Using a ten year old camera?

[Solarflare]

General rule of thumb: Advancements in image quality have been less and less in every generation.

 

[soufiej]

General rule of thumb: Advancements in image quality have been less and less in every generation.

All this love for "old" stuff!

None of it applies to the op's ten year old Canon compact but, if that's what makes you feel better ...


Regarding the above quote, my guess is there is no solid data which would verify that claim. Not, that is, unless we began at the point where someone said, "Look! I have the world's first digital image!"

True, from there, once digital cameras were introduced to the consumer, things progressed rather rapidly for the first few years and then began to taper off in the speed with which we recognized true "advancements" in image quality.

That rather begs the question though, what is an advancement?

Is the move from 18 megapixels to 20 megapixels all that important to image quality?

Or, is the move to a 0.1 second shutter lag an advancement over the 0.5 second shutter lag of the op's camera?

Which is more likely to impact a student photographer's results?



The rules of physics dictating the operation of a lens have been well understood for most of the last century. Yet, it is the advances in modern computer aided manufacturing which make many of those rules a reality and not just theories on paper.

It is the speed with which modern digital circuits operate which gives us the ability to actually question what we had previously accepted as "adequate".

Therefore, what is an "advancement"?

IMO it is often the dawning realization that further advancements are required.


One poster suggested they would be very happy to settle for the Jpegs produced by their ten year old Fuji camera.

Well, yes, - and I say this from a point of being somewhat ignorant of the Fuji systems since I've never owned a Fuji camera - my understanding is you would just about have to be satisfied with the Fuji Jpegs since most modern image processing software doesn't accept Fuji's interpretation of RAW capture.

You're rather left with no choice other than accepting what Fuji has provided as "normal".

That fact, of course, does not negate the fact the Jpeg images from any camera are largely controlled by the camera's internal systems. This means any camera's Jpegs are eventually going to be less the product of the photographer and more the product of the manufacturer's algorithms.

Is it really an advancement to take away vital decisions made by the photographer?

Not to mention the obvious issue of the vintage Canon being discussed by the op is not a Fuji. Apples to horses.



We seem to be drifting further and further away from assisting the op and more and more into self love for what we once had.



Returning to the above quote, IMO it is not a matter of how many degrees of "advancement" have occurred within a "generation" of cameras. It is a matter of whether or not the cumulative advancements of the camera system, including mechanical items such as shutter lag and file storage capacity, are deemed useful to the improvement of the (student) photographer's results.

To that end, given the choice of shooting with my nine year old Canon DSLR or my one year old Canon compact/bridge, I'll take the advancements of the more recent camera any day.

YMMV

 

[jcdeboever]

I found these from a real old DSLR. Pics were good in the right lighting situation. Sony DSC H2 from 2006, I think. Still have it, tried to give it away but no response from poster on here. These could have come out even better if I knew what I was doing at the time. I had the camera set in Sport mode. Still not too bad considering the settings.

#1 Jim "Smokes" Leyand, Detroit Tigers Skipper, Spring Training in 2007

#2 Leyaland and his good friend, the late Don Zimmer (died 6-2015).

#3 Brandon Inge adjusting the package.

 

[unpopular]

None of it applies to the op's ten year old Canon compact but, if that's what makes you feel better ...

That is true, and I agree that older consumer cameras are probably insufficient; however, many professionals did use digital cameras ten years ago. What demands do photographers have today that they didn't ten years ago? What exactly has changed in our environment that makes today's DSLRs so essential?

Regarding the above quote, my guess is there is no solid data which would verify that claim. Not, that is, unless we began at the point where someone said, "Look! I have the world's first digital image!"

You're probably right on this front. Looking at apples to apples DXO scores in the last ten years the improvements have been pretty consistent progressive.

That rather begs the question though, what is an advancement?

However, speaking in terms of image quality alone the improvement according to DXO Mark is largely nominal. Though, the marks from ten years ago to today on "high end" compacts have improved dramatically in the few years following 2007.

The rules of physics dictating the operation of a lens have been well understood for most of the last century. Yet, it is the advances in modern computer aided manufacturing which make many of those rules a reality and not just theories on paper.

I do not think there has been any significant improvement in CAD/CAM in the last ten years. Perhaps compact lens optimizations have been improved some, I can see that, but in general I do not think you can really say a ten year old lens will perform any better than a two year old lens.

It is the speed with which modern digital circuits operate which gives us the ability to actually question what we had previously accepted as "adequate".

Again, these cameras were adequate ten years ago for many subjects and circumstances. In fact, photojournalists have some of the most demanding requirements, and they were the ones to adopt digital before anyone else. If an AP photographer could "deal" with a Nikon D2x in 2007, a flagship that now can be found for the same price as those goofy, over-priced "advanced compacts", I'm pretty sure it will meet the needs of most serious hobbyists today.

IMO it is often the dawning realization that further advancements are required.

I don't think anyone is saying that advancement isn't required and inevitable to push forward the craft. However, I also do not think it is neccesary, nor even prudent, to get the "latest" low-end DSLR either. Many of the higher end DSLRs from a few, even more than a few years back will offer a much more.

most modern image processing software doesn't accept Fuji's interpretation of RAW capture.

This isn't so much true anymore. While xtrans raws had some initial difficulty, this has been largely addressed, furthermore it was never an issue that software "couldn't" process the images, it was only that they didn't do a very good job at it.

Regardless, this problem is largely a thing of the past.

To that end, given the choice of shooting with my nine year old Canon DSLR or my one year old Canon compact/bridge, I'll take the advancements of the more recent camera any day.

It completely depends on the DSLR. A 30D or 1000D, this is probably true. But the 7D enjoyed a six year life cycle and still has a high resale value. I am pretty sure that a beat-up 7D would out-perform your sparkly new "bridge" camera in almost every way.

Honestly, if I had $300 to spend, it'd be on a a 10 year old 1D mkii N or D2x, not some "advanced compact" baloney.

 

[timmermannen]

This has been great info, thanks! I will stick to the oldie for a while and upgrade when I have appropiate amount of money.
One advantage with the old camera that has not been mentioned, and frankly in my opinion I think its quite a good advantage, is that I dont have to be very careful about this camera, either for bumps or for thieves, as it is not worth anything. That is quite a good relief when out in the fields....

 

[soufiej]

None of it applies to the op's ten year old Canon compact but, if that's what makes you feel better ...

That is true, and I agree that older consumer cameras are probably insufficient; however, many professionals did use digital cameras ten years ago. What demands do photographers have today that they didn't ten years ago? What exactly has changed in our environment that makes today's DSLRs so essential?

Regarding the above quote, my guess is there is no solid data which would verify that claim. Not, that is, unless we began at the point where someone said, "Look! I have the world's first digital image!"

You're probably right on this front. Looking at apples to apples DXO scores in the last ten years the improvements have been pretty consistent progressive.

That rather begs the question though, what is an advancement?

However, speaking in terms of image quality alone the improvement according to DXO Mark is largely nominal. Though, the marks from ten years ago to today on "high end" compacts have improved dramatically in the few years following 2007.

The rules of physics dictating the operation of a lens have been well understood for most of the last century. Yet, it is the advances in modern computer aided manufacturing which make many of those rules a reality and not just theories on paper.

I do not think there has been any significant improvement in CAD/CAM in the last ten years. Perhaps compact lens optimizations have been improved some, I can see that, but in general I do not think you can really say a ten year old lens will perform any better than a two year old lens.

It is the speed with which modern digital circuits operate which gives us the ability to actually question what we had previously accepted as "adequate".

Again, these cameras were adequate ten years ago for many subjects and circumstances. In fact, photojournalists have some of the most demanding requirements, and they were the ones to adopt digital before anyone else. If an AP photographer could "deal" with a Nikon D2x in 2007, a flagship that now can be found for the same price as those goofy, over-priced "advanced compacts", I'm pretty sure it will meet the needs of most serious hobbyists today.

IMO it is often the dawning realization that further advancements are required.

I don't think anyone is saying that advancement isn't required and inevitable to push forward the craft. However, I also do not think it is neccesary, nor even prudent, to get the "latest" low-end DSLR either. Many of the higher end DSLRs from a few, even more than a few years back will offer a much more.

most modern image processing software doesn't accept Fuji's interpretation of RAW capture.

This isn't so much true anymore. While xtrans raws had some initial difficulty, this has been largely addressed, furthermore it was never an issue that software "couldn't" process the images, it was only that they didn't do a very good job at it.

Regardless, this problem is largely a thing of the past.

To that end, given the choice of shooting with my nine year old Canon DSLR or my one year old Canon compact/bridge, I'll take the advancements of the more recent camera any day.

It completely depends on the DSLR. A 30D or 1000D, this is probably true. But the 7D enjoyed a six year life cycle and still has a high resale value. I am pretty sure that a beat-up 7D would out-perform your sparkly new "bridge" camera in almost every way.

Honestly, if I had $300 to spend, it'd be on a a 10 year old 1D mkii N or D2x, not some "advanced compact" baloney.

Thanks for that!

I always feel as though I am the POTUS or, at the least, the Secretary of State when someone dissects every syllable I've posted.

It makes me feel so important for those few minutes I spend reading such responses.

Of course, then I realize how silly they are.




"What demands do photographers have today that they didn't ten years ago? What exactly has changed in our environment that makes today's DSLRs so essential?"

I believe you've answered your own question with this statement, " ... the marks from ten years ago to today on "high end" compacts have improved dramatically in the few years following 2007."

Demands?

To paraphrase the song, "Demands? I've had a few. But then again ... "

I can't answer what "demands" any one other than I have made on my camera.

Can you?



I never said the two year old lens itself would by necessity "operate better" than a ten year old lens.

I believe I said the manufacturing techniques of today have improved the manufacturing quality of today's lens. Particularly when it comes to single, fixed lens systems.

Do you seriously think today's manufacturers have not been improving in their quality control? That today's manufacturers do not have a more complete understanding and implementation of values and systems which affect image quality?

What exactly do you think they have been doing for the last decade? Yes, they've turned out a lot of totally useless features in many cases. But, you don't think they've improved some things in terms of actual image quality?

I also mentioned it is the digital correction circuit of the camera itself that would allow greater fidelity to the source due to the faster processing speeds allowed by today's digital circuits.

If that isn't what I said, let me know. I'll 'splain it to ya.


Photojournalists really liked the instant feedback provided by a digital DSLR. The rest of your argument here has little to nothing to do with whether the op should be content with their ten year old Canon compact.



So on and so on.



Thanks for taking my post so seriously that it required such minute dissection.

The op seems happy with the answers we've provided.



If you care to use your ten year old camera, do so. I am not a badge carrying member of the photographer's secret police squad and I won't tell anyone what you're up to.

 

[unpopular]

uhm. was I just snarked at for responding to a post??

 

[tirediron]

I'm confused... WHO cares if the camera is ten years old; does it do the job the photographer requires? I still regularily use a D700 and that's coming up on 10 years old now. Why? Because it works, and produces the results that meed my needs. I have other, newer bodies, but the D700 stills see quite a bit of regular use, and will continue to.

 

[soufiej]

uhm. was I just snarked at for responding to a post??

For someone with 8700 posts here, you seem to have a low "snark quotient".

Really, it's simply that as soon as someone begins taking apart another post sentence by sentence, it never goes well on a forum.

You have your points and I have mine.




I still love the old TV Western with Walter Brennan long after his Real McCoy days and his time spent as John Wayne's no longer quick on the draw sidekick.

I don't know if you remember The Guns of Will Sonnet but the most remembered quote from that show was Brennan's, "No brag, just fact".

You have your points and I have mine. No snark, just fact.

 

[timmermannen]

I'm confused... WHO cares if the camera is ten years old; does it do the job the photographer requires? .

Hi, sorry if I have stirred up a mess, but yes, this was what I was wondering in the first place. My conclusion is the pictures will have almost the same qualities under good lighting conditions, but will lack when shooting like during dawn or on cloudy days....a lot?
If the lenses havent changed that much, is it because of ISO improvements the shootings will be worse in bad lights? Can I compensate it fully by using a longer shutter speed?

I shot another pic, it would have been quite fun but there seems the camera didnt catch the bird 100%, the quality seems grainy i think.
Would it have been a lot better pic if I have had a brand new technology camera?

Many thanks for all help

 

[soufiej]

"Almost" and "a lot" are not definable terms.

Your Canon compact uses a very small sensor (the smallest sensor available in fact) which means light levels will always be critical to your success.

Many modern compacts (and smartphones) use the same size of sensor though their ability to raise ISO values are improved over your camera.

"Raising ISO" is applying amplification to the digital signal. There have been noticeable improvements in the amplification of the signal while adding lower amounts of noise.

This is what makes a modern camera with the same size sensor found in your camera the "better" camera in low light situations, the ability to apply gain to the signal while minimizing digital noise. The larger your image display becomes, the more noticeable this improvement becomes.




If you never intend to display an image at larger than 2" x 2", you'll have a difficult time seeing the difference. Once you begin to print your photos, the difference will become more obvious.


Do your research regarding sensors and the limitations they impose on photography. There are multiple threads on this forum and any search engine will turn out answers.



One issue you'll find with light is it has a value. Therefore, light is not a single definable term which translates to a shot by shot issue of whether your camera can catch the shot. About the only thing that can be said with certainty is your camera will perform best in the greatest amount of light you can provide it.

How many shots will your camera miss? Can't say.

How many would another camera get? Can't say.



At times, the ability of the camera to respond more quickly to your commands is what makes the difference. Now we're back to the point where a modern smartphone camera can do "better" than your decade old compact.

A modern compact "bridge" camera can do better than a smartphone.

A DSLR can do better than a bridge.

Each increase in sensor size and decrease in shutter lag time you can afford improves your chances of getting the shot.

How much better? How much improvement? Can't say.

Photography isn't a process that works like that.



The numbers say when you increase the size of the sensor, you increase the light sensitivity of the camera. With your ten year old compact, you are starting on the lowest rung of the ladder. Since raising the ISO value on your camera will introduce more image noise than would raising the ISO on a modern DSLR, you are placed further behind the eight ball. So, ...



Photographing birds is a fairly specialized genre of photography. Birds move and don't care that you want their photo. Even the best bird photographers miss shots.

Certainly, the long shutter lag of your camera doesn't help this situation. There's simply no guarantee though another camera would have done a better job other than modern cameras have shorter lag times between your push on the shutter release button and the moment the shutter actually opens. That alone ups your chances of getting the shot you desire when the subject isn't cooperating.



Long shutter speeds have their own issues. Hand held shots can generally only be relied on for a few tenths of a second shutter speed. After that you can expect camera shake to blur the image.

Almost any modern digital camera will provide image stabilization which makes longer shutter speeds possible before blur is introduced and again ups your chances of getting the shot. You cannot add image stabilization to your camera, you can only buy a more recent camera with the feature included.

Student photographers are best advised to mount their cameras on a tripod when longer shutter speeds are required. Do you plan on using a tripod for all your shots? Probably not. For birding type photography, they can be as much a hindrance as a help.

Combine long shutter lag with long shutter speeds and you may miss a fair number of shots that you could have captured using that base line smartphone.

Use a baseline DSLR from Canon's current catalog and you'll have increased your keeper rate exponentially.




IMO you should simply resign yourself to the fact you have a ten year old camera that wasn't top of the line when it was new. It's perfectly fine for learning photography's basic rules. Or for simply learning whether you think you are going to stick with this hobby.

While I am opposed to the idea every review of every new camera should read as if this was the greatest, most fantastic, most beneficial improvement over what has come before, the simple fact is cameras have improved across the board in the last ten years. Anyone who tells you different isn't telling you the truth.

And what you have now came from the low end of the market ten years ago. A ten year old DSLR (with its larger sensor) would have better low light response than does your present compact.

A modern "kit lens" sold as a package with a modern DSLR will also be "faster" than your camera's lens. A faster lens means it can allow more light through to the sensor which translates into still better low light performance.

Most certainly, and I really can't see anyone arguing this point, the kit lenses available today are far superior in virtually every respect to the kit lens that would have come with a DSLR ten years ago. The lens on your ten year old compact wasn't even as good as the DSLR kit lens back then. It certainly wasn't as versatile. And it certainly hasn't improved with age.



Your camera is usable just like other ten year old cameras are usable. Some of these recent posts seem to present the idea that ten years ago digital cameras where just fine. No, ten years ago many people were being moved over to digital cameras because the wave was coming and there are always early adapters.

I bought my first DSLR back then because my analog Canon needed repair and I simply made the leap to digital. I still have that camera and I still on occasion use that camera. Doesn't mean I don't think my more modern cameras can't better it in most, if not all, ways. But it remains a camera I can loan to a friend if we go out shooting together. They'll do fine with it if they've never used a modern DSLR.

That doesn't mean the quality of a digital photograph was excellent ten years ago. It means we had nothing else to compare to. But it is a certainty no one would have purchased any digital camera if the image quality was so horrible as to be unacceptable.



You have a ten year old low end camera. Use it until you can afford better. You learn photography by taking photographs. If you use a ten year old camera because that is what you have available, you can still learn.

If you get more serious about your photography than taking snapshots of birds against a colorless background, you will see improvements in your work.

 

[jcdeboever]

You did pretty good here timmer! I like how you bumped up the exposure for the snow. You missed the focus, it hit the branch's and not the bird. I would try to get that focus point on the eye of the bird. Not sure about your camera but mine, once I get the focus point hit on the eye, I keep my finger pressed at the half shutter position, recompose, then press shutter all the way down. Soon as you lift your finger, you lose your focus point. However, focus is easily missed with these cameras at the long end of the zoom, my Sony DSCH2 is the same way. Watch your framing too, I noticed it's tilted... you can see it by the window frame in the background but you can fix that in post. Problem with fixing tilt in post is that you can lose a little sharpness, not a deal breaker but it's best to nail it in camera.

Longer shutter speeds, bigger apertures, all help in low light. You have to experiment. I have found a tripod, table, side of a wall, to be very beneficial with slow shutter speeds to prevent blur. For me it is around the 1/30s mark I need to stabilize.

The big challenge on older tech will be noise with indoor shooting in low light. Flash helps. It is a challenge on newer stuff too, just not as hard to deal with. Keep shooting, your doing way better than I did starting out in June. You will get some noise with anything over ISO 200. My 10 year old Sony is the same way. Not a big deal if your printing at 4x6 size.

 

[tirediron]

The bottom line is: This is a ten year old camera (degradation to the mechanism aside) it will take pictures as well as it ever did. It will take decent pictures in good conditions, and suffer in more difficult conditions. It will a far cry from today's cameras in terms of speed of focus, noise/high-ISO, and overall image quality in any but good conditions. That said, there is a big positive to using a camera like this: It will help you learn. You will not have the benefit of lightning-quick focus, so you will need to plan your shots. You will not have ultra-high ISO capability, so you will have to plan your shots.. There's nothing wrongw with using this to start and when/if you find you really like it, and know in what direction you want to go, upgrading. Likewise, you could also spend a couple of hundred dollars and get a used D3000 & kit lens and be several generations ahead right off the bat...

 

[dennybeall]

There are a few very, very, long winded trolls that spend way too much time here. Most of us have learned not to bite on the lures, some folks have not and get snagged.

 

[soufiej]

True. There are also some very short attention span minds on this forum. Their posts tend to be rather less than useful because they forget what they were talking about or didn't know in the first place.

Need I go on?