Properly "classic" digital cameras (and imaging) (was Re: enough already (was: digital camera capabilities))
30 May
2007
30 May
'07
6:22 a.m.
On 5/30/07, Gordon JC Pearce <gordon at gjcp.net> wrote:
I have a digital camera that is now (and in fact, as
of last friday) 10
years old ;-)
Mine is quite safely "over the line" - my first digital camera was a
QuickTake 150
http://manuals.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Manuals/cameras/0306677Qck…
I picked it up at the Dayton Computerfest (same place as the Hamfest,
but was in March or August of each year until they stopped having it a
little while back). I first encountered one in 1995/1996, then bought
one for myself for a whopping $35 a few years later when I had the
chance. All I'm missing is the closeup lens.
The image quality is *definitely* not as good as an
SLR, or even a
pointy clicky Instamatic. Great for grainy lo-fi shots though.
With 1MB of fixed, on-board, Flash ROM, and no media socket, the QT150
holds 16 pictures in "bad" mode, or 32 pictures in "worse" mode.
It's
always 640x480, which, by itself, isn't the worst thing in the world.
The problem is the amount of lossy compression it needs to fit 16
pictures into 1MB translates to "a lot".
The other significant problem I see with this camera is that because
Apple bundled some 3rd-party software with it, they never made the
software available for download. The pictures are "QuickTime
Compressed PICTs", meaning that the outer wrapper is a standard Mac
PICT file, but the payload can only be untangled by an Apple QT
library (I tried many unsuccessful workarounds). If you don't have
the QT150 install disks, I don't know that you can load any other
package to gain them. OTOH, once you have loaded that library, all
apps on the machine (Photoshop, ImageViewer...) can manipulate the
pictures.
I'd hold this camera up as an example of a) an evolutionary dead-end,
and b) the fact that Apple wasn't always spot-on-the-mark. In its
era, it was a passable camera - one button to take a picture (no
manual settings beyond a timer or compression factor), but all the
other offerings of the day, and even Apple's QuickTake 200 (a rebadged
Fuji DS-7 if my research is correct) had removable storage, allowing
one to effectively ignore memory limitations to the extent of one's
budget. Being a fixed-focus camera, it's terrible for close-in shots.
Your choices are to position the object a few feet away so that it's
in focus (and perhaps too small to be clear), or to snap on a fixed
magnifier lens and squint through the eyepiece to attempt to focus
closer in. At the place I first encountered the QuickTake 150, we
never could get sharp pictures with the close-up lens.
I used the QuickTake 150 more than any other digital camera from 1995
through 2003 (when I upgraded to a DSLR). If you ever get the chance
to play with one, I can recommend it, but only to see how far digital
cameras have come in the past 10 years (it was discontinued in 1997).
The horrible lossy compression makes it nearly unusable for any sort
of "busy" subject matter.
-ethan
30 May
30 May
10:49 a.m.
New subject: Properly "classic" digital cameras (and imaging) (was Re: enough already (was: digital camera capabilities))
On 30 May 2007 at 9:22, Ethan Dicks wrote:
On 5/30/07, Gordon JC Pearce <gordon at
gjcp.net> wrote:
My oldest is not quite there--a Mustek VDC-300 from 1998. 640x480,
but can take a CF card, as long as it's not too large (16MB seems to
work, but 128MB doesn't). Miserable photo quality, but simple to use-
-and it doubles as a videocam with NTSC output. At $150, it seemed
like a very good deal back then.
Just shows how far we've come.
Okay, so what does one do with these relics? One can reuse old PCs
to do various things, but what's an old digicam good for?
Cheers,
Chuck
I have a digital camera that is now (and in fact,
as of last friday) 10
years old ;-)
Mine is quite safely "over the line" - my first digital camera was a
QuickTake 150
11:10 a.m.
New subject: Properly "classic" digital cameras (and imaging) (was Re: enough already (was: digital camera capabilities))
On 5/30/07, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
My oldest is not quite there--a Mustek VDC-300 from
1998. 640x480,
but can take a CF card... Miserable photo quality, but simple to use-
-and it doubles as a videocam with NTSC output.
Okay, so what does one do with these relics? One can
reuse old PCs
to do various things, but what's an old digicam good for?
In the case of my QuickTake 150, not much. One can show it off at a
VCF, but in a practical sense, it's not particularly useful unless you
are a masochist. In your case, NTSC hasn't changed much in 10 years
;-) so you could still use yours for a security camera or a webcam or
whatever.
I used a ~10-year-old Olympus recently for my EarthDial... I picked it
specifically because it was a classic device with an RS-232 port,
*not* USB. I whipped up a perl script to call gphoto to snap the
shot, dump the picture, clear the picture, then chew on the image a
bit (crop and label) and push it back home via scp. I don't know if
it's easy to tell a "modern" camera to take a photo via USB, but all
the ones I know of just treat the camera as an external storage
device, not a scanner-like peripheral to be controlled.
This is a clear case where the older equipment can do stuff the newer
equipment cannot (but the vast majority of the unwashed masses don't
_want_ to take a still image under computer control, so the feature
vanished).
-ethan
P.S. - this was the rig where I watched an 8MB SmartMedia card
demonstrate wear levelling during a loss of about 5% of its original
capacity over a period of months.
12:11 p.m.
New subject: Properly "classic" ... (was Re: enough already (was: digital camera capabilities))
On Wed, 30 May 2007 10:49:28 -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Okay, so what does one do with these relics? One can
reuse old PCs
to do various things, but what's an old digicam good for?
For want of battery life my Sony Mavica FD5 (Sonys first digital camera 1997) would make a
workable 3.5
floppy formatter. But alas it is out on loan, to a friend who is takeing ebay pictures
with it. It uses a dos
formated floppy and stores ~24 exposure like roll of film as 640x480 jpgs. Still works
great at age 10.
I have a later model (7 year old) Sony MVC-FD91, I picked up in 2000, It has 14x optical
Zoom. It writes
1024 x 768 jpgs on a standard floppy, and needs a charger and battery to be usefull again.
But alas this
youngster it may have to rot on the shelf 2 or 3 more years, when it then will have shot
of bringing this post
back on topic. :)
The most common use I have head of for old digicams is to lash them up some Rube Goldberg
inspired
mount design and hang them off of telescopes, in an attempt to image something just plain
fantastic from
ones own backyard! These projects most often lead to one of two results. Either all
involved get to see and
injoy the insides of a digicam before it goes to the junk box, OR it become the start of
yet one more
expensive hobby. Next thing you know you get the idea, that just maybe a bigger telescope,
and a better
camera, and a hydrogen-Alpha filter... Ok, whats on ebay...
I have known several in my life to head down the dark side of sky watching. I would bet
there are a few
lurking here on this list.
Re: ... enough already ..
Sorry Jay, but you gota love the wild loops some of these OT postings take at times :)
Til Later
The other Bob
2:58 p.m.
New subject: Properly "classic" digital cameras (and imaging) (was Re: enough already (was: digital camera capabilities))
--- Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
My oldest is not quite there--a Mustek VDC-300 from
1998. 640x480,
but can take a CF card, as long as it's not too
large (16MB seems to
work, but 128MB doesn't). Miserable photo quality,
but simple to use-
-and it doubles as a videocam with NTSC output. At
$150, it seemed
like a very good deal back then.
Is that simply a matter of reprogramming the firmware
to get it to recognize larger memory cards, or is it a
function of hardware? If it's a cf card, shouldn't it
be programmed to support fat16 or fat32?
Just shows how far we've come.
Okay, so what does one do with these relics? One
can reuse old PCs
to do various things, but what's an old digicam good
for?
Archiving manuals and such. Just try it sometime.
____________________________________________________________________________________Be a
better Globetrotter. Get better travel answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers -
Check it out.
http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545469
6:06 p.m.
New subject: Properly "classic" digital cameras (and imaging) (was Re:enough already (was: digital camera capabilities))
Hi,
My oldest is not quite there--a Mustek VDC-300 from
1998....
That jogs my memory, my first digital camera was a Mustek VDC-100. I bought
it second hand in 1998 for ?50, it was already a couple of years old then.
It was truly awful....
I can't recall the resolution, it was barely acceptable, but the pictures
always turned out dull and muddy - ISTR the CCD sensor was miniscule (with
light reaching it through what could only be described as a "pinhole"), and
was covered by what appeared to be a small piece of plastic rather than a
lens.
Only enough internal memory to hold 20 "OK" pictures or 10 "high
resolution"
(ROTFLMAO) pictures, no memory card slot. :-(
The most annoying thing about it though, was, that even with batteries
installed, it was so damn light that it was almost impossible to hold
steadily - which is also a problem with my current camera (a Fuji 2800Z).
Okay, so what does one do with these relics? One can
reuse old PCs
to do various things, but what's an old digicam good for?
I sold mine on eBay when I replaced it with a slightly newer (though equally
obsolete) Agfa. I'm not sure digital cameras that old are even much good for
learning on though, sure the picture quality is marginally better than say a
"110" film camera (do they even still make those?) but in my experience
those early digital cameras had BIG problems with white balance and contrast
and would probably be more trouble than they're worth.
TTFN - Pete.
4 Jun
4 Jun
3:07 a.m.
New subject: Properly "classic" digital cameras (and imaging)
If you fudge "digital" camera to "electronic", my
first goes back a bit further, to '91 or
so. Canon offered something call the "Xapshot".
It was a still video camera that stored the
-analog- signal of a single video frame on a
track of a small 1.5" microfloppy drive. It held
50 frames on one of those little floppies, though
the picture quality degraded a bit on the inner
tracks because the disk spun at a constant
speed. You "uploaded" the photos by digitizing
the image with a video card like the RasterOps 364.
The little floppies gave the Xapshot one huge
advantage over the actual digital cameras of the
day - you could travel with it! The other
"consumer" cameras of the era didn't have
removable storage, and had to be emptied out at a
computer after just a dozen pictures or so.
The Xapshot did take color photos, but the
quality was pretty grim, about 320x240 resolution
accompanied by various analog video
artifacts. It was a fun toy for the time, but I
regret taking it on a European vacation in
'92...all I have to show for the trip now is
tiny, murky stills. A $50 35mm point 'n shoot
would've done a much better job. Sony sold a
similar still-video camera line called the
"Mavica" (MAgnetic VIdeo CAmera). The Mavica
line later morphed from still-video to true
digital, storing the photos on 3.5" floppies.
I no longer have the Xapshot...I sold it to a collector in the late '90s.
Cheers,
jp
My oldest is
not quite there--a Mustek VDC-300 from 1998....
That jogs my memory, my first digital camera was
a Mustek VDC-100. I bought it second hand in
1998 for ?50, it was already a couple of years old then.
It was truly awful.... 
30 May
30 May
8:54 p.m.
New subject: Properly "classic" digital cameras (and imaging) (was Re: enough already (was: digital camera capabilities))
On Wednesday 30 May 2007 13:49, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Okay, so what does one do with these relics? One can
reuse old PCs
to do various things, but what's an old digicam good for?
Well, I'm looking for something that I can use to take some pics of equipment
and parts, and really can't afford one. One guy on another list when he
found that I didn't have a digital camera pointed me at this:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5375337
but I somehow just can't bring myself to going there...
So if one of you guys has something that's not terribly useful in a general
sense but that might work for my limited purposes, please feel free to let
me know offlist.
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
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