paralogue.org

In the past few years there has been a trend of Gen Z (see: me) people getting into digital cameras from the 90s and 2000s. The cutoff date for the r/vintagedigitalcameras subreddit is 2010. Others flock to them because they can have a grainy, film-like look, and thats part of it for me, but you can wring that out of any old camera or even just a phone with an app, or in lightroom or whatever. But I'm not really a camera girl, I became interested in them in the past week with the thought that I'd like to split my phone into a bunch of discrete devices. But, now I just want one because it seems fun to have a dedicated camera! And there are SO many cute little consumer grade cameras from the past 30 years!! What makes a digicam is pretty vague, but obsessions from digicam people include CCD sensors and particular models like the IXUS 70 (SD1200). I'd like to get ahold of a a Pentax Optio, since those things can fit inside a pack of cards, and most of them are nice and square looking. I only really care for square looking models. The Kodak v570 looks incredible too, but a little too big. I am not fussy about sensors or having an optical viewfinder or whatever, just size. "If it isn't smaller than my smartphone why the heck would I carry it around?" is my thought process.

So, do you have one of these kinds of cameras? More than one? Do you use them very often? Do you have a particular model you like, or want? Any pictures you could share? Put them here for us.

Here's one youtube channel thats dedicated to CCD cameras that I found that only has about 1k subscribers:

Ive been wondering, when did people start saying 'digicam'? I feel like that wasn't always a word but everyone says it now

I have a Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z10 that's just been laying around the house forever.. there were newer and smaller ones before it was iphones but i don't know what happened to them. Anyway it takes 4 AA batteries with the door held closed by an elastic band cause the plastic is long broken. I like the pictures it takes, they have this weird aberration to them. It's too clunky and weird shaped to carry around but maybe i'll bring it in my bag with the field recorder :p
Some pics

Sometime I'll do a thread about my video camera

I dunno when people started saying it either, its just the word I've been seeing thrown around. Google trends says there was a big spike in usage in 1980-81, tapering off to nothing by 1984. Then steady growth to a peak from 1990 to 2003, then a decline, and finally we're in an uptick of usage since at least 2019.

Your camera is really funny looking, lol. Its seriously stuck together with a rubber band? That's awesome. There's a bunch of great example pics from that model on https://explorecams.com/ and thats what I use to get an idea of the vibe of a camera.

Another one I'm considering is a fujifilm finepix f10 or f11 because the color looks real good.

A decent friend of mine was really ahead of the curve on this and for all the time I knew her I didn't really wanna copy her? I always thought it was cool how she constrained herself to the limitations of the digicam, though.

Like, I used to shoot exclusively with these as a kid — because, of course, this was all we had. I remember switching from my humble Fujifilm FinePix S5700 to a Canon Digital Rebel XS in 2009 and feeling like I finally had the "professional" camera but had spent years learning how to maneuver the old one that I was a beginner again. There's nothing like a digicam's sensor; it's ridiculously sensitive to light and while it's flat in most daytime conditions, it's magnificent in the evenings, especially as the sun sets; and it works around any light in the room at night. That is to say, you usually rely on the spot lighting to guide the entire shot at night, since it's too grainy to do anything else.

Last year I started experimenting with digicams again as part of a new everyday carry where I didn't really have a phone camera anymore. I would go around the flea markets here and just see if anything was available for $50 or less. That whole everyday carry thing didn't last, but I did try to carry a digicam with me still afterward? First a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S60, then a Canon PowerShot SX100 IS. The latter lets you at least shoot in RAW with some firmware editing; the former keeps you stuck with its lacklustre ISO stuff. I gave away the Canon, so now I just carry the Sony with me for fun.

Wow she seems really cool, I love how this site looks.

I ended up zooming in on this one pentax model specifically because of the grit and graininess in low light and b/w photographs it seems to have. Plus, all the extra features compared to anything else of a similar class, esp the ISO options.

As digicam, I have a Fujifilm A220, which is a small portable model that only has its main LCD as viewfinder. I remembered using it as a kid, and its sweet start-up chime has marked me. For some reason, as a kid, I liked opening the lens cover with my fingers and putting them on the lens, and I think that I would have to completely disassemble the camera to fully clean the lens… oh well, it doesn't affect much the resulting photos. I gave it another try in 2023: the photos are nothing spectacular especially when you're not capturing your subject in very good lightning conditions, and the tiniest movements otherwise result in blurry photos. It does give it a certain character, but I expect — maybe due to modern smartphone cameras — digital photos to be "perfect". Maybe I should give it another try, as some of these photos from 2023 seem hasty taken, and don't account for the camera's preferred conditions (winter didn't help). Here attached are a few photos from my experiment which turned out quite nice, despite the low light conditions.

That said, if I bring a camera with me, I prefer to have something that forces me to look around and pay attention before taking a photo, instead of allowing me to "point and shoot" (even if that might result in terrible photos, as explained above). I prefer to continue taking digital photos on my phone, as they're "perfect" (good for documentation) and still in a digital medium, so nothing fundamentally changes, and for explicit, considered photography, I settled a year ago on film photography. Sure, it is maybe even further of this goal of "perfection", but it has a certain charm due to the medium used and limitations that do not evolve, unlike digital photography that is in constant evolution.

The camera that I principally use for film photo is a pretty modern Minolta Zoom 70 which — to give you an idea of its era — has a basic zoom, a flash, a timer, auto focus, a viewfinder and can write the date onto photos taken (which I seldom use). I think it would be sold to a similar market as the Fujifilm above, as it is still a point-and-shoot. Nevertheless, I enjoy using it, even if I sometimes yearn for more manual control (especially over exposure time). Photo quality is similar to the other camera, especially with up close and moving subjects, and low light (I use Kodak Gold 200 ISO), but the medium makes a difference and changes how I approach myself to the act of taking a photo. It gives me another respect to the resulting photographs, as they are not disposable digital files, but they exist in the physical world.

In conclusion, these two cameras are similar in multiple regards, but I find more charm in film photography than with a digicam, as the former obliges me to take a step back and think more about the relation between me, the photograph, and my environment.

I'm a big fan of the Sony DSC-F717: I picked one up nearly 5 years ago to experiment with full spectrum and infrared photography on the cheap (its internal UV/IR filter is on a mechanism you can non-destructively jank out of the way with a magnet) and fell in love with how it captures the world, even when using it normally. The surreal experience of looking at a photo I just took earlier in the day and having it feel like a snapshot from over two decades ago is something I don't think I'll ever get tired of; I used to look at old photos from my childhood and lament how much uglier the world had gotten since then, but now I realize it was the low resolution and smeary compression of those old photos smoothing over the rough edges of reality and prompting me subconsciously to fill in the blanks with rosy idealisms. Maybe once my eyes are old and worn enough, I'll be able to live in that beautiful utopia :lol:

Are the built-in cameras on things like the phones and MP3 players of yore considered to be part of the vintage digicam canon? Earlier this year I put together an interactive photo project centered around old pictures I took with my first flip phone and I figured I'd link it since it seems relevant enough: it's hosted at https://console.gamer.church/, just put in the passcode 'L1F7' and the icon to launch it will get added to the page.

I love that little frog guy ... and wow this website is cool!! Lots of good pictures posted in this thread so far :D

Kilroy wrote:

Are the built-in cameras on things like the phones and MP3 players of yore considered to be part of the vintage digicam canon?

Maybe mp3 player or old phone cameras edge into digital lomography territory?

Yeah, cute little game. I love it!!

sinku wrote:

Maybe mp3 player or old phone cameras edge into digital lomography territory?

Perhaps, as the resulting photos can't be used for much anyways nowadays, but I think they still might have some artistic potential if you put them together in a collage. It depends on the sensor's quality and image resolution, the lower the more artistically interesting?