Trying something new, by trying something old. I really enjoy digital photography. I never really owned a film camera and am an early adopter of digital cameras, going back to before 1999 with cameras like the JamCam 2.0 and i/o Magic Magicimage 500. That being said, my first ‘real’ digital camera was the Olympus C3000, released September 4, 1999, was a fantastic camera at the time. I picked up a well maintained example off eBay for a song and decided to see how the now 23 year old technology holds up.
As you can tell, for a camera over 2 decades old, it is not that bad. I think the most noticeable flaw is the purple fringing and not processing blue all that great, but this was a very common issue with the CCD sensors used at the time. That being said, you really would not know with the fire hydrant and path photos above these photos were taken with a camera built during the Clinton administration.
All the photos are relatively sharp and my biggest complaint is when taking photos the shutter lag is frustrating. My main camera is a Canon Rebel T1i, and even though it is a 13 year old camera, dSLR cameras shoot almost instantly. In good lighting, the C3000 still performs reasonably well, but the limited ISO range really forces you to use a flash inside or have a very steady hand.
That being said, the photo above was taken on our wedding day, almost 20 years ago, and I am sure am glad I had this quality of camera in 2002. I love going back to our old photos and they are just as clear, sharp, and colorful as the day they were shot.
Here are some more photos taken on the same walk.
I’ll take more photos with some of my other collectables in my collection, along with photos taken with a newer dSLR with very old glass, in some cases from the 1960’s.
