Before I get into the upgrade, I wanted to post a couple of other shots from my Kodak DC40. Seeing these photos today and reliving the memories and once again, enjoying the expression on my daughter's face is exactly the reason why I take as many pictures as I do.
These two shots were both from a trip to Oregon in 1999. My daughter was a year and a half old at the time and until I saw the photos, I hadn't thought about that trip to Oregon.
Great memories.
In July of 1999 - almost 2 1/2 years after I got the Kodak DC40, I upgraded to the very futuristic looking Polaroid PDC 3000 (above). I bought this one on eBay. And with specs that blew away the Kodak (it emulated 2 megapixels and it used a huge 32 MB compactflash card), at $500, I thought this was a steal. It was a cool camera and took some decent shots, although as a photographer, I still had very little control over how I shot my photos.
Everything was pretty much on "auto" mode. Point. Shoot. Hope for the best. Taking control of my camera settings wouldn't come until my next upgrade.
With both the DC40 and PDC3000, you didn't see what the
camera saw. You looked through a separate viewfinder which approximated what would be on your image. As you got closer and closer to a subject, you had to adjust the camera - either move left or right, to get what you really wanted in the photograph.
What made matters worse (by today's standards), is that you couldn't see what you had just taken. No instant LCD viewing gratification. There was no LCD screen on either camera, so similar to film cameras at the time, you shot your photo and then, had to wait (for film - until the film had been developed and for these cameras - until the photos had been downloaded) before you could see if you got any keepers or not.
For me, getting a new digital camera is exciting. It's easy to feel like you've got something really great because it's brand new and so much better than what you had before. I mean, the pictures you take look good, you've figured out how to compensate for all those little quirks like shutter lag and the fact that what you see in the viewfinder is slightly to the left of what the actual image will be. And so you do what you have to do to get good shots with your camera.
And then someone comes along with a newer, cooler, more powerful, more flexible camera (I don't want to mention names, but his initials are Dan O'Neill - pictured at left with his slick Canon G2 hanging around his neck) and you're
blown away by what it can do and what yours can't. And all of a sudden, your hot little camera doesn't seem so hot anymore.
Thanks, Dan. That's what happened when he showed up with his Canon G2 at my 40th birthday party retreat in northern Michigan along with a laptop full of really cool photos. I was blown away. And I didn't even know he liked photography. Sure, my PDC 3000 could take decent shots. But Dan with his Canon G2 was making good shots -and there's a big difference between just "taking" pictures and "making" photos.
Next post: Taking pictures vs. Making Photos
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