Not All Cameras Are The Same...At Least, To Me

In one of my boxes of stuff we're currently going through, I found a plastic bag containing digital cameras and digital camera accessories. 

It was like a mini-time capsule.

My mini-time capsule.

Each of the cameras was purchased at a thrift store. With the ever improving smartphone cameras out there, people were ditching their old point-and-shoot digital cameras. And many of those thrift store camera were high-end ones capable to taking amazing pictures and wonderful videos. When I bought these cameras I had a camera with a phone, but it wasn't as good as these digital cameras.

That changed a few years ago. I picked up an iPhone SE. At the time, it was one of the best phone cameras out there. Since then, cameras have improved a hundred fold. I remember fiddling with the cameras, and when I saw them again in the bag, I thought how cool it would be to see if those cameras could work again.

Then I thought...why?

Even though the cameras are still amazing, I can do more with my phone than those cameras could ever hope to do. It's not even close. 

Another item I found downstairs was a box that once held my non-digital SLR Olympus OM-10 camera. It's hard for me to explain just how important that camera was for me. It wasn't Olympus's top camera, but it was a good one, and I was able to take pictures like a pro.

I saw an Olympus OM-10 camera at the thrift store a few months ago. I think it cost ten bucks. I've rarely seen an item cost so little, but to me, was so valuable. 

I'm giving the cameras in the bag back to the thrift store. The OM-10 I'll probably keep forever. I may never take another picture with it, and even if I do, I might not be able to get the film developed, but then that particular camera is special. At least, it is to me.

The Olympus OM-10--A Great Camera...

It might be years since I took out my old Olympus camera and looked at it. I thought about it today so when I got home, I took a couple of pictures of my old camera. I can't bring myself to get rid of it even though I know these cameras sell now for only a couple of bucks at thrift stores, and what I did with my little point-n-shoot camera (taking these pictures...) would have cost several dollars and taken days to develop, but man, I miss this camera--bad!

I got this camera for Christmas in either '81 or '82 and I can't adequately express how much I loved it. It wasn't the most expensive Olympus. The OM-1's and OM-2's were the professional models. Think of this as the Mazda Miata of cameras. And when my mom bought the Manual Adapter, I became a real photographer. I could manually adjust the shutter speed, or allow the Olympus brain to take over. It was so far beyond the Kodak Instamatic I had...

I know there are a lot of photographers out there, and each love their cameras. I had friends who had Pentax cameras, Canons were popular, and, of course, Nikons were hard to beat, but for me, I loved, loved, loved my little Olympus. When I looked at the camera tonight I felt like someone who saw a classic car, one like the one they drove in high school. It brought back a lot of memories.

I have yet to own a modern digital SLR and I look forward to one day buying my first one. I think the photography world is a little less personal with all the technology that's available today. There's something about snapping the shutter and wondering if you caught the light just the way you wanted to, or had the picture in focus and if you weren't sure you took another picture (just in case...) You had to be careful not to take too many pictures because you only had 24 shots, or 32 if you felt extra rich. And picking up that package of developed film and quickly shuffling through all the prints to see if the pictures turned out was exciting in its own way. There was something innocent in all that...something that's gone.

I've taken literally thousands of pictures since I began my "Pic Of The Day" posts on this blog and on Facebook. The cost of those pictures would be staggering if I had to pay for them as I did back when I operated my trusty OM-10. But maybe in some way, the cost might be worth it. I sure do miss that camera.