Some time ago, I wrote a post about the 6mp digital SLR and what a goldmine of use these $150-200 camera can be. Last time, the post was about my line-up of misc cameras and my uses for them. Today, I'm going to go back to my roots, backing up even further and talk about the 3 megapixel (what was then called) digi-cam. Throughout the 80's and 90's, I carried around a bag full of Pentax film camera and lenses. And when I say "a bag full", that's what I mean! In my medium sized Tamrac bag was 2 Pentax SLRs (MX and ME Super) complete with winders, and as many of my 12 lenses as I could get in there. One was loaded up with color and the other black & white film. They took great pictures..... when I used them that is...... Around about 2000, I was a departmental IT guy at an upper Midwest university and buying digital cameras on a regular basis since that's what was easiest for our users to photograph event and publish them, either online or print. We bought a lot of Kodak DC series cameras that were easy for my users. This led me to finally break down and got myself a DC4800 to shoot personal photographs. After about 1 year of having it, I realized that I almost never took the film cameras anywhere and while I would happily show the digital files to family members on the computer, I never did anything with my print photos. While some of this was due to not wanting to drag the big bag of cameras and lenses around, much of it was due to the quality of the photos that came out of the little Kodak. Now; they weren't going to win any contests, but they were completely adequate for what I typically wanted photographs for. That was almost 14 years ago!
14 years is a LONG time in the digital world! In those years, we've gone from 3 to 6, to 12, to 24, and now to 36 megapixels on "state-of-the-art" cameras. I've previously discuss that on a day-to-day snap-shot camera, 6 megapixel is all that anyone needs since that resolution will print natively close to 13" by 17" format. Most of the nicer inkjets that folks are likely to buy and print on will only do 8" x 10". And at that size, a good 3mp camera will do fine. These cameras are actually in the "throw away" range of things.
.......which gets me to my topic for today. I find that much of what I "need" to do with a digital camera are "chores", NOT "fine art". Yes, the last 3 days, I was at Caddo Lake State Park and shot bayou, foliage, and wild animals; so I took the D300....of course. But today, my job is the shoot some nice photos of items that I'm going to list on Craigslist and eBay. So guess which camera I'm going to grab? Actually; not that one. I need a better flash than that, but I could have used it. In fact, when I went out to California last year to see my mom, I only took a 3 megapixel Nikon CoolPix 880 which has the same sensor as the 995 depicted above and it shot very adequate pictures.
I think, when most people think of lower resolution camera, they think "cheap" and not well made. Actually; nothing could be farther from the truth.... as long as you buy an older used camera. Because, "back in the day", these 3 (and 5) mp; cameras were often close to $1000 instruments! The CoolPix 995 is a great example. That series going back to the 900 were all designed to sell for a cool grand. As were their competitors like the Olympus Camedia C3030.
The Canon PowerShot S1
.....and the Konica/Minolta DiMage Z1. These cameras are only some examples of what was out there in the "formative" years of digital photography. The reason they were nicely build, with nice feature sets and good optics was that they were what people bought before the DSLR revolution. That didn't began until about '06 with the Canon Rebel XT and Nikon D70. In those days, only the fabulously rich or professionals bought a DSLR!
So; what do I do with it when I'm not shooting pictures for ads? Well.... you know that kid that wants to be just like momma or daddy? Don't buy them a $20 piece of junk at Walmart that's going to break the second time they use it. Certainly; don't give them your big ole DSLR festooned with buttons and dials! Go get a one of these things off of eBay or Craigslist for $20 (that's after shipping), and let them snap away. It's not like you're paying for film these days!
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