My first digicam - an open thread

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Hi, in 2003 I bought my first digicam Minolta F300. Colleagues said, it is about time for me to go digital ... --- I took it with me on holiday on the Ile de Re,
enjoyed it very much, especially the immediate availability of the pics on my laptop, a new experience then. - After this, I never used film again.

The pictures look still nice today, and bring back fond memories.


minolta-tpDSC09179-a7z18c.jpg



minolta-tpDSC09180-a7z18c.jpg



minolta-tpDSC09178-a7z18c.jpg


The specs: https://www.dpreview.com/articles/9787835842/dimagef300
 
Should this be in the equipment forum, rather?

Hi, I was not sure ... The Mods will move it appropriately, if necessary. Could also be in the fluffy kittens section ... :)
 
The first digital camera I used was Dad's DiMage 3 (which I now have) and I still have a copy of the shot I took with it in a frame - but don't have a copy of the original file! The first digital camera I bought was a Nikon Coolpix 3100 (which I still have).
 
My first digital was a Fuji S602 pro zoom, possibly in 2003.

I was happy enough with the image quality but I couldn't get any success with the AF with anything even thinking about moving. I tried switching to manual everything but I found MF with that camera to be a joyless thing. Zone and hyperfocal were possible though but I just got frustrated with it, sold it and got a Canon 300D.
 
I got my first digital camera in 1998, it came as part of a computer package I bought at the time, it was a JVC GC-S5. 1.5 million pixels of uber goodness. :cool:

I upgraded after a few months to a Sanyo something or other that was much easier to use and had 2.1 megapixels. That was the start of the slippery slope.


JVCGCS5.jpg
 
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My first one was a Pentax Optio 550. I ummed and ahhed for ages about buying it as it was £550 back in 2003.

Loved that camera and just wish I knew more about post processing and stuff at the time. I wasn't even aware that it shot RAW (didn't even know what that was) and tragically, I accidentally saved everything as compressed JPEGs as that was the default setting on the PC I used at the time.

After it got a little long in the tooth, I tried a variety of Panasonic Lumix cameras to supercede it, but was never happy with any of them. I continued to carry the Pentax around even after it was held together with duct tape. The eventual demise was after my daughter dropped it on a marble floor on holiday.

Downsides were that video was appalling and low-light was very noisy. Oh, and it was 'just' too big to be truly pocketable.

s-l300.jpg
 
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My first digicam was a really horrible thing with 360:240 resolution and a bottle-end for a lens. I might still have a couple of muddy images laying about. After that some kind of Ricoh GR that we bought for our son to take on a trip to Kyrgizstan 2004. The Ricoh can best be described a disappointing for image quality.
 
Around 2000 sometimes new computers came with a digital camera as a selling point, I expect they were pretty horrid.
About 2002 I bought a Fuji A202 ( https://www.dpreview.com/products/fujifilm/compacts/fuji_finepixa200 )
At the time it seemed reasonably good and still have a few shots from it.
After about a year it dropped off a car passenger seat, lodging against the door.
When the door was opened it fell barely a foot onto a gravelly surface, after which it refused to start any more.
 
Thank you all for sharing your early digicam memories !!! :plus1:

Minolta F300 holiday pics. La Flotte en Re:


PICT0096+-tp.jpg


Sheila (+) loved the Forester:


PICT0129+-tp.jpg


French food:


PICT0250-tp.jpg
 
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I only found out after doing some research recently, that it had a maximum f/2.8 though, and quite a neat macro function so while I don't think this is a great shot, it showed that it was more than capable of producing interesting images. This taken not long after I got the camera and was messing about on holiday.
 
Here's a question - did any of you do any PP on these or were these only considered snapshots?

I didn't, but just looking back through some of mine taken on the Pentax, and there's lots I'd adjust nowadays. Lots of straightening, bit of exposure correction.

Hi, in those days, JPEG ooc was what I used. PP came later. On the other hand, these early pics are quite allright, I would say ...
 
Here's a question - did any of you do any PP on these or were these only considered snapshots?

I didn't, but just looking back through some of mine taken on the Pentax, and there's lots I'd adjust nowadays. Lots of straightening, bit of exposure correction.

My PP experience really started in 2007 with a linux application called DigiKam. By then I was using a Samsung S850, which had a larger than typical 1/1.7" sensor capable of ISO50 for really fine detail & smooth tones.
 
Canon Powershot G2 with it's flip-out screen
Quite capable at 4MP
Not so good in low light though. When my main camera was still a film SLR, I 'won' one of these but actually took it less seriously than it deserved and used it for jpg 'snaps' on full auto. So I never really meshed with it and that wasn't all the camera's fault.

In retrospect, it was just a 'blip' in my life, like audio cassettes.
 
The first digi cam I owned came free with a Phillips iQon PC, I assume it was also made by Phillips, it didn't have much by way of information or logos, just looked like a fat pen with a watch-sized LCD that pretty much only showed your shot count and a tiny lens of course. It didn't have any kind of preview screen and wasn't even 1mp - think it was VGA. The results were almost always horrible, you had no idea how you were framing, there was no exposure controls and even in good light the images were noisey as hell. But, it was fun, and I got a taste for this immediacy and the ability to take as many photos as I wanted without having to worry about running out of film - didn't matter that I might only get one decent exposure per 100+ clicks :D Started searching for better, bought a 3mp Fuji finepix compact not long after, having a digital display was kind of amazing at the time. People gathering around to chimp was common, as was the disappointment of loading the images onto the PC to find that, yup, they were actually as bad as the crappy pixelated LCD suggested. I remember buying my first 5mp digi cam too, I was ahead of the curve that time, 3mp was the norm. It wasn't bad either for the time, it was a Trust something or other for £99 - I thought the images were amazing at the time, was a bit sad to discover it wasn't actually 5mp, but 3mp boosted :D
 
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