Recently I read this article about digicams and remembered an Olympus Camedia C-4040 a friend gave me to try. So I thought I would write about it here…Ooh maybe I could compare it with some other old digital cameras I have lying around??
The camedia c-404 is only a 4mp camera from 2001 but it has an f1.8 lens. Wow, such a wide aperture is actually quite rare on a point and shoot digital camera, especially on such an old camera. When I first used the camera I found you had to take the lens cap off before turning it on or it caused an error. It also used a memory card I had not seen before which meant I had to buy a new card reader to retrieve the photos.
Having a weird card made me think of an Olympus U-mini I used to have which also had a non-standard card. When I say non-standard, this was before SD cards which seem to be the standard now. The U-mini was a cute looking thing, but at the time I thought the photos were below par. This was especially true on the automatic setting. On the special settings, it faired better. How would this one fair?
I took this one to Hull for the day to try it out, mainly inside the dinosaur museum.
Inside the museum, the f1.8 aperture came in handy. Overall the camera was fine, working quite well. It was less contrasty/HDRish than a phone camera. The size of the camera is a little larger than I would like and the styling isn’t really my cup of tea.
This site has a more detailed image review.
As I was thinking of the U-mini, I decided that would be the other camera I used for this post. I originally had a black version which I bought new when it first came out. I saw it in an airport shop and fell in love with the neat, small design. As I said, I was disappointed with the automatic settings at the time so sold it very cheaply to a friend. I got this pink version about a couple of years ago when I saw it for sale on eBay. It was only £5 so I figured it would be a fun experiment to try it again.
Just to show you how small it is, I put it next to an Agat 18K for comparison as my hands are tiny and make it look big.
When it arrived I fell in love with it all over again. It is small enough and sturdy enough to fit into a pocket, a cycling pocket, so I decided to take it on a cycle along the Monsal Trail. Here are my photos from that ride.
You can see on a couple of photos I used the very small zoom, which is pretty much useless in my eyes. Other than that, those photos aren’t bad at all. It could have done with the f1.8 of the first camera, but the colours are more vibrant and sharper than I remember. The whole feel of the camera, the size and styling is amazing and if you are not going to print the photos, then 5mp is fine. I am glad I managed to get a good example and will hang on to it this time.
Plus after reading this blog post I sourced and bought a waterproof housing for it. That won’t mean I can take it diving, but snorkelling and heavy rain shouldn’t hurt it at all.
I took this combination out during the aftermath of Storm Dudley, the rain had stopped and the wind dissipated. I am one of those people who get migraines when storms come. So I was off work for the day recovering, though Storm Eunice might bring on another tomorrow. Dudley knocked off a branch of a tree in the local park, but other than that all seems ok.
This has been a nice trip down memory lane, I might try this again…but mainly I will stick to film for this blog. Unless the price of film and the cost of living continues to rise.
Awesome shots! I like the Joke Shop pic. The camera did well. I enjoy using these under 10 megapixel compacts. They’re surprisingly capable cameras.
Yes, and quite cheap.
I would have been enthralled by that shop when I was little.
Old digitals are getting quite a following now. Facebook pages of like minded user and photography blogs. The better ones are certainly worth still using…..I’ve tried a few. Finding memory cards and readers can be a pain on occasion but not too bad. I dance trying a Sony that writes the photos to an inbuilt minicd burner. Though another Sony with a floppy disk drive which has quite a following fills me with horror. I’ve tried an early Ricoh which was great. What I like in particular is that nearly all sub 6mp cameras I’ve come across have optical viewfinders, I’m not a great fan of holding a camera (or phone) at arms length to take a photo
Yes on the readers, hence when I saw one for the cardio, I bought it. And yes on the viewfinder, they are much easier to see the shot in the sun.
Sony = Mavica. Look for early Canon Powershot digitals: Good glass, built like tanks.
I have a canon s90 with an underwater housing…and an s100 cause I am ridiculous.
I’ve been using a Canon G2 4mp camera for snapshots in diners. The colors are great and prints up 17×22 look great
I have the G5 which I will be returning too soon. Super series of cameras. I had a look at your website, great images there. Love the sleepwalking series.
Thanks
And I always make printshttps://michaelpennsview.blogspot.com/2022/02/for-millionth-time.html
I am making more and more. But not enough.
Who says you need the latest and greatest?? I love trying out these ‘old’ digitals. I’m constantly reminded of how good they are. Here is an example https://arhphotographic.wordpress.com/2020/03/04/ugly-camera-shoot/
Andrew
The first one on your link is ugly, but the others look nice. All produce great images though.
Exactly