Taking Photos with An 18 Year Old Digital Camera
Digging Through the Storage Unit
We've been trying to clear out an old storage unit for years now. After moving across the country several times and even to the UK and back, we've amassed quite a lot of junk! I'd like to take it all down to the dump and rid myself of this burden, but the truth is, there is a lot of good stuff mixed in with the useless garbage.
While going through some old boxes, I came across the first DSLR that I ever bought. It was a Canon Rebel XT, with the 4GB card still in the card slot. This was one of the most budget DSLR cameras you could get at the time, but I didn't know much about cameras so I was pretty happy to have it.
The battery was completely useless and wouldn't charge, so I found a cheap 3rd party one on Amazon which showed up the next day. I still have the super cheap nifty 50mm lens that I originally bought along with the camera way back, so I put them together and decided to take it down to the park with @little-ricky to see if it could still take decent photos.
This camera does not do video at all and has no live view which I've gotten really used to. You have to look in the viewfinder and shoot just like every camera that I ever used before this one. I was kind of a fun experience, actually. It just takes pictures, and you have to focus on that rather than anything else.
One thing that was kind of cool that I never knew back when I got it was the ability to shoot RAW. At the time, I didn't even know what that was, so it would not have mattered. I was just dipping my feet in and never touched the manual settings. I just stuck it in auto mode and shot away.
I was quite surprised to see how nice the pictures came out on this old camera with a max resolution of 8 megapixels. It has a cropped sensor making the 50mm lens work more like an 80mm lens, so you have to move a bit further back to get the same shot. I prefer using prime lenses, mostly for the size and simplicity.
Out of curiosity, I did a quick search on Ebay to see if anyone was selling this camera. There were loads of them for around 20-30 dollars! I guess with all the mobile devices these days no one wants to mess around with an old camera that doesn't even do video. But I would argue that even the most modern phones can't fully compete with these old cameras. The tiny lenses and proprietary compression algorithms that you can't turn off most of the time can have some pretty undesirable effects.
I would really recommend that anyone wanting to learn how to take photos buy one of these old DSLR cameras on the cheap and throw the thing into manual mode and learn about aperture, shutter speed and ISO. Because the basics haven't really changed over the years. Also, for that price you also get the ability to shoot in RAW so that you can bring your images into something like Adobe Camera RAW and mess around with the levels in a lossless way.
So believe it or not, this ancient, budget DSLR camera can still take perfectly good pictures. You're definitely not going to be making any large prints with these photos, but for social media and the web, it's just as good as anything else.
As per usual, after a long hard day of screaming, climbing and playing in the sand little Rick was ready to take a nap in the car. And I was as well.... Too bad I had to drive!
You are right, used items are a shame to throw away if they still function well. The pictures you shared show amazing camera shots.
Thanks, I am not a photographer, but I understand the very basics. I wish I had known a bit more when I originally bought this camera. I'd have a lot of nicer photos from back then!
I still believe that most of the old product has better quality than some of the new generation product and I love to keep old stuff that are still usable and valuable.
I have noticed over the years that the first version of something that a company makes is quite often the highest quality. Then they start 'cost reducing' on future iterations. This camera was always a budget camera, but honestly it's not that bad!
For an old camera the shots are decent! Gosh the little one is a big boy now!
Yeah he has grown crazy fast! This kid is heavy as hell too. He weighs a lot compared to other kids that look exactly the same size. We call him "dense" lol
By the way, I was sad to see that someone on Steem was stealing your content. That whole platform has become totally scammy.
Lol dense. That is really something hahaha.
Oh yes the Steem incident. Fortunately it was solved and their account was closed but it was a bit scary to witness that...identity theft
old is gold....and looking at these picturess really made me to own one....why to sell such amazing stuffs, better keep it for the boys to learn the trick with the same instrument...or pass on to me
Yeah, I think I will give my son something like this old camera when he is old enough so that he can learn how to shoot properly in manual mode. At least if he breaks it, there won't be much money lost! The only thing is the lenses are worth more than the camera....
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Even with how the old camera, it still retail it's quality
Yeah, I half expected it to not work when I took it out of storage but it was fine! The only thing that was wrong with it was the plastic cover for the I/O crumbled off of it when I took it out of the box. Other than that, it's perfectly fine!
Sabías que la basura de otros , son tesoros para alguien anhelo una cámara 📷 digital..
Eso es cierto.. En estos dias estoy tratando de utilizar el equipo que tengo en vez de comprar cosas nuevas.
es una experiencia muy gratificante utilizar el equipo de 📷 , yo tuve una handycam Sony como la extraño.
I bought my first DSLR exactly when you did yours, 18 years ago, just before my son was born... It's a Nikon D60, except for the battery (that I changed as you did), everything works perfectly! It doesn't have a live view, and it doesn't have video, but photos are still better than with a mobile phone... Especially when I'm using it with natural light, and from a distance like your first photo in this post... Those photos are usually perfect! Like yours!!!
20-30$ for that camera is a bargain! Can't believe that people pay thousands of dollars to have a phone with a "good camera"...
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Nice! Quite literally the only reason that I buy canon cameras now is because I bought this one back then. Sense I already had the EF lenses I just kept upgrading the bodies and got used to the Canon menus. I am sure that if I had bought a Nikon like you did I'd be still using those.
I keep hearing promises of how amazing the phone cameras are, but I have noticed that no matter how good your phone camera is, if the light isn't absolutely ideal the image looks horrible at 100%. It has this digital smeary compression thing going on and crappy dynamic range. That being said, I've seen people shoot what looks like movie footage on a phone. I am definitely nowhere near that skill level.
That's why I just bought a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro. I'm currently rigging it up and will post about it. We're in the process of making a kids show which I hope will be successful!
BTW - I just voted your witness (I thought I already had). You're movin' on up! Mine has been resynching for a few days now. I am in the processing of setting up a backup node for these situations. It is a major headache when this happens.
Can't wait to see the results! Regarding phones, I do know that you can learn tricks to make things, as you said, movie footage, but in the end, you don't have that "brute power" you have with "regular" cameras...
Thanks for the vote!! Appreciated!!
What's happened? It forked out? Resyncing is a pain in the ass... I remember the wait for the first block was like walking in a dark room... lol...
Somehow the blockchain became corrupted. I have no idea how this happened. I am a bit frustrated because I went with Privex because of the claim that you could be back up in minutes after a problem be reinstalling the server which is almost instantaneous. The problem is, the latest snapshot is from August and the drives I paid for are pretty slow so it is taking days to catch up.
I am setting up a backup server with striped NVME drives and will be making my own snapshots. That way I'll always be ready for this. I was waiting to do this until I was closer to 50th place, but it looks like things go pushed forward!
Yeah, I saw that those Privex VPS are too cheap to be good... I mean, they can work, but in the situation, like you described, it takes time to put it back up...
https://twitter.com/lee19389/status/1734543607485583708
#hive #posh
I have an old Fuji camera that was considered a crossover I think they call it. It had a larger sensor than one of the point and shoots, but it wasn't a full DSLR. That thing was only 6 MP, but it still takes some banger photos. I don't really use it anymore, but I have always been impressed by that crazy thing. Have you seen the new gadget they have where it is a sensor shaped like a film canister so you can put it in old 35mm cameras and turn them into digital cameras?
I still have an old Konica Minolta Dimage Z1 digital camera from way back in the day. It kind of had the 'look' of a DSLR back in the day but it was so low res. I think only 3 megapixel. I remember loving it when I first used it. But one day it wouldn't power on and I never figured out why. One of these days I am going to take it apart to see if I can get it working again, just for nostalgia purposes.
Wow, no I haven't seen that. Sounds like a fun invention. It is perfect for all those hipster kids who like to walk around looking like it is 100 years ago. Haha! Just kidding, that does sound cool. I have an ancient Minolta film camera I could use that in.
My dad sold all of his old Nikon stuff otherwise it might have been fun to test out. I have a feeling my Fuji would still power on if I put batteries in it. I think it is still down in my basement. My niece asked for a Polaroid camera for Christmas this year. Apparently those have made a comeback.
Yeah, @afturner bought one of the Polaroid remakes a couple of years ago. The film was crazy expensive so we only ended up using like one pack. The pictures look horrible too. haha, I guess it's good for getting that 80s look.
I have a box of really crappy cheapo digital cameras somewhere that I might dig up. It's those ones from the early 2000s that did less than 1 megapixel images. I was thinking about grabbing one and seeing if I could take a decent picture with super ideal conditions just for fun.
Did you ever have one of the Sony Mavicas that you needed to put a 3.5 inch disk in them, and it only held like five photos?i
Old is gold, pics are beautiful.
I still have no access to a DSLR, will buy one day when have spare money.
Btw ,hope you are having fun with the little ricky. Stay happy.
Thanks, I try to have as much fun with the little one as I can. Thanks for the comments!
wow, I am really imperssed by this 18-year-old camera result.
Me too. I thought they would look more noisy, but I got a nice surprise.
very beautiful baby and photo also
Thanks, he sure is cute. And very photogenic
Those pictures came out great, even with that older camera! Good to know that they do produce nice photos. Little Ricky sure is a cute kid, it looks like he had a blast at the park. Is that the one they recently refurbished near your home?