Kodak Retro Digital? Who Knew?
It got me to thinking - Is this a milestone? Is digital old enough to be considered retro now? The camera he focused on was from 1997, just over ten years ago. Hmmm, is that the threshold of "old" in a digital world?
I must confess I am a bit of a pack rat as well. My wife would corroborate this fact replacing the "a bit of a" modifier with something much stronger.
Here is a shot of my quick trip down Kodak Digital Memory Lane.
The cameras shown are from the same era, first, a DC20, like Derrick's "found treasure." (Thanks Marianna O'Brien who loaned me hers for this picture. She was the original product line manager for it.) There is also a DC40, DC50, and DC120. They have a form factor of a large paperback book (a la War and Peace!). Last there is a DC265. I loved that camera! It was indestructible and took great pictures for its day. It covered up the entire face of the photographer. I wonder if we should have positioned it as the perfect covert operations camera because of that?
Do you have a stash of digital gadgets? If these are retro, our first digital camera is an antique!
p.s. Oh, one more thing, I also have a copy of Netscape 1.0 brand new in the box - classic!
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Comments
Posted By: Ken Chapman (1/14/2009)
Comment: I have a DC20 with pictures on it. I didn't realize it was an antique until I tried to get the pictures off it! I can't find a driver to access it. I do have a computer that is old enough to still have a serial port. Does any know how I can recover my "lost" pictures?
Posted By: Dave Kassnoff (10/27/2008)
Comment: I have a few DC4800s and a DC290. What stories they could tell. One of the DC4800's shows images on its LCD that are completely reversed from the actual image captured. (Eg.: a dog on the left side of the screen is actually on the right side in the photo. Like an old folding camera viewfinder.)
Posted By: Mads Pedersen (10/21/2008)
Comment: What fun! I now remember the first "digital camera" I tried - a Canon Ion. Actually I'm not sure if this qualifies as a proper digital camera. Canon calls it "still video", I'm not quite sure of the difference.
Still, I'd love to have some of the shots I took back then. Hmmm... maybe I do have them stored away on some "floppy disks". :-D
Here's the Canon Ion: http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/image79113-.html
Posted By: Derrick Story (10/17/2008)
Comment: Tom, you definitely have me beat when it comes to old Kodak digitals. And I'll resist pulling out the Brownie Starmite (in its original box).
As I said in the podcast, I think it's worth pausing for a moment every now and then to see how far we've come in recent history. Ten years does seem like a milestone in the digital world. I'm still shooting with the DC20 and uploading to the PowerBook 1400. And it's still fun.
Posted By: Bill Mattocks (10/16/2008)
Comment: I confess, I still have my first digital camera (an Olympus DL-220, sorry). 640x480, fixed focus, used SmartMedia cards to store photos. I still have the photos it made, too, some of the only photos I have of my dad before he passed away. I've upgraded several times since then, and I have all of them - except for the one I lost (Pentax Optio 330). I have three Kodak digital cameras, two of which still see regular use - they're not that old yet, and I love that Kodak color-rendering.