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Posts Tagged ‘Throwback’

Throwback Thursday: Minolta DiMAGE X

27 Apr

There were many ‘races’ in the compact camera market back when they were selling like hotcakes. From resolution to zoom, manufacturers were constantly trying to one-up each other. Another area in which they were competing was just how small a camera could be. One of the smallest was the ultra-thin Minolta DiMAGE X, released way back in 2002.

The DiMAGE X’s dimensions were 84 x 72 x 20mm (3.3 x 2.8 x 0.8in) – yes, less than an inch thick – so it easily fit into a shirt picket. How did they do it? Folded optics.

While we’re not 100% certain, it’s likely that the DiMAGE X was the first digital camera to use folded optics. Light comes through the lens, hits a 90-degree prism and then heads downward where it passes through the various elements until it his a 2 Megapixel CCD. As you can probably tell from the design of the camera, all of the zooming and focus takes place in the ‘downward’ portion of the lens.

As noted in Phil Askey’s review, two other things that allowed the DiMAGE X to be so thin was its compact lithium-ion battery and ‘tiny’ MMC/SD cards (which is funny, considering that the way-too-small microSD format was just a few years away). One tradeoff to having such a compact body was the camera’s tunnel-type viewfinder – you might as well just use the 1.5″ LCD.

While the camera was a snappy performer, its image quality was less impressive. Phil Askey noted that photos were very ‘video like – soft with some visible ghosting artifacts.’ Vignetting was also an issue. Its measured resolution was the lowest of any 2 Megapixel camera DPReview had tested at the time. Phil suggests that most of these issues are due to the folded optics design that made the DiMAGE X so unique.

Despite its unique optical design and ultra-compact body, the DiMAGE X didn’t win over Phil (mainly due to image quality), earning it a ‘Below Average’ award – a rarity on DPReview.

Did you have a DiMAGE X or its successors? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Read our review of the Minolta DiMAGE X

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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Throwback Thursday: The DSLR-A900, Sony’s first full-frame camera

20 Apr

Prior to September 2008, the only options for owners of Konica Minolta Alpha-mount lenses were APS-C DSLRs like Sony’s DSLR-A700 (Sony acquired KM’s camera business in 2006).

Then came the DSLR-A900, Sony’s first full-frame DSLR, which had an expansive feature set for the relatively low price of $ 3000. The A900, whose large magnesium alloy body could practically drive nails, had a 24.6MP full-frame CMOS sensor paired with two Bionz processors. That combination gave users a fully expanded ISO range of 100-6400 and burst shooting that topped out at 5 fps.

The A900 with its optional battery grip. As you can see, even the grip is full of buttons.

The A900 was one of those cameras with buttons for everything. Heck, there was even a switch for turning its in-body image stabilization system on and off. It also had a joystick which you could use to set the focus point – something that’s a big new feature on the a9. Back then the A900’s 9-point AF system was pretty exciting, though it pales in comparison to what you’ll find on a modern camera. Still, my colleague Rishi would be pleased that the A900 had AF micro-adjustment way back in 2008.

As you can see above, the A900 had a large pentaprism optical viewfinder, with 100% coverage and a magnification of 0.74x. The specs for its 3″, 921k-dot fixed LCD are the same as you’d see today. For those wondering: no, the A900 did not have live view.

The A900 had CompactFlash and Memory Stick Duo (groan) card slots.

Being a Sony camera of that era, the A900 had a few quirks. It had two memory card slots (good), but one of them was for Memory Stick Duo cards. The A900 carried over Minolta’s proprietary hot shoe, so if you wanted to use a flash with standard connectors, you’d need to use an adapter.

The A900 sits between its full-frame peers: the Canon EOS 5D and Nikon D700

As far as image quality goes, I think this quote from our review speaks for itself:

The Alpha 900 sets a new standard for resolution, edging past the EOS-1Ds Mark III by a whisker, and leaving its 12-ish megapixel competitors in a cloud of dust. Next to the Canon models the output looks soft, but in terms of sheer detail capture it’s now the one to beat in the full-frame DSLR market.

The main downsides were that the camera applied noise reduction to its Raw images and that things got pretty noisy once you passed ISO 400.

Despite that, the Sony A900 was quite a camera for Sony’s first attempt at a full-frame DSLR. It fell behind some of its competitors in some areas, such as autofocus speed, but that wasn’t enough to keep it from earning a ‘Highly Recommended’ award.

Have any fond memories of the A900? Share them below in the comments. If you have any ideas for a future TBT, be sure to let us know!

Read our Sony Alpha DSLR-A900 review

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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Throwback Thursday: Pokémon Snap

14 Apr

Photography makes guest appearances on plenty of video games, but it has rarely been the entire point of a game. Pokémon Snap is a rare exception, and if you ask any child of the 90’s who owned a Nintendo 64, it’s a heck of a way to spend hours of your time.

Pokémon Snap debuted in North America in June 1999, and gameplay is extremely simple. You play as Todd Snap, a guy on a perpetual Pokémon safari armed with a camera and a few tools designed to elicit interesting responses from the Pokémon: a Poke-flute and an endless supply of apples and ‘pester balls.’ 

The objective, per usual, is to ‘catch them all’, but in this game, catching them means taking a photo as you coast around Pokémon Island in a cart. At the end of each level Professor Oak rates and scores your photos based on composition and subject matter. Being the late ’90’s you are shooting film (looks like Fuji maybe?) so you have a limited number of frames to work with on every outing.

And that’s the whole game: figuring out what series of events or combination of annoyances will make Pokémon show themselves and provide the most photogenic reactions. Lure Pikachu to a surfboard with a trail of apples, and voila: surfing Pikachu photo. You could also hit them with pester balls, which seems like a poor way to treat a Pokémon, but you get a lot of points if they faint for your photo. And here’s a fun fact – apparently ‘participating Blockbuster stores’ would make small prints of your best Pokémon shots if you brought your cartridge in.

   

If you never played it then I imagine it sounds pointless at best. And if you offered it to a kid who’s grown up on a steady diet of big-budget, modern blockbuster games, I’m sure it looks about as exciting as Pong. But it was an unlikely hit with my generation, selling 1.5 million copies and achieving ‘cult classic’ status.

I didn’t have any particular interest in Pokémon or photography at that point, but I spent countless hours playing Pokémon Snap. It was irresistibly cute and rewarded experimentation. Before its US release IGN predicted it would be ‘a game solely intended for a Pokémon-crazed Japanese audience,’ but were eventually won over, calling it ‘an addictive, surprisingly fun gem of an experience that definitely deserves a rent.’ Looking back at the game almost two decades after its release, I’d still say that sums it up pretty well.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Throwback Thursday: Entering the DSLR world with the Canon EOS 10D

06 Apr

A few months ago I wrote a short article about the Canon EOS D30. The D30 was a groundbreaking camera in its day, being the first ‘affordable’ DSLR and the first to feature a large-format CMOS sensor. Yes, its autofocus system was woeful, and the LCD display on the back was about as useful as making a sketch from memory, but back in 2000, everybody wanted one.

I was definitely curious about the D30, but given that in 2000 I was a first-year undergraduate student, such an expensive camera was far beyond my reach. It would be another couple of years before I saved up enough money to buy my first DSLR, and the camera I eventually settled on was the successor to the successor of the EOS D30 – the counterintuitively named Canon EOS 10D1.

The break with Canon’s previous naming convention was appropriate, though. The 10D was a substantially new camera compared to the models that preceded it, and it replaced the D60 with an almost indecent haste (the D60 had been on the market for little more than a year before the 10D came along). Compared to the plastic-bodied D30/D60 it was better built, featured a far superior rear LCD (with a usable magnification feature) offered a more rounded styling, closer in spirit to the EOS-1D series, and was much quicker in operation.

The 10D was a thoroughly modern camera in 2003, and remained on the market for some time. Canon took the basic form factor of the D60 and modernized every aspect of that model’s performance and styling.

The 10D’s DIGIC processor drove a blisteringly fast (ahem…) continuous shooting rate of 3 fps, operation was snappier, including reduced shutter-lag, and the 10D’s 7-point autofocus system was a huge improvement over the 3-point system in the D30 and D60, which seemed prehistoric even back then. Although the 10D’s 6MP CMOS sensor was based on the one previously used in the D60, Canon had refined the manufacturing process in the meantime. Consequently it offered slightly better resolution than its predecessor, superior noise performance and a wider ISO span, topping out at a grainy but usable ISO 3200.

Remarkably, despite all of these improvements, the 10D was also $ 500 cheaper than the D60.

Although it definitely wasn’t in the same ballpark as the EOS-1D in terms of speed or construction, the 10D beat the pants off Canon’s then-current pro sports model in terms of image quality. Significantly, the core specification of the 10D was close enough to the EOS 30 / Elan 7 that film holdouts didn’t have to feel too badly short-changed by the costly jump into digital.

With the EOS 10D’s accessory grip attached, it was almost possible to believe that I was shooting with an EOS-1D.

Almost…

So, to recap – the 10D offered a very usable sensitivity range of ISO 100-3200, 3 fps continuous shooting, 7-point AF system, magnesium-alloy body shell and a substantial price reduction. In 2003, it all added up to a hugely desirable camera.2

Canon EOS 10D Sample images (2004-5)

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Because it was so popular, the 10D was pretty scarce for several months after its introduction. After saving up my wages for an entire summer (a story told in more detail here), I ended up purchasing mine from a ‘big box’ high-street retailer, because it was out of stock everywhere else – something I later came to regret.

I decided to pull the trigger on a 10D for several reasons. In a rare attack of foresight, I determined that this digital thing probably wasn’t a fad, and with ambitions to become a photographer of some kind, it seemed sensible to dive in as soon as possible. And while previous DSLRs had felt like too much of a compromise, the 10D seemed to meet my most important criteria.

As a budding theatre and live music photographer, I was hitting the limits of what I could do with film, both technically and practically. Technically speaking, high ISO film exposed in marginal light and processed at your average high-street pharmacy simply doesn’t look very good – especially if you’re talking about high-speed color emulsions. From a practical standpoint, development and printing turnaround times were a problem if I wanted to get images to people quickly. And forget about serious commercial work – by 2003, the magazines and websites I was interested in working for were increasingly insisting on digital file delivery.

A typical monochrome conversion of a shot taken in the Assembly Rooms Theatre. The 10D’s highest ISO settings were grainy, but perfectly usable – especially when converted into black and white.

The first quasi ‘commercial’ work I ever did was head-shots and performance images for Durham University’s student theatre. Student productions rotated every few weeks, and every production wanted some prints to display outside the theatre. I can’t remember the first production that I shot digitally (was it Harold Pinter’s ‘The Caretaker’?)3 but compared to film, it was vastly easier. Ironically, I was a sort of caretaker for the theatre at the time, since I lived in a small flat above the lobby. Being able to shoot a dress-rehearsal in the theatre, then head upstairs to make my edit and print the images – sometimes all in the same evening – was a revelation. I can’t remember how much I charged for my services, but I made enough over a couple of years to buy a couple of new lenses.

And for a while it seemed like it was lenses that were the problem. Initially I had two lenses for my 10D. A 50mm F1.8 (of course), and a 24-70mm F2.8L. Later I added a 70-200mm F2.8L and a 17-40mm F4L (all purchased used). The 10D worked perfectly with all of them, except the 24-70mm. For whatever reason, camera and lens did not get on at all. Chronic back-focusing was apparent even through the 10D’s viewfinder, and this was before the days of AF micro-adjustment. The 24-70mm was simply unusable on my 10D, but it focused perfectly on other DSLRs that I borrowed from friends, or rented in an increasingly desperate attempt to figure out what was going on.

A live shot from one of my first proper commissions – a major awards show tour that came through Newcastle in 2005 – not far from where I lived at the time. It looks like I benefited a bit from someone else’s flash, in this shot. Thank you – whoever you were.

The retailer I bought my 10D from wasn’t particularly interested in helping, so I sent it back to Canon at least four times during the first year I owned it, shooting on film during the long intervals when it was away for service. Every time it came back as ‘up to specification,’ but the back-focusing problem remained. Finally, after a lot of back and forth, I send the 10D in with the troublesome 24-70mm, and was rewarded with a ‘fixed’ camera, complete – funnily enough – with a new serial number. Knowing what I know now, I should have sent the camera and lens back together in the first place.

Even this frustrating experience wasn’t enough to dull my excitement at owning and using the 10D. It really was a fantastic camera at the time, and it helped me gain a footing in the not-at-all-lucrative world of performance photography. My first magazine commissions were shot with the 10D. I learned about the benefits of shooting Raw with the 10D (albeit rather belatedly). The first camera I ever had confiscated at a music venue4 was the 10D. It was my main camera for a couple of very formative years, before being relegated as a second body beside to the truly magnificent EOS-1D Mark II (which I’m hoping to write about at a later date).

The 10D couldn’t do everything (it choked up when shooting several Raw files in a sequence, and in low light its off-center AF points were little more than decorative), but it opened up a completely new world for me.

One of my favorite bands of the mid-2000s was ‘Hope of the States’. I probably photographed them more than any other band, for a while. This shot is from another awards show in London in 2005. Despite the off-center composition, most likely I used the central AF point for this image, since the 10D’s off-center points didn’t work very well at all in low light.

And it’s a world I’m still living in. Without the 10D, there is no doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t have become a music photographer, and if I hadn’t become a music photographer, I probably wouldn’t have ended up as a photography journalist. Whether or not that’s a good thing is something I’m happy to leave to the commenters to decide.

Did you own a 10D? Let us know.

Read Phil Askey’s review of the EOS 10D (2003)

Canon EOS 10D Review Samples (2003)

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1 A note on Canon’s confusing naming convention. The ‘D30’ because it was a digital camera with 3 million pixels. The D60 because it was basically a D30 with a new 6 million pixel sensor. And the switch to 10D because – I assume – Canon and Nikon’s lawyers had a little chat.

2 In fact, just about the only people who weren’t singing Canon’s praises at the time were recent D60 owners.

3 The Assembly Rooms – it’s still there, and this being student theatre, there’s every chance that they’re currently staging a production of Harold Pinter’s ‘The Caretaker’, too.

4 It was all just one big misunderstanding. Specifically around two people’s definitions of the word ‘permission’. 

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Throwback Thursday: Nikon D70

30 Mar

In 2004 I had to make the same grueling decision as many fellow photographers: Canon EOS 300D (Digital Rebel) or Nikon D70 – which one was to become my first digital SLR? The Canon, which had been launched in August 2003 was the first true consumer-level DSLR and had been on my wish list for a few months when, in January 2004, Nikon threw a curve ball and launched a direct competitor to the EOS 300D: the D70, the company’s first sub-$ 1000 digital SLR.

The D70 shared quite a lot with its 2-year-older sibling D100, including a six megapixel CCD sensor and the MultiCAM 900 autofocus system. It did not have the option to attach a hand grip and came with fewer custom functions and a plastic body but offered better  performance as well as improved image sharpness and detail when compared to its more expensive cousin. 

The D70 also had more manual controls and was more customizable than the Canon EOS 300D. After reading Phil Askey’s D70 review in April 2004 it quickly became clear to me that the D70 was the way to go. Phil wrote in his article that the Nikon D70 was ‘a camera which is a significant step ahead of the EOS 300D in terms of build quality and feature set and a match, and in some instances better from an image quality point of view.’ He went on to conclude that ‘There’s no risk involved in the D70’s slightly higher price compared to the EOS 300D (Digital Rebel), it’s absolutely worth it.’

 The Nikon D70 next to its closest rival, the Canon EOS 300D (Digital Rebel).

Despite Phil’s in-depth testing and analysis, I have to admit that one of the main reasons I favored the D70 over the Canon did not have anything to do with image quality or manual controls: with its black body and slightly beefier dimensions the Nikon simply looked much more professional and business-like than the silver-colored and slightly plasticky-feeling Canon.

Eventually the final decision about which camera to get was taken out of my hands anyway. My parents gave me a D70 kit with two entry-level Sigma lenses for my 30th birthday and they had no idea what they’d just done. I had been a keen amateur photographer before, but the D70 took things to a whole new level and triggered a true obsession with digital imaging. Virtually my entire spare time was spent either shooting and editing images, reading about photography or communicating with other photographers in online forums such as the ones on this very website. 

Three years later I applied for the position of camera reviewer at Dpreview.com and, after a fairly intense interview process, Phil and Simon offered me the job. Working at Dpreview meant that I suddenly had access to virtually any camera on the market and the Nikon got less use but I still own the camera today. It has simply had too much of an impact on both my career path and life to ever sell it.

Read our Nikon D70 review

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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Throwback Thursday: Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3, Multi-Aspect Master

23 Mar

Back in 2008 there weren’t a whole lot of enthusiast compacts. The two models which got the most attention were the Canon PowerShot G10 and Nikon Coolpix P6000. At that time, the ‘Megapixel race’ was really getting going, with the G10 and P6000 having 14.7MP and 13.5MP sensors, respectively (the LX2 was still at 10MP). All three of the aforementioned cameras had lenses with lovely focal ranges, but slow maximum apertures (F2.8-4.5 for the Canon, F2.7-5.9 for the Nikon).

Enter the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3. Panasonic didn’t go crazy with Megapixels like other companies, instead using a 10 Megapixel, 1/1.63″ CCD with a unique ‘multi-aspect’ feature. An even bigger story was its ‘Leica’ DC Vario-Summicron lens that had an equivalent focal length of 24-60mm (yep, kind of short) and a max aperture range of F2-2.8. Despite that fast lens and because of that limited range, the LX3 remained extremely compact.

The LX3 is remarkably compact considering its lens. Its metal body gave it a quality feel.

Indeed, one of the fun things about the LX3 was its multi-aspect capabilities. Using the switch on top of the lens barrel you could choose between 4:3, 3:2 and 16:9. On most cameras the angle-of-view would change at each of those ratios, but on the LX3 they are all the same. Simply put, the focal range (24-60mm equiv.) was the same, regardless of which of the three aspect ratios used. Having the ability to quickly switch aspect ratios made it a lot more tempting to mix things up a bit, since a trip to the menus wasn’t required.

The back of the LX3 had a pretty standard layout, with a 3″ LCD and cluttered controls.

The LX3 had a snappy UI, effective ‘MEGA OIS’ image stabiliization and plenty of manual controls. It could even capture 720/24p video, which was uncommon in that era. It’s battery life of 380 shots/charge was pretty darn good, too.

A pricey optical viewfinder was an available accessory. Third parties made teleconverters, like this 2.5x model from Fujiyama.

Two other nice things about the LX3 were its support for an optional viewfinder and a threaded lens barrel. The DMW-VF1 was attached via the hot shoe and was framed for 24mm shooting. If you wanted to screw something onto the lens, Panasonic sold a 0.75x wide-angle converter and a number of filters. While Panasonic didn’t sell any teleconverters, third parties did. Fujiyama produced a 2.5x teleconverter, which brought the long end of the lens to 150mm equivalent. 

Ultimately, it’s was the sensor + lens combination that made the LX3 so appealing. The LX3 had very good image quality at its base ISO and it held up well through ISO 800. Having that bright lens made the LX3 very capable in low light, as it allowed the photographer to keep the ISO as low as possible. And at a time when CCDs weren’t exactly noise-free, that made a huge difference.

My colleague Richard Butler adds:

The LX3 is the first compact I ever liked. It also, arguably, rejuvenated the entire sector: everyone else started to make small cameras with bright lenses, including Canon re-launching the S series. Sure, the move to 1″ sensors make the LX3 look rather less impressive, but it still pointed the way towards a generation of enthusiast pocketable compacts with lenses that let you get the best out of their sensors.

Have fond memories of your Panasonic LX3? Share them in the comments below!  Feel free to leave suggestions for future TBT articles as well.

Read our Panasonic LX3 Review

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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Throwback Thursday: Our first cameras

16 Mar

What was your first camera?

For this week’s Throwback Thursday, I asked fellow DPReview staffers to write a few paragraphs about their first cameras, film and digital. I’ll go first.

Jeff Keller

Unlike most of my colleagues, I wasn’t a huge film photographer. I recall owning one of those flat 110 cameras, followed by a standard-issue clamshell compact, which was promptly stolen by someone in the baggage department at London’s Heathrow airport. I ended up running to Harrods to pick up something similar. I probably paid way too much.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on digital cameras really early – like 1996 early. After toying around with early Kodak, Casio and Apple cameras, I finally bit the bullet and dropped $ 900 on the Olympus D-300L, also known as the Camedia C-800L. This powerhouse had an F2.8, 36mm-equivalent lens and a sensor with XGA resolution. 

My real pride and joy was the Olympus D-600L (Camedia C-1400L), which cost me $ 1300 in 1997. It had an unusual design, large-ish 2/3″ 1.4MP sensor, and a 36-110mm equivalent F2.8-3.9 lens. Its optical viewfinder had 95% coverage and was supplemented by a 1.8″ LCD. I don’t know what I did with it, but I wish I still had the D-600L in my possession!

Olympus C-800L photo by Erkaha

Allison Johnson

I’m counting my first camera as one that I used early on, and am now entrusted with, but isn’t strictly mine. I had some kind of point-and-shoot film camera of my own when I was young, and shared a Game Boy Camera with my sister, but Dad’s Nikkormat FT3 was the first ‘real camera’ I shot with. Let me tell you, that camera is built for the ages. It’s heavy and indestructible and as far as I can tell, still works like the day it was born. I take it out with me nowadays when I know I’ll be able to slow down and think about what I’m doing, and when I know I won’t be devastated if I screw it all up and come back with nothing. I haven’t been disappointed yet.

The very first digital camera I bought is slightly embarrassing: a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700. It was one of the super-slim Cyber-shots of the late 2000s that was all touchscreen. What can I say? I was taken in by its sleek looks and pocketability. It started up when you slid the front panel down to reveal the lens, and there was a real risk of the whole camera flying out of your hands every time you did that. It also had the world’s tiniest zoom lever in one corner on the top, which was pretty annoying to operate. The photos were fine in daylight, though I was just taking casual snapshots and didn’t exactly stress test it. I can confidently say my smartphone now does a fine job of everything that I was using this camera for. Therein lies the whole compact camera market, I guess.

Nikkormat FT3 photo by BastienM

Barney Britton

My first camera was a Pentax MX, inherited from my Dad (who is still very much alive), along with a 50mm F1.7 prime and a couple of Tamron Adaptall-2 zooms. It was the camera I learned photography with, and the only camera I took on a round-Europe rail trip when I was 18. I sold it when I went to university to fund a Canon EOS-3, and always regretted it. I found an MX in a junk shop last year, and I’m not going to sell this one.

My first digital camera was the Canon EOS 10D. I saved up for an entire year, working in a hotel restaurant during university holidays to pay for it (a story told in part, here) and it was my main camera for a couple of years.

The EOS 10D was the first ‘affordable’ DSLR that really stacked up against high-end film models in terms of build quality and functionality. Although its AF system was primitive compared to the EOS 3, it was extremely well-built, and very reliable. At the time, the 10D also offered the best image quality of any enthusiast DSLR (and arguably, the best image quality of any DSLR, period). Noise levels were low across its standard ISO range, and an extension setting of ISO 3200 offered filmlike grain, which looked great in black and white. I still see 10Ds ‘in the wild’ occasionally, and for a long time, we used an EOS 10D as our main studio camera at DPReview.

The EOS 10D had a magnesium-alloy body.

I shot my first published work on the EOS 10D, which felt like quite an achievement given how poorly its autofocus system performed in low light. If I’d never become a professional performance photographer, I might still have it. After the 10D I upgraded to an EOS-1D Mark II, when I started getting more serious about theatre and music photography.

Pentax MX photo by Alf Sigaro

Dale Baskin

I truly have no idea what my first camera was. When I go back and look at old family photos, even ones in which I’m barely a toddler, I always seem to have a camera in my hands, running the gamut from my Dad’s rangefinder to a free plastic camera someone chose over a toaster when opening a bank account. When I got serious about learning photography, however, there was one camera that appealed to me like no other: the Miranda Sensorex.

Why? Probably for the same reasons a lot of people started photography with a particular camera: it was available to me. I didn’t care that the camera was older than I was and heavier than a rock. It looked the way a camera was supposed to look, and it had the latest in sensor technology. (For the youngsters out there, this technology was called ‘film’, and my Dad insisted on the Kodachrome or Ektachrome varieties).

It was a great camera to learn on as there was no auto, no program and no aperture priority mode to fall back on. I recall reading somewhere that the Sensorex was the first 35mm SLR with TTL metering, and to this day I love the match-needle method of setting exposure. It may be a dinosaur by today’s standards, but it still works and will probably continue to do so for decades.

My first digital camera was the Canon PowerShot S300, a 2.1MP point and shoot. (Back then, that extra 0.1MP was important!). I agonized for weeks over whether or not I should spend literally hundreds of dollars more to get a 3MP camera, but in the end couldn’t justify the spend. I immediately fell in love with digital photography, especially the the ability for easy sharing on social networks. (Social network being defined as someone in your personal social network to whom you could snail-mail a CD-ROM of photos they were never going to look at anyway.)

As fun as digital was, it still didn’t give me the same quality as scanned slides, so I stuck with film for a few more years until the Canon EOS 20D came out, and the rest is history.

Carey Rose

The first camera I have any sort of memory of actually using (besides disposable cameras and my Grandpa’s Canon EOS 650 film camera, which was so cool) was a PowerShot A75. It was a hand-me-down from my dad, and the perfect ‘first digital camera’ for a socially awkward high-schooler. It was fairly small (though that didn’t stop me from wanting a camera phone as soon as such things became practical and available), ran on easy-to-find AA batteries, and the photo quality was great for the time.

It was also called ‘PowerShot,’ a brand name that, to this day, sounds way cooler than competing models like such as FinePix, Easyshare and Coolpix, all of which should have died out along with animated backgrounds and auto-play music on your favorite Geocities ‘links’ page. It even survived a tumble onto concrete for a while, though eventually it succumbed to the dreaded ‘lens error’ where the lens wouldn’t properly extend or contract.

It was superseded by a Samsung NV10, a camera which looked cooler, was a lot smaller and had a lot more megapixels (plus a funky Smart Touch control system with soft keys surrounding two sides of the display,) but I ended up preferring the overall ‘look’ of the PowerShot images I used to get. So when I left the NV10 on a train while traveling across Europe, I replaced it with another PowerShot, the S3 IS, and never looked back.

Sam Spencer

The first camera I used was probably the same as anyone born before 1990-something: a disposable point and shoot. Being six years old, I had no idea about focus, flash, or anything of the sort and tried to take a macro picture of a spider at less than six inches away….

A couple years later my father proudly came home one evening with a Ricoh RDC-2. I wasn’t allowed to get my prepubescent mitts on it until later when computer monitors grew to 1,024 pixels on the long side, making the VGA Ricoh obsolete. I remember using the AC adaptor for it almost exclusively since it ate through AA’s almost as often as its now-diminutive memory filled. I also seem to remember using its OVF more often than the (optional) flip-up screen on top. I mostly used it to try and capture various members of my remote control car collection airborne after launching off jumps I made out of tape and cardboard. Remember, I was about 8 or 9.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S75 had a 3MP CCD, 34-102mm equiv. lens, a rear LCD info display and plenty of manual controls. Its lens, labeled ‘Carl Zeiss,’ could be found on numerous other cameras under different names (e.g. Canon, Epson).

That camera was replaced with a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S75, which was the first time I had ever seen or heard the name ‘Zeiss’. That camera offered a bit more manual control (like focus!) than the Ricoh, was what got me truly enthusiastic about photography in Junior High, leading to signing up for darkroom photography my freshman year. Then I was handed a ‘real’ camera, a Minolta SRT200, which worked well until Nikon released the D50, a DSLR affordable enough to convince my generous father to help me purchase (he definitely paid for the majority).

Simon Joinson

The Fujica ST605N was an M42 screw-mount SLR made in the 70’s and 80’s. Photo by Alf Sigaro.

I have my father to blame for my lifelong love affair with photography. Not because he was a particularly accomplished or prolific photographer (based on the wallets of photos I have from my childhood I’d characterize his technique as a bit hit and miss, with a lot more ‘miss’ than ‘hit’), but because he gave me my first camera at age 12 or 13. I got this hand-me-down because he was replacing his camera – a Fujica ST 605N – with something a lot fancier (a Minolta X500, chosen after an excruciating amount of research including, much to my mother’s consternation, two visits to a camera show from which he returned with a roll full of pictures of semi-naked models on motorbikes).

Anyway, I didn’t care because I now had my own real camera, complete with 35mm, 55mm and 135mm lenses packed into an ancient gadget bag that released a heady aroma of moldy old leather and film every time I creaked open its lid, and whose numerous pockets were home to a fascinating collection of dusty accessories and starburst filters. It was the most amazing thing I had ever owned.

The Fujica ST605N was one of dozens of similar no-frills M42 screw mount SLRs made during the 70s and early 80s (although it appears that the mere fact you could see the currently selected shutter speed in the viewfinder was quite the selling point in 1978), but it was compact, nicely made and had a decent focus screen and a fast (at the time) silicon exposure meter.

And I loved it. And, like all photographers who started with a fully manual camera and a small selection of prime lenses that took about 10 minutes to change (thanks to the screw mount), I quickly learned the basics of photography (specifically apertures and shutter speeds), partly by reading but mostly through trial and error. 

I can still remember the first roll of I put through it, at the local zoo, and the thrill of getting the prints back only 5 days and 2 weeks’ worth of allowance later (on this point my father made it clear I would need to reign in my enthusiasm and that a 36-exposure roll normally lasted him for at least a few months).

After many years of enjoying his Fujica, Simon moved on to the Nikon F-301, known as the N2000 in the United States. Photo by John Nuttall.

I kept – and used – the Fujica all my teen years, adding an old flashgun that took 5 minutes of high-pitched wheezing to charge up, a slightly moldy 70-200mm Vivitar zoom I found in a junk shop, and a sizeable collection of blower brushes and cap-keepers that came free on the covers of photography magazines. My time with her only ended when I went to college – all students were required to arrive on the first day with a Nikon SLR, so I had to trade-in my trusty old ST605N for a Nikon F301 (aka N2000), which seemed like something out of Knight Rider by comparison. But that’s another story…

The Casio QV-10, with its low resolution CCD and rotating lens, was one of the world’s first consumer digital cameras.

My first digital camera? Well, the first I used was a Casio QV10, but since I started writing about digital cameras in 1995, I never really had to buy one (we had a house full of them), and I just borrowed what I wanted when I wasn’t shooting for work. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I didn’t actually buy a digital camera for myself until 2011 (funnily enough it too was a Fuji – a first generation X100).

So what was your first camera (film or digital – both are fair game)?  Let us know in the comments below! Suggestions for future Throwback Thursday articles are also welcome.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Throwback Thursday: the Olympus C-2100UZ

09 Mar

Even in 2000, the Olympus C-2100UZ’s 2MP sensor was a bit behind the times. Plenty of other cameras offered 3MP sensors, but what the C-2100UZ lacked in resolution it sought to make up with a huge (at the time) 10x stabilized zoom. That 38-380mm equiv. F2.8-3.5 lens was matched with a full slate of manual exposure controls, built-in EVF and a focus assist lamp that ‘actually works’. 

The C-2100UZ shared a lot of features with the C-2020Z on which it was based, which offered a 35-105mm equiv. F2-2.8 zoom. Shared features included a 1.8″ 114k-dot rear LCD, which site founder Phil Askey noted was in sore need of an anti-reflective coating.

The lens was obviously the C-2100’s biggest selling point. At the time, the only other ‘compacts’ to offer a lens this long were Sony’s floppy disk-based Mavica cameras. There wasn’t much out there to get you to 380mm equiv. on a DSLR either, so the C-2100’s relatively compact, stabilized lens was a pretty wondrous thing. Phil Askey noted some slight chromatic aberration in images, and lamented the camera’s over aggressive sharpening algorithm.

The C-2100 cost $ 1300 at launch, but a dip in street price to $ 900 later made it much more competitive in its class. Askey revised his review in 2001 to give it a ‘Recommended’ rating reflecting its new price. Do you have fond memories of the C-2100? Let us know in the comments.

Read our Olympus C-2100UZ Review

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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Throwback Thursday: Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ1, travel zoom pioneer

02 Mar

Prior to February 2006, if you wanted a camera with a long lens, you had to get something like this. But on the 14th of that month, Panasonic introduced the world’s first compact travel zoom camera with optical image stabilization: the Lumix DMC-TZ1, which had a 10x 35-350mm equivalent lens.  Where even relatively compact long-zooms like the Lumix DMC-FZ5 wouldn’t fit in an average-sized pocket with its dimensions of 108 x 68 x 85mm, the TZ1 came in at 112 x 58 x 40mm. Naturally, it was also lighter: 250 g, compared to the FZ5’s 326 g.

So how did Panasonic manage to squeeze a 10x, F2.8-4.2 lens into a body 40mm thick? The answer is folded optics. As you can see from the cutaway above, light comes through the front elements, hits a prism and then travels through the rest of the elements before hitting the camera’s 1/2.5″, 5 Megapixel sensor. In the ‘folded’ section of the lens is where you’ll also find Panasonic’s ‘MEGA OIS’ image stabilization system.

Panasonic bragged about the DMC-TZ1’s ‘fiercely fast’ linear autofocus system which, at the time, had the best response times of any camera in its class, at least according to the company.

So what other features did the TZ1 bring to the table? Its 2.5″, 207k-dot LCD had a ‘high-angle’ function, which really did make the screen visible when holding it above your head (this is before articulating LCDs were a big thing).

The camera had numerous scene modes, including one for shooting out of airplane windows. If I recall, you’d get a warning similar to ‘When using the camera, follow all instructions from the cabin crew’ whenever you switched to that mode. Another scene mode of note was ‘high sensitivity’, which dropped the resolution to 3MP and increased the ISO to 800. As you’d expect, the results weren’t very good. (Overall image quality was good for its day, though noisy.) For the videophile, the DMC-TZ1 captured VGA clips at 30 fps.

Panasonic really broke new ground with the Lumix TZ1, and continues to crank out compact travel zooms to this day (with longer lenses and more pixels, naturally). They may not be big sellers anymore, but there’s something to be said for a camera that covers all the bases for a family vacation.

Read our review of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ1

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Throwback Thursday: the Canon EF 24-70mm F2.8L

23 Feb
Photo by Daniel Dionne

This week the Sigma ‘Art’ line gained a lens many had been clamoring for: a 24-70mm F2.8 zoom, which nowadays seems a required lens for many professional shooters. This week we go back to where it started: the original Canon 24-70mm F2.8L.

Look across all camera systems and you’ll find that they all offer some sort of constant aperture 24-70mm or ‘normal’ zoom equivalent that covers this range. There’s a good reason for it. This zoom range covers the wide area and the mild telephoto area, rather than all wide or all tele. It’s a flexible range, and appeals to photographers of many different disciplines.

The odd thing is, the 24-70 is only 15 years old. In 2002 the very first 24-70, Canon’s F2.8L, replaced its already highly regarded 28-70mm F2.8L. Since then, the 28-70 zoom has faded away and is typically only seen as a variable-aperture kit zoom, or affordable constant-aperture zoom lens. Everyone since has gone crazy for the 24-70.

Unusually, the 24-70 F2.8 was ‘longest’ at its wide-angle end. Photo by Cburnett.

The original had some very interesting design quirks. The zoom is ‘reversed’, meaning the barrel is at its maximum extension at 24mm, and is at its shortest at 70mm. With the lens hood mounted behind this extending element, the lens shade was able to provide the right amount of coverage for all focal lengths, as its extension relative to the front element is shortest at 24mm, and longest at 70mm, getting out of the way when wide, and providing extra shade when shooting at 70mm. 

The 24-70 is at its most compact at its full telephoto end. Photo by Cburnett.

Now, the term ’24-70′ is fairly ubiquitous, and is almost generic. Wedding shooters and photojournalists have led the way adopting it, attracted to its versatile field of view and constant aperture. By 2007 Nikon had released their own 24-70 F2.8 to replace their 28-70 F2.8. Sony came shortly after with the alpha mount 24-70 in 2008. Third party manufacturers followed suit, releasing their versions in the 2010’s.

The Mark II version of Canon’s 24-70mm F2.8 arrived in 2012.

When photographers ask questions like ‘what lens should I choose for this shoot,’ or ‘I only have a budget for one lens, what should I get,’ plenty of people will recommend a 24-70. What’s really amazing is how its popularity can be traced to a single lens introduced just fifteen years ago.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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