Category: photo

  • Is the Best Digicam the One that’s in Your Junk Drawer? A Reassessment of the Olympus Stylus 830

    Is the Best Digicam the One that’s in Your Junk Drawer? A Reassessment of the Olympus Stylus 830

    I’ve been monitoring this apparent digicam revival, and have noted that the true connoisseurs have a particular affection for the CCD sensors these cameras contained from their invention in the late 90s through the first decade of the new century when the CMOS sensor took over. Wanting to re-check this out, I thought it might be fun…

  • The Digicam Revival – I Saw It Coming

    I saw this coming. Recently the New York Times reported that, “The Hottest Gen Z Gadget Is a 20-Year-Old Digital Camera.” One 18 year-old, “documented prom night with an Olympus FE–230, a 7.1-megapixel, silver digital camera made in 2007 and previously owned by his mother.” A 22 year-old, “returned to her mother’s digital camera, a Canon…

  • The Kodak V570: A True Digital Lomo?

    The Kodak V570: A True Digital Lomo?

    I realize it may be click-baitey to call any camera a “Digital Lomo.” But I’m quite serious and not at all baiting for clicks. (What good would they do me, anyway? There’s no advertising on my site. It generates zero dollars.) For reasons I’ll explain I think the released-in-2006 Kodak V570 meets my criteria for…

  • The Feed vs. the Archive

    The Feed vs. the Archive

    The longstanding photo sharing site Flickr recently was acquired from Yahoo by the much-smaller professional photo site SmugMug. As a 14+ year user of Flickr, I saw this as a good thing, since the service seemed to endure benign neglect under Yahoo’s unsteady stewardship. But, under the pressure of keeping the service economically sustainable SumgMug…

  • Keeping It in the (Sony NEX) Family

    Keeping It in the (Sony NEX) Family

    After writing this post about how much I still love my 8-year-old Sony NEX-5, I did actually buy a new camera. Well, not so much a new camera as a newer camera. I bought the last model in Sony’s NEX line, before it was consolidated into its Alpha line of cameras. In the process of…

  • Why I Still Use My 8 Year-Old Sony NEX-5 Digital Camera

    Why I Still Use My 8 Year-Old Sony NEX-5 Digital Camera

    I love electronics and gadgets. This includes digital cameras. Do I get excited about the newest advances and models? Yes I do. At the same time I’m aware of how easy it is to get on the upgrade cycle treadmill. When the new 42 megapixel full-frame wonder hits the streets, it’s easy to start thinking…

  • Mysteries

    Mysteries

    I have been a flickr user for going on a decade. Early in my photography career participating in the site gave me both inspiration and community, alongside a place to share my photos. These day, it’s a little less of that, in part because the internet is bigger place now, in part because flickr–under Yahoo’s…

  • I Bought a Camera

    I Bought a Camera

    It is not at all surprising that I bought a camera. It’s something I do every so often. Reading gadget and technology sites, photography blogs and the like makes me feel like I don’t buy a lot of tech toys or upgrade my tech all that often. Then I compare myself to friends and other…

  • The mediageek’s World Toy Camera Day adventure

    Today was the 2011 edition of World Toy Camera Day, an annual celebration of plastic cameras that were never intended for serious use. But in this era of powerful digital cameras and endless Photoshopping, many people, like myself, have embraced the imperfection and random chance introduced by toy cameras that refuse to let you control…

  • Admiring Sony’s new NEX-7 but easily resisting the urge

    Sony announced a pile of new digital cameras yesterday. I was quite pleased to hear about them, despite the fact that I have no immediate plans to buy one. As I’ve shared here, I’m very happy with my Sony NEX-5 compact interchangeable lens camera. I like having a cam that’s the size of an advanced…