Remember 1995 digital cameras? Here’s what shooting with them was like
Jan 22, 2018
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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In 2018, we are talking about a camera able to produce 400 MP photos. It’s a great thing to follow the progress of technology and be a part of it. But sometimes it’s also great to travel back in time, just for fun. Lazy Game Reviews takes you back to the past and shoots with Epson PhotoPC, the first consumer digital camera from Epson. There’s the full experience, from unboxing, through shooting, to transferring and editing the photos. And if you had one of the digital cameras from the ‘90s, this will certainly bring back some memories.
Epson PhotoPC was first introduced in 1995. It was widely marketed in 1996 at a suggested retail price of $499. According to the box, it was “a quick and easy way to bring pictures into your computer.” The model in the video has 1MB of internal flash memory. It shoots 640 x 480 photos at “high resolution” and 320 x 240 at “standard resolution.” With the available storage, it’s able to store 16 large or 32 small photos. But it’s expandable with optional memory modules up to 4 MB, although these were pretty expensive at the time this camera was on the market.
The camera features a 43mm equivalent lens, a fixed aperture of f/5.6, fixed ISO of 130, and automatic electronic shutter going from 1/30 to 1/10,000 second. The tiny screen on top gives you some basic info on the settings. There are a couple of buttons, and what I find interesting is deleting the photos. The tiny button on the top only lets you delete the most recent image. If you want to do anything else, you need to transfer the photos to your computer.
Once the camera is connected to your PC, you can use the provided software to transfer your photos. You can even do some basic editing, like changing the tint, brightness, contrast… And there’s also spot removal. Neat! What’s pretty funny is that the only way to change the shutter speed is while the camera is connected to the computer.
Since digital photography was still fairly new at the time, it’s fun to see the suggestions on the box what you can do with the digital photos you take with Epson PhotoPC. Although they’re crappy, low-res images, they’re not bad for that time.
This video reminded me of the first digital camera I used and brought back memories. I think it was Fujifilm FinePix A200, which was actually my dad’s. He didn’t allow me to use it because “I would break it.” So I would snitch when he was asleep and go out with it to take photos of concerts. Ah, good times!
What was your first digital camera? Have you ever used Epson PhotoPC?
[Epson PhotoPC: The 1995 Digital Camera Experience via FStoppers]
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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15 responses to “Remember 1995 digital cameras? Here’s what shooting with them was like”
Long before I got into photography, my uncle brought this camera around that stored everything on the little 1.44MB floppy disks. It was made by Sony, IIRC. Looking back, I think most of those cameras were the realm of consumers; the serious photographers were still shooting film at that point in time.
I remember when a 8gig card would cost nearly as much as a top flight DSLR.
130 iso and 1/10000 shutter speed ?
8 MB RAM!
My first “Digital” camera was the Canon Ion back in the early 90s. This was a curious hybrid that had a 0.4 megapixel CCD sensor but stored images in analog format on a proprietary magnetic disc :)
I had a Sony Digital Mavica MVC-FD5 that used 3.5″ disks as storage.
Minotla/AGFA “Action Cam” was my first taste of digital photography. I didn’t get much more of a chance to do more than try it out as the folks in the lab had it locked up after that. First regular use was a Kodak DC120.
Didn’t even have a computer back then …. had my first PC built for me in 1997 with a 2GB hard drive…. they told me “you’ll never fill that” ??
Bought a Ricoh RDC 300 with my first student loan, was one of 3 in the UK, but the comm port broke in the first week, so I got a 2nd :) It could shoot 640×480 on internal memory, and I think I took about 500 photos in the first month, great not having developing costs. I still have it, but lost all the cables :(
This was my first Digital camera………using Smart Media cards…
And I produced 10×8’s out of it using a Lexmark printer ??
the biggest smart media card I could get at the time…. :)
first camera and 8mb of memory cost me £85
The first I used was a Logitech Fotoman (though I know mine was black, but with Logitech’s logo). http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Logitech_Fotoman
The second I used was an Apple QuickTake https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_QuickTake
After that I was all about the Sony Digital Mavica for a while.
First one I owned was a Sony DSC-F1. It had a whopping 4MB of internal memory which allowed you to take up to 100 images at 640×480 low quality. I was able to use a Casio QV-10 before that, which was underwhelming by comparison.
My first digital camera was the Kodak DC215, 1mp sensor! Came free with a Time computer. Did me proud on a tip to Hawaii!