A Decade of Digital

[Mike Farley]

Digital cameras have been around for much longer than a decade, but where we are now marks ten years since they started to gain mass acceptance. When I joined Croydon CC in October 2004, I was expecting to find a bastion of silver halide. This assumption was mainly based on the digital v film debate, where there seemed to be entrenched positions on both sides. Instead, most members had already switched to digital. One reason was the recent introduction of the 6MP Canon 10D at the "bargain" price of £1,500, which was a better camera than the D60 it replaced at half the cost. At around that time I myself bought a Canon 300D, a budget version of the 10D, which was £800 with a kit lens*.

The advert pages of Amateur Photographer told a different story. Most cameras being offered for sale in 2004 used film and the few digital models were expensive by comparison. By 2006, the situation had changed completely. Prices were substantially lower and it was rare to find anything which was not digital. One of the most dramatic changes in photography had occurred over a period of around eighteen months. Taking the mean of that timespan, the switch when digital cameras became mainstream would have occurred around a decade ago.

* I did not keep it that long. It was frustrating to use as startup time was slow and I found that I was missing shots; within 18 months I had moved on to a 400D, a much better camera with 10MP and a much lower price than the 300D. The 300D soldiered on until quite recently in the hands of a friend to whom I sold it. Unfortunately, it stopped working when a small mirror became detached and not surprisingly it was beyond economic repair. My friend replaced it with a compact camera.

[Rose]

I bought my first digital camera in 2004 - a Canon Powershot A80 compact with 4MP. I had used a Canon film SLR for years but decided to get a compact as I was tired of lugging the gear around. The switch to digital immediately reinvigorated my passion for photography though, and I upgraded to a Canon G6 after just 12 months and moved to RAW at the same time. I then bought a Powershot Pro which was Canon's top of the line bridge camera, and finally returned to the SLR world with a 400D in 2007. When I joined the camera club in 2009 I was using a 40D, which I replaced with a 5D MKII in 2012, and then the 5D MKIII in February this year.

My first 'real' camera though, was a Rollei 35 which I bought with my first wages in 1978. I still have it. How many of us still have old film or digital cameras, I wonder ? Perhaps we should challenge ourselves to get them back out and share our experiences ?

[davidb]

My first 'real' camera though, was a Rollei 35 which I bought with my first wages in 1978. I still have it. How many of us still have old film or digital cameras, I wonder ? Perhaps we should challenge ourselves to get them back out and share our experiences ?

Sounds like a Members Evening

[Mike Farley]

Until I started working, I had been borrowing my Dad's camera but moved on to a Praktica LLC once I had funds. I still have it, although the shutter did not prove especially robust and has long since failed. It was repaired once which kept it going a bit longer. During the 70s, I was tempted by the OM system, having both an OM-1 and OM-2. The OM-1 is also broken, but the OM-2 is still going. In a reversal, my Dad started using my Praktica once I switched to Olympus. When the shutter failed for the second time, he also acquired an OM-2.

Olympus never really had a response to AF when that came out in the late 80s, so around 1992 I purchased a Canon EOS 100 and used that for many years, even after I bought the 300D; in 2006 I went on a course to the Lake District with Lee Frost and was shooting both cameras, each mounted on their own tripods. I last shot film seriously in 2007, but still have a large number of rolls of Velvia in the freezer. At the time I bought the 300D, I could have had a 20D instead which in hindsight would have been a better purchase. Its successor was the 30D, which was essentially the same camera with a larger rear screen. Up to that point, Canon had been in the ascendency, but the 30D marked the time when it started to slow the pace at which it started to slow the pace at which it released new developments. I bought the 400D as it had a better sensor than the 30D thinking it would be a temporary measure, but when the 40D also came out with a 10 MP sensor I saw little point in upgrading.

I had always thought I would switch to a full frame DSLR one day, but the original 5D never tempted me. In 2011 when I wanted to update the 400D, I looked at the 5DII, but apart from the crop sensor the 7D seemed a superior camera and an article in AP convinced me that there was little between the performance of the two cameras. I already had a couple of EF-s lenses which would otherwise have to be replaced, the 7D was far cheaper and more versatile, so that was the option I went for. It might have been a different decision had the 5DIII been available, but by the time it was released I was having doubts about the long term viability of the DSLR.

That had come about when in 2012 I purchased a Panasonic GF1 and a couple of lenses as a lightweight walkaround camera. I quickly became enamoured with the compactness of the kit and added a Panasonic G3 as I wanted a viewfinder. The buttons on the new camera were too easy to operate inadvertently, so eventually I swapped brands and bought an Olympus E-M10 last year which has proved much better and suits my way of working. Mirrorless is definitely the way forward for me and the only thing which has stopped me ditching my Canon gear are my doubts about continuous AF capability on mirrorless systems. Earlier this year, I experimented with Fuji when I took advantage of the heavily discounted X-Pro1 and two lenses offer on an interest free loan. Quite often both cameras end up in my camera bag, which is now far lighter than my DSLR kit ever was.

I do not feel committed to any one system, so for now I am waiting to see how mirrorless cameras progress over the next year or so. There are indications that AF performance is continually improving and has long been sufficient for most purposes.

[davidb]

I took up photography shortly after leaving school in 1964. A friend sold me his when he upgraded; I can't remember which model it was but it was a bridge camera with interchangeable lens. I part exchanged it shortly after for a Canon SLR and borrowed lenses from my friend until I could afford my own. I next part exchanged the Canon for an Olympus OM2 in the late sixties/early seventies. By the end of the seventies I had gone off photography, left Mitcham Camera Club and sold the camera (to High Street Radio - I was the one who got Reg into the camera business!)

My first digital camera was a compact - a Fujifilm A203 (2.0 megapixels). I didn't use it much and I still have it tucked away somewhere. In 2005 I bought a Canon Rebel (EOS 350D) and I've not looked back since. I've added to my collection of lenses, upgraded to the 550D (2011), added more lenses, upgraded to the 1DX (after retiring in 2012), added more lenses. I also purchased a Nikon 1 J2 (with additional lenses) for a "pocket" camera but it doesn't see much light of day these days.

I looking forward to replacing my 100-400mm zoom with Canon's mk II version some time in November and buying an EOS 7D mk II to replace the 550D. That will take a huge chunk out of my savings - I hope it will be worthwhile!!

[Mike Farley]

I should mention my first camera, given to me for my 8th birthday. It was a Baby Brownie made of bakelite and took the now redundant 127 film, giving eight exposures. Talk about simple, it was a world away from today's digital models and had just three controls. Two metal spring loaded frames popped up for the viewfinder, a small lever at the front operated the shutter and a knob advanced the film. Point and shoot.

After a while, I wanted more control so my parents gave me a Box Brownie. That had a lever which allowed me to change settings according to whether it was sunny or cloudy. At the time I considered it to be a real advance.

[davidc]

Do you guys have any of the original images taken back then?

My first camera was a Minolta Dimage Z1, one of the first bridge-type cameras, but it was purely because of the optical zoom and for holiday snapshots.

My first proper camera, when I was interested in photography, was a Canon 550D. That was stolen when we were still living in Croydon and were burgled, along with almost all the images I'd ever taken, but I still have the insurance replacement. THAT camera was broken when sent away to be converted to IR, and broke further when i tried repairing it. It's going on ebay

I need to dig out any surviving oldest Z1 image but the oldest "proper" photograph I have was also the first I sold, a "postcard" shot of the Budapest Parliament building


Budapest Parliament building by David, on Flickr

[Mike Farley]

David, your last post reminds me that my first digital camera was a 4MP Canon G2, which I bought ex-demo in 2002 for £520 from Vic Odden and was a substantial saving on the normal price. It came with a small 32 MB (yes, megabytes!) Compact Flash memory card and I later purchased a 256 MB one for £80. AF performance was sluggish, which was typical for digital cameras of that era. It was OK for anything which was not moving but trying to take shots of my son as he hared around the garden was impossible.

I started off shooting JPEGs, but later switched to Raw and processed the images in an application called BreezeBrowser, which still exists. Despite the pricing in US dollars, the software is developed by Chris Breeze who is based in the UK. I used that for quite a while until I switched to Photoshop CS2 and the first version of ACR.

http://www.breezesys.com/BreezeBrowser/

I'll see if I still have any shots taken with that camera and the 300D.

[davidc]

It will be interesting to see if you can still open the RAW files too