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Digicams--are they worth it?

Chuck(G)

Chuck(G)

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Joined
Jan 11, 2007
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Location
Pacific Northwest, USA
Maybe 10 years ago, I removed the batteries from my Minolta Dimage 7Hi digicam and put it away. A couple of years before, Sony serviced the camera and replaced the CCD sensor for free. True, it was only a 5MP camera, but the glass was nice; it had a very smooth optical zoom and the color rendition was very nice.
So, spying the camera bag sitting on a top shelf today, I decided to see if the old thing was still working. Popped in 4 freshly-charged Eneloop AAs and -- nothing. Tried the external AC adapter. Nope, zilch. Back when this thing was new, it was the bee's knees.

On the other hand, all my film cameras appear to be working fine--even my Nikon F2S.

So what to do with the Minolta? Have digicams become the new e-waste?
 
I've got a $99.002.7 Genius G-Shot P210 purchase around the very early 2000s that is still functioning puuurfectly. Maybe you should get your money back from Minolta....IMG_20230911_154312_hdr.jpg
 
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I've got one of those 1990s 640x480 cams that uses a 4MB CF card (that's not a typo). Still works as far as I know. I also have a 2MP Fuji Film camera that still works after a fashion--and a 7MP Pentax. Too much plastic in all of these, if you ask me. Of course, Minolta got out of the digicam business shortly after I purchased the Dimage...
 
There has to be an internal battery that maintains charge between the insertion of the AAs or AC. It sounds weird to me but I have seen suggestions that leaving the camera with charged batteries for a day would give enough charge to the internal one to start the camera. Even if that was the problem, such a tiny battery should recharge quick.

I did like my Minolta film camera. The only drawback was the cost of developing when coupled with my poor photography skills.
 
I face the same problem. I'm busy cleaning up my room and ran into various things like motherboards, cards, video camera, etc., etc., etc. For example, what should i do with fourteen good XT clone motherboards? Luckily I can donate some of the good stuff to the Home Computer Museum but what to do with the bad stuff?

I don't have a big storage so the only thing one can do is ask around if somebody wants some of the things I want to get rid off. Otherwise the only thing one can do is bring it to the recycling. Side note: even if I had a big storage, just keep it there until I die? Sometimes you have to close your heart and get rid of it....
 
Regarding the camera, it might be worth having a look inside if you want to hold on to it as something could have leaked or corroded. I sometimes ask myself if those mid-range consume cameras will become collectible one day because it's one of the things where successor products were clearly superior so theoretically there's no reason to keep them except for sentimental value or nostalgia.

Ruud said:
I face the same problem. I'm busy cleaning up my room and ran into various things like motherboards, cards, video camera, etc., etc., etc. For example, what should i do with fourteen good XT clone motherboards? Luckily I can donate some of the good stuff to the Home Computer Museum but what to do with the bad stuff?

I don't have a big storage so the only thing one can do is ask around if somebody wants some of the things I want to get rid off. Otherwise the only thing one can do is bring it to the recycling. Side note: even if I had a big storage, just keep it there until I die? Sometimes you have to close your heart and get rid of it....
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I don't throw away electronics anymore unless I have to, except literal e-waste (batteries, leaked capacitors etc.). As someone who has limited space as well, I put an ad up "for free" and there's always someone who wants or needs things you thought were waste.
 
You jogged my mind to check on my Olympus Stylus 7030 which I haven't used much since cell phones now have decent cameras built-in. Fired right up and so it will get used once and awhile, I guess.
 
Grabbed my old Mustec VDC300 with a whopping 16MB CF card still installed. Popped some batteries in and--it works! Terrible by even 10 years ago--takes forever to process a photo at a glorious 640x480. Does sport RS232 and a USB B connector however.

Mustek VDC-300

Mustek VDC-300
www.digitalkameramuseum.de www.digitalkameramuseum.de
 
Chuck(G) said:
So what to do with the Minolta? Have digicams become the new e-waste?
Click to expand...
This is a significant issue. More recent models ( any with an RTC or non-volatile settings ) have the added issue of a non-removable battery often welded to the flex circuitry. Having taken a couple apart, the same issue we deal with in computers are just replicated in extreme miniature. I was able to successfully replace them in couple Fuji F-series pocketable cameras before they leaked - its was super painful. For dSLRs, Canon was smart enough to have a replaceable button cell on some models. Everybody else? Not so much.
 
If you buy an SLR, you can use pretty much whatever old glass you want to on it with adapters. If you go with Nikon, you don't even need the adapter. Pretty much every lens they've made since 1960 will mount and shoot. You do have to move to the higher-end cameras if you want auto-focus with their earlier AF system that had the focus motor in the camera body.

I guess it's the same story with pretty much any class of products though - the consumer level stuff is cheap with little support past a few years, and the pro stuff you expect to be able to use for 10+ years.
 
I think my Kodak 5mp camera (first one purchased new) still works. It was picky on the AA batteries it uses from the day I got it.
 
My Minolta has been sitting around much of the day, powered off, but with 4 freshly-charged Eneloop cells. Just tried it a few minutes ago; thing sort of came to life and even got into the Setup menu. I'll see how it does tomorrow. The tip about the internal backup battery appears to be right on the money! I don't have a lot of 2GB CF cards, but I found much earlier, that if a larger one is partitioned with one partition formatted with a 2GB FAT16 filesystem, the camera thinks that it's dandy.
 
I recently took a few pics with my Fuji S4500 bridge camera. Its so much easier to use than the otherwise excellent camera in my Samsung S10+. Ay 14MP its resolution is fine for 99% of work. The "proper" viewfinder works in bright sunshine. Main downside is its big and I have to manually copy the pics to my desktop.
 
I used a Kodak consumer digital camera for two or three years and took hundreds of photos. Most of the photos you've seen me post here between 2008 and 2013 were from that camera. I later bought a T3i which was $500 at the time with a kit lens and today you can get one for less than $200. I think the only major Issue I ran into on that camera was I wore the SD card slot out, so my suggestion is get a MicroSD card and just pull that card out whenever you need to dump photos and it saves a lot of mechanical wear on the card slot.
 
Well, the backup battery seems to have recharged enough to get me through the setup menu, but not much more than that. I'll give it another day or two. What's surprising is that the internal clock has kept steady time. The camera was last used in 2016, so only 7 years. Last photo was of an Intel 386/486 promo keyfob (still rattling around in my desk drawer):
Screenshot_2023-09-12_09-18-25.png
 
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I used to have a Kodak 2mp point and click that was very reliable. I had a break-in in early 2009 and someone took it. The robbers must've been idiots since it was nearly 10 years old by then. I tried replacing it with other inexpensive digital cameras, and they would stop working. Normally the zoom mechanism would quit working. I don't take many pictures, so I use the camera in my phone.

Regarding antique stuff, I have a Sharp Viewcam 8mm video camcorder from the early 2000's. I bought it for my parents, and other than using it a few times around holidays, it was barely used. A few years ago they asked me if I wanted it. I transferred the video from the tape to a DVD for keep sakes. The 20x focus on it is nice. The batteries have long since died. I also have a JVC Everio I bought after the break-in in 2009. The battery still holds a charge, but not long. I think it was Batteries Plus which still sells a battery for it.

For camcorder I probably paid $400-$500 back then, and my $79 Samsung phone has a sharper picture. Moore's Law is our friend.
 
I take most pics with my cheap Samsung phone camera but having an old 12MP digicam on a tripod would be better for ebay pictures.
 
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