My History With Photography

I guess my brush with photography began back in 6th grade with a 'free' camera offer. I don't know exactly what intrigued me about the deal at the time. Maybe it was the fact that it was endorsed by Bugs Bunny, the official sponsor of Kool-Aid at the time. Or maybe it was the fact that 6th-grade camp was on the horizon, and a camera would be cool. Whatever the reason, I saved up a bunch of empty Kool-Aid packages and mailed them in for a free camera. It was a plastic camera (I'm sure it was a Diana) that took 120 film. For those of you that don't know (or remember), 120 film is a type that you buy on a roll about 2-1/2" long and have to actually 'thread' it into the take-up roll inside the camera to start shooting. The advantage of 120 film was that it was dirt cheap and even a kid could afford it. I did end up using that camera during 6th grade camp. As I recall I took about 3 rolls with it, but I don't think I used it much more than that. I think I lost interest. Also, I was young enough to not have money for film and picture developing, so that was probably the reality. I only have a handful of pictures from those few shots I did take. Here are a few:

  

I'd like to think that camera film is trying to stage a comeback, but I'm not so sure. For a cheap, plastic camera, the fact that it used 120 film was its saving grace. 120 film was cheap, it was available everywhere (at that time), and being a 'medium format' film, was very easy to make enlargements from. The only way to make using film practical nowadays is to develop your own pictures... assuming you can find film. Nobody develops film for the broader markets any more. You've gotta search

Epix Pro

In the late 70's I was stationed in Northern Italy while in the Air Force, and I bought myself a new 35mm Nikon FM SLR camera. I had a great time taking pictures of everything in sight, and Northern Italy has its share of photo opportunities! I took almost exclusively slides with it because I liked the ease of using prepaid Kodak mailers. They made it a lot more convenient than trying to use local Italian developing and have to deal with the language barrier.

I was getting heavily into computers in the mid-80's, and it was somewhere during that time that digital photography made it's public appearance. Of course, being the computer geek that I am, I was interested! It didn't take all that long--my first digital camera came along in the mid-90's, called an Epix Pro. It must have been considerably ahead of it's time to include EXIF information with its picture files, a feature we take for granted. I have one surviving picture that I took  with it of my daughter, and it even still has the EXIF info intact. Here's the picture, along with the EXIF info that is embedded in it. Click on the picture to view it in its full-sized, pixelated glory...

[Picture]

DateTime=1997:11:27 11:48:37

Roll Number=IN01

Picture Number = 0007

[Camera info]

Manufacturer=EPix Imaging Systems, Inc

Model=EPixPro0001

Serial Number=S557400247

Shutter = 269

Gain = 10

Flash = 0

Mode = STILL

[Folder]

Name=Inside

Account Number=1

[end]

Is that a blast from the past or what? Anyway, it was only a 512k-pixel resolution camera. I think I bought it on eBay back when eBay was in it's infancy. As a matter of fact, I believe I actually bought it for eBay--To take pictures of things that I put up for sale. Here's a copy of a website I found and saved a few years ago. I saved it in case it disappeared:

Original article from Chip Shop - March 1996

Back then anyone that had a digital camera was a computer geek. Why? Because they were not treated as real cameras per se, but rather, as electronic devices. To the photographic world they were dismissed as novelties, and for good reason--Their pictures were nowhere near good enough quality to be called photography. As digital cameras became more common, they also became more powerful and came down in price as we all know by now. As that was happening I sold that Epix camera and bought a Kodak DC120.

Kodak DC120

It was a pretty nice camera in it's day. It was 1-megapixel (woo!) and took much better shots than my first digital camera did. It also had a built-in flash, a 3x zoom, and used Compactflash cards which were reasonably new then. I was getting into digital cameras and loved the aspect of being able to take as many pictures as I wanted and deleting them instantly if something went wrong. As the digital cameras became better and more affordable, I finally got to the point where I knew I'd never give my old trusty Nikon FM film camera the respect and attention it once had and I sold it.

The next upgrade for me was an Olympus C4000z digital camera. I loved this camera for the quality improvement it had over the Kodak! While it had it's share of issues, it took great pictures. I grew to hate the fact that it was limited by a 128-meg Smartmedia card, and grew also dissatisfied with the unintuitive menu structure it had. I basically used this camera more as a tool--using it for things like covering family events, taking pictures of things for my website, and that sort of thing. I still hadn't been bitten by the photography bug.

Early 2009 brought a reawakening of photography to my life when my (then) wife got herself into a photography class at our local community college. I accompanied her to our local Office Depot store one evening to buy herself a new Canon XTi DSLR camera. That really didn't clinch it for me--That happened a few days later. We both went out in the waning daylight hours when her photography class had an assignment to take pictures that showed motion. Helping her set up the shots brought back some excitement. I wrestled with it for a few days after that before finally succumbing and buying myself a used Canon XT camera. The seed was planted. Although my camera was one notch below hers, they were virtually brother and sister. It was a Canon EOS 350D, also known as the Digital Rebel XT. I was back having a great time taking pictures once again! I was fortunate that it came with an extra battery when I bought it (a necessity). It came with the standard 18-55 'kit' lens, and a crappy (but worked ok) 75-300 zoom.

A few upgrades followed after that. I upgraded to the Canon XTi like Sue had and ran that for a couple years, then bought a used Canon 7D. While I still have the 7D, I rarely take it out. Photography has taken yet another break from my life. We'll see if it comes back some day...