What was your first, serious digital camera?

[Photologyst]

My first “great” digital camera was an Epson PhotoPC 3000Z, initially released about 10 years ago. By today’s standards, it was slow and clunky, but oh I was so proud and exited to have this highly rated, 3.3 megapix, prosumer camera with its Zeiss lens.

Since I am culling old photos I found this one, of the ripe pumpkins in front of the Château de Villandry, France. The Château is famous for its gardens, among them a “kitchen garden.”

It was an overcast, cloudy, October day. I took tons of photos of the gardens and the château as well as other Loire castles. The camera was known to take “dull” pale photos, so I did a bit of adjusting in Lightroom to reflect the actual scene of the bright pumpkins and ornamental cabbages against the grey château.




The original JPG file was only 482 KB. Compare that to a typical RAW file today of about 11/12 megs.

Still, I think the photo is not bad, all things considered.

What do you think? Any suggestions as to how to improve the noisy, blown sky?

What was your first serious digicam?

Please post some shots of the "old" days.

[ravncat]

My first serious digicam - depending on definition of serious was my second - a Kodak Dc290 , with manual control available, and the ability to shoot up to 16 seconds of exposure length. with a 2.1 megapixel sensor that could interpolate to 3.3

Though, my first, was a .3 megapixel Kodak Dc25

[RichardTaylor]

My first "serious" digital camera was a Fuji S9500 bridge camera It was replaced 5 months latter by DSLR as I couldn't live with the shutter lag when shooting sports (I was used to shooting with an SLR). Other than that it was a good camera.

Re you pic.
Try running it through Topaz Adjust to give it a bit of "pop" and through Topaz DeNoise to remove some of the noise. (I don't work for Topaz!)

[Photologyst]

Originally Posted by RichardTaylor

Re you pic.
Try running it through Topaz Adjust to give it a bit of "pop" and through Topaz DeNoise to remove some of the noise. (I don't work for Topaz!)

Thanks Richard.

I downloaded Topaz and with "photo pop" adjustments it's just the same as what I did above in Lightroom.

However, that program has some very cool effects. I'll be testing it out over the next few days. One can always use yet another program.

[RichardTaylor]

On a new layer, try preset "Spicify" in Adjust.
Mask the bottom of the pic & so the filter only applies to the sky

[Photologyst]

Originally Posted by RichardTaylor

On a new layer, try preset "Spicify" in Adjust.
Mask the bottom of the pic & so the filter only applies to the sky

Yes, of course. But what I am trying to tell you is that the outcome is exactly the same in this case. I just did it again—same result. So, maybe it's as good as it can get, given that there wasn't much data to begin with.

I am very interested in the other filters. Anything to save time.

[Crossfire905]

In June 2006, I bought a used HP PhotoSmart C618 [$40 on eBay then, but about $700 when it was new ten years ago] to replace a broken Vivitar ViviCam 3500 [a rather basic P&S] which I had bought new in December 2001, and the Vivitar replaced a completely worthless piece of garbage KLH DCL-450 which I had bought in the summer of 2000. [I hereby apologize for even mentioning such a horrid excuse for a camera on a forum such as this.]

At any rate, the PhotoSmart C618 — which is the same as the Pentax EI-200 — has a few manual controls for focus, aperture priority, shutter priority, ISO [but only 100 or 200], white balance [but no manual setting], etc. I also added a Tiffen 37mm adapter so I could play around with filters and add-on lenses. So, it can do some of the things that can be done with a DSLR, particularly with the addition of the 37mm adapter, but it still has its limitations and has developed some bad pixels, which is why — when I recently happened to acquire the funds — I upgraded to a Pentax K-x.

I'd call the K-x my first serious camera — my first SLR, digital or film — and the C618 my first semi-serious camera. Everything I've owned before that has been a mere toy.

[Aleix]

My first cameras were all Sony (from the Cybershot series) or Canon P&S. The first 'serious' one was the Sony DSC H50, which had a slight DSLR look but wasn't (couldn't shoot RAW, could not change lens, etc). It took however great pictures and its vivid shot setting rendered amazing colors, especially when shooting landscapes on sunny days. The lack of an ability to shoot RAW, as well as impossibility to throw parts of the image out of focus rendering a nice bokeh made me enter the DSLR world.... and bought a Pentax K20D which I still use now.

Greetings

[mwells74]

My first "serious" digital camera was my Canon XT. I had a HP before that. I tried desperatly to get good action shots of my oldest son playing soccer on the HP but the lag was so bad that I broke down and got the DSLR.

[RLucas]

I had/have, a Kodak z740. I still use it once in a while. That is the camera that gets borrowed mostly. Teenagers with "arm" and "mirror" shots.