Old Digital Camera Vs. Cell Phone: Sony Mavica Edition

Pause for a minute and try to remember 1997. It is very possible that you will not be able to remember everything about 1997 because it was a long time ago, but these things happened, among others: Bill Clinton started his second term as President of the United States, Dharma & Greg premiered on ABC, and everybody's computer came with a floppy disk drive.

Also in 1997, people started wondering if maybe this newfangled digital camera thing had legs. Turns out it did, but there are times in retrospect that you have to wonder how it managed to survive those early years. This is one of those times.

Black and white: optical filters in a digital world

Searching through the internet for a definitive answer on whether or not coloured optical filters still play a role in digital black and white provided an answer as clear as mud: yes, no, and everything inbetween. So let's see if we can find some clarity ourselves...

Old Digital Camera Vs. Cell Phone: Leica Digilux Zoom Edition

Your sassy new Leica DLUX5 is the latest in a long line of Leica-branded, Made-Somewhere-Else compact digital cameras. The most recent are sourced from Panasonic, but many moons ago, in the before times, Fuji was the OEM of choice. This Leica Digilux Zoom was Leica's second digital camera, an upscale clone of the Fujifilm MX-1700 from the halcyon days of 1999.

With a 1/2" 1.5 megapixel sensor, this is no DLUX5. But can it hold its own against a humble cell phone camera? Let's see!

Old Digital Camera Vs. Cell Phone: A Periodic Inquiry

The Nikon Coolpix 4500 was my very first digital camera, way back in 2002. It had a cool swivelling design, a 4 megapixel sensor, and a huge range of available accessories. It was one of the most capable non-SLR digital system cameras available.

It's been a while since the 4500 was state-of-the-art, and digital cameras have come a long way. But can this grandpa still compete? Let's see if it can beat the best-selling digital camera out there today: the one on your cell phone.

Tilt/Shift Lenses

Canon 24mm t/s - f3.5 - 1/1250 - 400 ISO

      A long time ago, before digital…even before roll film, all cameras tilted and shifted and correcting perspective was as important as focussing or selecting aperture and shutter speed.


     Then along came the newfangled "box" cameras (as opposed to bellows cameras) and with the rise of their popularity, the accessibilty to tilt and shift declined.

The Lomographic Spinner 360 gets a quick test

This is a Lomographic Spinner 360. It's a strange-looking thing covered in grippy studded rubber, with a huge protruding handle, gaping metal hood, exposed rubber-band gearing and a peculiar dangling pullstring.


It looks like what would happen if a computer tried to understand bdsm, gave up, and designed a bird instead.


But I can assure you that the Spinner 360 a camera, and a pretty interesting one at that: it takes full 360-degree panoramas on standard 35mm film.

A view from Mount Tolmie

Lens comparison: Leica-mount lenses

Leica-mount rangefinder lenses have a long history, stretching from the thread-mount lenses of the early 1930s to the modern Leitz and Zeiss/Voigtlander Cosina "M" bayonet lenses of the present day.

More to the point for the contemporary reader, the very earliest thread-mount lenses are still compatible (via adapters, of course) with the thoroughly modern Leica M, Micro Four Thirds, and Voigtlander cameras of today. So, new camera shoppers, this affects you directly.

I shoot with a rangefinder, and I think it's the finest sort of camera out there- but the lens selection can be so extensive that I often wonder what the difference might be between this lens and that one. And for the digital-only bunch out there, how do these lenses work on an affordable Micro Four Thirds camera? Are they worth considering?

So here we go: a quick comparison of seven different "standard" rangefinder lenses, from the 1930s to today. THIS IS NOT SCIENCE! It's curiosity. I think we've got a solid comparison going here, and I'll leave most of the conclusions to you. Full-resolution files are linked below, so have a look and decide for yourself.

And if you think that a 70-year-old lens has no relevance to modern cameras, you might want to keep reading (warning: image-heavy!)