are old, that can only mean that I’m getting old.
Let’s just hope 40 is the new 20.

[John Shriver]

The Leica formal place [focal plane? —Ed.] shutter is a wonderful combination of simplicity and cleverness. Constant acceleration of the curtains with a slot width that narrows as they speed up at the end of the exposure. It was well protected by German patents, so the Zeiss-Ikon Contax shutter was crazy complicated to work around them. Zeiss also had to work around Leica's rangefinder coupling patent, thus the crazy lens mount, with rotational coupling, rather than the elegant cam/roller.
Zeiss was also guilty of over-engineering.

[Peter Croft]

Speaking of lenses being too sharp and lacking character (kinda) reminds me of choosing monitor loudspeakers at my TV station in the 1980s. We auditioned ARs, Tannoys, Monitor Audio and JBLs as I remember.

All sounded good, and the chief engineer liked the Tannoys, but I pushed hard for the JBLs, 4315s. These were like a modern lens, utterly transparent and revealing, sharp, clinical. If there was a fault in our audio, these would show it. Just what we wanted. I prevailed in the end and we bought four pairs at around $1,800 each, I think. Oh so cheap in hindsight.

I liked them so much that I borrowed a pair to take home for a trial against my B&W Model 70s (electrostatic + 12" bass in BIG cabinet). At 43kg each, getting them up to my 3rd floor apartment was a struggle. That's what friends are for, eh?

In the end, I chose to end the trial as they were too cold and clinical in my home environment. This was in the time of LPs, before CDs. My B&Ws were revealing too, but had a bit of the character you look for in a fine lens.

I'll never forget those 4315s though. The transient response! The sound of metal on metal, like swords clashing, is fixed in my memory. I could buy a pair now, they are available, but too big and heavy for me now. Sigh.

[Dave Millier]

Sadly, this doesn't seem to apply to my first digital, the twisty body Coolpix 950, lovingly shoved into the back of my camera cupboard. Completed sales on ebay from £4.79.

[Really! That's a surprise. That was a very fun little camera. --Mike]

[Mike Chisholm]

"Quote" v. "quotation": unlike, say, "practise" and "practice", the distinction is not quite that definitive (as I'm sure you realise). It's more in the territory of "invite" and "invitation", "quote" as a noun being simply a shortened version of "quotation", cf. "bike" and "bicycle", "photo" and "photograph", or even "Mike" and "Michael"...

That said, the verb "to Mike" could be an interesting coinage, and one in which I have a personal stake. "To distinguish to an unnecessary degree of sophistication; to bloviate; to rejoice in fine distinctions"...

Keep on Miking! And Happy New Year!

Mike

[Dan]

Speaking of cinematographers, I was wondering if you could do a post expanding on how cinematographers are driving up the prices of certain lenses. For example, the Zuiko 21mm/2.0 seems to list for at least $3000 now on eBay, not to mention certain Canon FD SSC lenses like the 24mm/1.4. Part of the demand appears to be created by Youtube cinematography channels that highlight how certain old lenses look/perform. I understand the demand is driven by cine houses who convert the lenses for motion use and can recoup the cost in renting out the lens, but would love to know more.

[Adam R]

Waiting for the amazing Sony DSC-707 to make a come back!
I have a Minolta Dimage XT with a whopping 3MP and a postage stamp size screen, but with a clever internal zoom where the lens is vertical and there's a prism at the top to capture the light coming in at orient it down the lens. Made for a super pocketable camera, small even by today's standards.
That was a fun period of experimentation with configurations, it's kind of a shame that cameras today aren't that much different from film cameras in terms of body design.

[Jeff]

Regarding dictionaries and language evolution, my mom is 97+ and I don’t tell her that words she still often ‘corrects’ when she hears others speak are now considered acceptable. If these changes weren’t inevitable, I guess we’d still be using 16th century guidelines; just harder to accept change in the relatively short term. People ultimately dictate; not dictionaries. But even though you are a stickler, you do tend to make up your own rules from time to time, like refusing to use possessives before gerunds, which grates for me when not done. We each have our hot buttons.

[Interesting. I'll have to watch that. --Mike]

[Andy Kochanowski]

I'm certainly not a Genz, even only one of my boys barely qualifies as one.

But I understand the attraction. The digicams of the early 2000s provide a feeling similar to film- slow output, a bit of grain, a feeling like you have to work for each photo. Let me give you a real life example. Last spring I purchased a circa 2002 Contax TVS Digital, a 5 MP PS with a slow zoom and an optical viewfinder in a titanium body, with a max 400ISO. I had to track down a 1 gig SD card to use it, the camera could not handle any more. I got one off Amazon for a few bucks. The battery wouldn't charge, but I found a pair of Kastar brand aftermarket batteries that would. After that, I carried it with me here and there and found myself quite charmed by the process and enjoyed the result. Here is an example, https://www.instagram.com/p/CeE0idSpqXd/ , that appealed to me.

Of course, the Contax was already over $300, but I expect that any old Optio or Coolpix would give you the same general feel.

FWIW, I am with the too clinical lens opinion. That's why I like my Pentax Limiteds, but that's another story.

[John Krumm]

Regarding unexpected sun damage, when my motorcycle was still fairly new, I bought an aftermarket windshield. One nice morning my wife and I rode to an art market. When we returned to the motorcycle, I realized the sun had started to burn a hole in my digital instrument cluster, with the windshield acting as a magnifier. It's ugly, but it still works. Now I cover it with something, usually my gloves, when I leave it in the sun.

[Andy Kochanowski]

Mike, the Olympus 40/2 is a great story, and yes after you wrote about the last time you were baffled by the insane prices, I pulled mine out of the drawer and said what the heck, and put it on eBay. I got many offers to sell it for up to about $2200, but I said to myself I'll only sell it for $2500, or some other stupid and arbitrary number. The closes I came was a buyer who was a collector who fancied my lens for its serial number.

I really liked that lens and didn't part with it, so financially I probably lost out on a few hundred dollars. In reality, this caused me to pull out my old mint OM4Ti, attach the very rare finger grip I've been hoarding for years, put in the even more rare extra bright OEM screen, and send camera and lens to John Hermanson for a fixup. He adjusted the lens barrel, replaced the foam, cleaned up the mirror box and sent me back the ultimate manual street and candid photography camera looking and feeling like new. I think I emailed you a photo of it. Some things are better not being monatized!

[Ben]

For David Raboin:

We were able to find replacement batteries for a circa 2004 Pentax digicam when my daughter expressed interest. Look around and you should be able to find something.

[xf mj]

I liked my nikon coolpix 700 just fine.

Most of my chances to shoot pics are on dog outings. At a recent one, just at a local school playground, a group of gen Z-ers were filming themselves and their dogs with an early-90s videocam. I felt a little sheepish as a gen X-er carrying my EM1x which kinda looks like a 2010s-era professional canon. Sheepish because I was against that gear-head kind of camera in my late 20s, instead wanted 60s era rangefinders and/or 70s era compact SLR handholding to be what digital offered (hello, Fuji and Olympus Pen). But their crew seemed to nod in solidarity and approval of my middle-aged man photo gear, sort of as if I was sporting a fanny pack or some other, um, style. “Way to nerd out, old man!” they seemed to be saying, as we each pointed lenses at our dogs, happily.

[Patrick Perez]

[Monty Python voice: My brain hurts! --Mike]

"It will have to come out." - Cole Porter (the other one)

Patrick

[Tom Burke]

Wow - a mention of Dave Edmunds and old digi-cams in the same post! - I’m impressed. Edmunds was one a whole raft of highly talented & proficient musicians in the UK in the 70s and 80s who never quite had the sustained success their skills deserved. There was a whole thing in the early 70s here called Pub Rock, of which the leading exponents were probably Ian Dury & the Blockheads, and Doctor Feelgood, but Dave Edmunds was a part of it. All blown away a few years later, first by punk and then by the New Romantics.

I don’t seem to have kept any of my early digicams - at one point I had a Canon Powershot A60 (or A70), and I liked it, but as soon as reasonably-priced DSLRs appeared that was where I headed. I do however have an EOS 600 (not 600D) - they were called EOS 630 in North America, I believe - languishing in my cupboard. Does that qualify me for anything? I haven’t used it for years….

[Jeff]

Mike, regarding possessive case before a gerund, we’ve had this discussion. I’ve pointed out examples before, but you have responded that it’s intentional, noting that you know the rule, but don’t think it fits your writing style for the site. Too pretentious, I think you might have written. Anyway, I appreciate your thinking about it (see what I did there?).

[Robert Corrigan]

Wait till they find out about the Pentax Limited's 🙂

[Jeff]

Mike, apologies for multiple comments, but it’s possible my memory is lacking. Rather than the grammatical issue of using possessive before a gerund, you and I might have instead previously discussed using the subject of an elliptical clause, my other pet peeve since 10th grade English class. Instead of writing “you are a better writer than me,” the correct statement is “you are a better writer than I” (where “I” is the subject of the elliptical clause “better writer than I am..). In any case, one of these two “rules” you found not suited to your style.

[That much more likely the one we discussed, although I don't remember it. My writing has gotten more formal over the years because of the logic of grammar, and I can see the logic of using possessives with gerunds...it's necessary for good sense in many cases; getting it wrong changes the meaning. Whereas with an elliptical clause, there's no mistaking the meaning either way and one is more in danger of sounding snooty than the other; so I might choose one or the other as a matter of tone.

I don't actually know anything about grammar. I've never studied it. I've just learned it by ear and from reading, and as a consequence of curiosity.

By the bye, did I thank you for your kind donation to TOP this year? I'm confused as to whether I did. In any event, you're very kind, and, grateful thanks for your support. --Mike]

[Kodachromeguy]

The first "serious" digital camera I used was the Sony DSC-R1 from 2005. It had a wonderful Zeiss zoom lens.

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydscr1

I still like the files from that 10 pixel camera better than ones from more recent cameras. When I retired, it remained at the office and I am sure they surplussed it without a thought.

[Dave]

If old digicams are the newest thing for the young people, I'm afraid I don't have one to sell.

A friend from high school days was going to get rid of his Canon film camera about 10 years ago. The camera store wasn't going to give him much, but that's all I knew about it.

Five years ago, we were trading e-mails and I asked if he had gotten rid of the camera. He confirmed he still had it and I told him to look at the prices on ebay because film cameras were now a big thing with the younger generation.

He was shocked that he could get a decent price, rather than the "substantially less than $100" that the camera store had offered him. I assume he sold the camera and lenses.

I hope someone is able to donate an old digital P&S for David's daughter.

Thanks for the interesting post!

[Anton Wilhelm Stolzing]

I had the backup battery of my Konica Minolta A200 changed recently. You cannot DIY, so it cost a bit of money. Still, I wanted the camera to be in perfect working state. It still is good, albeit slow in RAW mode. It is difficult to imitate the look of the photos it produces with today's cameras.

[Robert Roaldi]

Just last year I gave away working Canon G3 and Sony H7 digicams. I still have an Olympus XZ-1 and a Fuji f40fd because I could not find a f31fd at the time. I'm not willing to part with them though, occasionally use them still.

There is one large lab here in Ottawa, GPC Labworks, that does their own film processing. I dropped off a roll of XP2 there the other day, first film I've shot in 20 years, wanted to see if the camera still worked. The largish bin where they keep envelopes of prints for customer pick-up was full, I was third in line at the counter. I counted at least 4 people working there, apart from the owner. The place down the road where I bought the film last month was packed with film for sale in 35 and 120 sizes, long line-up at the counter. I don't know if local art college students are the main film buyers but everyone in the store seemed awfully young to me.

For yucks I priced XP2 on Amazon Canada and their price was much higher than what bricks and mortar stores charge here. Which makes no sense, but a lot of things don't make sense in the new economy.

Btw, I wanted to buy a couple of rolls of XP2 for a friend who also wants to test his old cameras and the three stores I tried were out of stock.

Curious happenings, but there's no way I'm going back to vinyl, that's a step too far. I have to wear out my CDs first.

[Clay Olmstead]

Shooting pictures with a real camera is like giving yourself a mini-vacation: you're not being pinged and dinged with advertisements, oversharing friends and Breaking News!
Of course, you have to silence your cell phone to achieve this - or leave it at home.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Yeah, I remember being very aware of the fact that on a rangefinder camera with focal-plane shutter I could burn a hole in the shutter curtain quite easily with sun light. Managed to never do it, due to being aware of it. (I'd had an SLR for several years before I got the M3.)

I'm sure it wasn't precisely trivial to replace the shutter curtain, but I'm also sure that it was fairly routine for Leica repair people. Those things weren't hugely messy and finicky inside.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

A weirder, perhaps nastier, question of abbreviating a noun and then verbing it—er, I mean making it a verb—comes with "microphone".

It frequently gets abbreviated in the normal way to "mike", much shorter; but the spelling changes (not always, but mostly these days; I used to see "mic" sometimes).

Then, when it's a verb and we're talking about "stereo miking technique" or "how to mike drums" or whatever, that's only done with the abbreviated form (nobody says "microphone the drums").

And by then the spelling is looking quite bizarre to me. I have to look around to make sure that's the common usage.

[Kevin Crosado]

"Those old 'fifties M3's were plentiful and cheap, and of course they still worked. What better for impecunious young photographers with artistic aspirations who couldn't afford the latest Nikon F?"

I worked in a camera store during the 1970s. We did a steady trade in Leicas, but they all sold to collectors (and mostly to just the one man). I don't think we ever sold one to an actual photographer.

The really hot thing in art photography circles at the time was the Diana camera. We were the closest dealer to the university art school, doing a steady trade with faculty and students. We were also just around the corner from the only photo gallery in town, which quite often showed Diana prints. But sell the cameras? We couldn't even give them away.

Bottom line is that fads are, and always have been, way, way overhyped.

[Scott]

I don't know about the lack of image quality from mid-oughts digital cameras.

In 2006 my daughter got married. At the time, I was experimenting with compact digital cameras. My kit was a Canon PowerShot S80 and an Olympus SP500UZ. The Canon has an 8MP sensor, and the Olympus a 6MP sensor. We hired professional photographers to record the event, and they were shooting with a Canon 5D, Canon 20D and a Nikon D200.

The image of the bride with her bridesmaids which made the (expensively) printed album was my shot, taken with the Canon S80. It was recorded in JPEG and shot in bright shade at 1/250 f/4.0 (probably wide open). ISO was not recorded. It is crystal clear, sharp and beautifully colored. At 100% on my iMac 27", I can see a bit of noise, but not much, so it was probably at base ISO.

By comparison, I can see a bit of improvement in noise from the Canons. I can't tell about the Nikons, as the only images I have are collages which were heavily post processed. But they certainly don't standout from my little compacts.

The SP500UZ also performed well. Recording only JPEGs, at ISO 80 the images are noise-free, sharp and have great coloring. The noise seems a bit better than the S80s, but it's hard to tell at this point.

So if Zoomers are buying these cameras to get crappy images out of, they're barking up the wrong tree. You can get crappy images out of any camera, including an iPhone 14 and Nikon Z9.

[Jeff]

Yes, Mike, you expressed your gratitude as part of another comment I made not too long ago. Happy to contribute, even if not as a Patreon member.

[David Keenan]

You write:

"...on my Sigma fp-M comes with a cap for the eyepiece printed with a bold warning to never let the sun shine through the eyepiece on to the sensor. So it's obvious that's a potential problem."

The sensor is not in this light-pass, but the LCD screen is.

[Oh yes, of course. Sorry for the error. Fixed now. --Mike]

[Mike Cawley]

Read that article and got a good chuckle.
First it was vinyl, now digicams.

[Mitch Alland]

Guys, sometimes we go off into bla-bla-bla: gotta read things like this NYT article more critically. I like Thom Hogan's take on this in his article, "The New York Times Prints Junk Articles, Too":
https://www.bythom.com/newsviews/the-new-york-times-prints.html

[lynn]

Ok my prediction for the next overlooked treasure: the original Nikon 1 V1. Fabulous images reminiscent of Kodachrome, and the lenses are not half bad either, especially the 1 Nikkor 32mm f/1.2 (which sadly I never owned). The 18.5mm f/1.8 is a bargain.

[Paul.S]

I am inclined to agree with Scott about achieving "crappy images" or vintage photographs via an old digital camera. In the hands of any talented photographer (I am excluded on that list), he our she can make great or timeless captures with any photographic tool. Technology has certainly made it easier out of the box and you can now essentially shoot in the dark. Sentiment aside, a timeless photograph will always be special and most of us would likely have no idea what camera was used.

[Jayson Merryfield]

I actually just chucked a bunch of old digicams last summer because none of them would fire up (lifeless batteries that wouldn't charge) or the ones that took AA's had other operating issues.

Now film point & shoots... the one I still have works like a charm and new batteries are still available.