Camera Oasis

Point-and-shoot digital cameras -- even good ones -- have become semi-relics in the iPhone era . But compact digital cameras aren't pricey paperweights. They can do the job. And on the used market, good P/S cameras can be had for $5-$25 dollars.  Really.  After a downpour.    A local thrift store last week sold me a tiny  Fujifilm Finepix Z90 camera for $3.99. That's no misprint. A 12-megapixel, 5X zoom camera smaller than any smartphone. Under $5.  It's no Leica , of course. In default "SR auto mode," the camera chooses high ISO settings for daylight photos. (Tip: use Program mode, set ISO yourself.) But with a wide-angle to zoom 28-140mm lens (in 35mm terms) and HD video, a nine-year-old camera that outperforms most phones is a fair deal. You can skip eBay, and still land great deals. You get a couple of extra benefits: In this case, the camera came with a case, SD card, and battery. This isn't always so with thrift-store cameras. You need to check the c...

What do Walgreens and CVS drug stores do with the film negatives that aren't returned? Mystery solved. But hardly satisfying. . I've probed this since my Aug. 2016 post . When I asked Walgreens why they don't return negatives with photofinishing orders, a manager called me. He explained that his store sends all film processing orders to District Photo, a Maryland wholesale lab. They send nothing back to the stores -- prints or negs, he said. Image files scanned from negatives are transmitted to the store, where prints are produced and the files are written to a CD. This led me to District Photo, where a polite woman named Ruth informed me that District's contract with Walgreens specifies no return of negatives. That's at Walgreens' request.  District retains the negatives for 30 days, then destroys them. So, Walgreens says it's District's issue. District says Walgreens tells them not to return the negatives. Amid the online finger-pointin...

I ran across a Nikon N2020 in a thrift store last week. It would make a great doorstop, or maybe a prop in a war movie. By dw_ross from Springfield, VA, USA (20121213_1371) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)],  via Wikimedia Commons The bottom plate was partially unscrewed. A thin patina of dust covered its surface. You couldn't read half of the control labels on the body. Nikon made many rugged 35mm single-lens reflex cameras. The N2020 wasn't one of them, despite being the company's first autofocus SLR model. I'm a long-time Nikon SLR owner. But I let it go. Some owners baby their cameras. Others toss them in a backpack and neglect them. And there's no hard-and-fast rule about which holds up better. SLR cameras of the 1970s and 80s were built with metal frames, but plastic soon took over. If you find a $10 Nikon in a thrift store, it's likely to need more than a dusting off and a fresh battery. Compact point-and-shoots are a...

If you shoot film and have it processed at a drugstore, watch out. Walgreens and CVS are trying to steal your silver. By Eastwind41 (Own work) [Copyrighted free use], via Wikimedia Commons That's the only possible explanation as to why they no longer return your negatives when you develop color negative film. Instead of giving you prints with negatives in your photofinishing envelope, they give you prints and image files on a CD. You don't get your negatives back. By SkywalkerPL (Own work) [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons Why? The film contains tiny particles of silver, which can be extracted and recycled, usually benefitting the photo lab. Companies used to offer kits that allowed labs to recover the silver, and you'd get your negatives back. But that technology likely isn't widely offered, since film processing declined. This page of Kodak's website talks about the process. The labs want to keep the silver. So you don't get your negatives ...

Even those of us in the PR world get swanked. Remember this geeky looking Fujifilm instant-film camera I shared a few weeks back? I'm told it's from 1998. Still homely, however.

Seriously: how long did you think camera companies could churn out higher- and higher-megapixel cameras before consumers became fatigued with it all? They're figuring out that a new 12- or 14-megapixel camera isn't a necessity when jobs, hours and salaries are getting cut. That 6- or 8-MP camera most of us bought a year or two ago will do fine, at least until the recession moderates. As a result: Ritz Camera filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection this week. Hundreds of stores, stocked with Fuji, Nikon, and Olympus cameras that no one's buying. Most Ritz stores were mall-based, within easy clobbering range of the Target or Best Buy across the parking lot. If you bought a camera from Ritz, I hope you didn't pay extra for a Ritz warranty. Ritz's court filings say they owe Nikon USA more than $20 million. That kind of liability isn't going to make things easy at Nikon. Take good care of that D90 or D300; customer service may get whacked. Olympus downsized a portion ...

Fujifilm has come out with a new instant film camera. In light of Polaroid's discontinuing instant film to concentrate on self-destructing consumer electronics, Fujifilm's Instax camera may end up as the only game in town. Read a review here. I'm wondering what designer thought up that outboard viewfinder on the same side of the camera as the control buttons. Or the idea of prints popping out the top of the camera. Then again, a viewfinder on a camera is almost a rarity, these days. So even a weird, cyclops-like one is better than nothing, right? But I'd really prefer to see Fujifilm pick up the slack, and sell instant film that fits the millions of current and recent Polaroid instant cameras that will become doorstops when Polaroid's film inventory is exhausted.

One of the least-discussed functions in point-and-shoot digital cameras is the "burst" mode. It lets you shoot a sequence of shots, usually 3 to 6 images, without removing your finger from the shutter button. Why is this useful? Get yourself a DVD of the Beatles' film, "A Hard Day's Night." You'll see a scene where a photographer shoots a rapid sequence of portraits of George Harrison. Most of the faces he makes are goofy. A few are keepers. If you have kids, you're better off shooting a quick series of photos of them, and review them later to choose the best shots. Unlike motor-driven film cameras, digital cameras use a burst mode to capture a sequence of images. Some cameras keep shooting images for as long as you hold the shutter button, but only save the last few frames. Or the first few frames. My old Kodak DX7630 offered the option of one or the other. Today, all but the least-expensive digital cameras offer a burst mode. If this sort of techni...