What Was Your First Digital Camera?
Have I already given up on my film photography adventure!? Not at all! I still have a few more frames remaining and it has been brutally cold the last couple of days so I’ve just stayed in. As I’ll be getting a new camera system soon, I started to think about my first digital camera. The Panasonic Lumix you see below was purchased in 2005. At the time, it was a great camera and although I had no idea about photography I managed to snap a few decent images with it. It’s been outside in a box in freezing cold weather for over 4 months and fired up right away with a fresh set of batteries!
Some of the features include a 5 megapixel CCD sensor, 6x optical zoom, iso 80-400, 320 x 240 video recording, 85,000 pixel 1.5 inch LCD screen, f2.8-4.5 lens.
Although I didn’t become seriously passionate about photography until 2010 / 2011, I dug into the archive and found these images weren’t “too” bad!
What was your first digital camera?
Mike Pratt Photography Blog 
Nice one and nice pics. Mine was a 2.1mp Olympus something or other I believe haha.
haha ~ times have definitely changed! I recall how impressed people were about this one having 5mp and a whopping 6x’s optical zoom!
After my film camera was stolen, I bought my first digital. It was a 4MP Vivitar compact. But quickly after that I purchased Nikon D40. The shutter lag in Vivicam was not acceptable. O, I do have a Lumix LX5 and love it.
Thanks for sharing! The speed of these earlier digicams was definitely an issue with the time between shots sometimes several seconds. Forget about lowlight performance! The Lumix line is a great series of cameras though, and I’m half tempted to do a project with this camera :)
Really nice shots Mike, my first digital camera was a 1.3 megapixel Fujifilm fixed lens non zoom. I had been a Nikon film Shooter for about the previous 35 years. My first digital shots were no where near the quality of yours. I still shoot Nikon to this day and a couple of Fuji’s recently joined the collection.
Thanks Joe! I know the camera you’re talking about! I think it’s great that you’ve stayed with Nikon for your shooting career. Also cool that you’re bringing Fuji back into the mix! Do you still have that first camera?
my all works are from Sony H with Zeiss , brilliant camera,Lumix has Leica ? great detail,vibrance and clarity ,take care Mike
btw my first camera – one time market wonder from Tesco ,on negative iso 200 normal , i still have amany pictures in albums,believe me i am sentimental
This particular Lumix didn’t use the Leica lens, but it still did a reasonable job – from what I can tell. It was actually quite a decent camera in normal light. Sony’s partnership with Zeiss is a good one as the Zeiss lenses are really good. Thanks for sharing!
pleasure Mike, have a great day
Well I was a late entrant to digital having shot film for forever. I managed to get used Olympus e1 a shutter that was as smooth as butter and a sensor which blew me away.
I gradually shot less and less film and my journey on four thirds began together with Ricoh grd series stunning cameras all. I now have the omd em5 and an lx7 I regard the lx7 to vue a modern day variant of film it constantly amazes me with the quality of image it produces.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! As far as I know, the Oly E1 was quite a revolutionary camera for the time having been a completely new product without any recycled parts. Well, we can see Olympus doing some great things with digital cameras these days with their recent offerings. I was very close to purchasing the OMD-EM5!
Let’s see …. My very first … Hmm….an Olympus something? Anyway, I like the photos!!!
Thanks Cathy! I think Olympus had a good foothold in the digital camera world early on. It’s good they’ve come back fairly strong recently.
It was a Fuji FinePix something. Red color. Was more of a fashion item, rather than a professional device in its category lol.
As we have heard so often, any camera can take a great photo when in the right hands; even if it’s meant as a fashion accessory! :)
I love the 2nd, 5th, and 7th images. My first digital camera was a Kodak and my first DSLR was a Nikon D50. Still have it and my kids use it!
I’m happy to have kept my first digital camera, as it provides a fun look back to where I started and how far I’ve come since then (hopefully with improvements!). Thank you Robyn! I hope your kids enjoy the D50 :)
Well Mike, my first digital camera was a 3.3 mp Sony s75 with a Carl zeiss zoom lens. Slow as hell but excellent IQ even by today´s standards, if you don´t enlarge to much… Still works today on my wife´s hands! Then it was a bridge Lumix camera FZ8, an Olympus E-450 DSLR, a m4/3 Lumix GF1 (love-it) and recently, a Lumix G3 because an EVF became a necessity…
I think it might be fun to hold a photo contest where only “vintage” digital cameras can be used! I’ve met photographers who are still using early Canon 1D’s with 4.1mp and swear by them. The results are good, as long as the image isn’t enlarged too much, as you mentioned. The Panasonic Lumix series has always been excellent. Thanks for sharing Antonio!
my first digital camera was a 2.1MP HP something, with fixed focus and no zoom. of course I didn’t like and I continued in the next 2 years shooting film
I wonder if it was the HP Photosmart 320? My father bought one for his work back in 2002 (maybe 2003). I recall it was interesting to use, but nowhere near as good as film of course!
you are right! I made a search by “hp photosmart 320” and appeared my old camera :)
Oh Mike!!!! I’m speechless over these pictures. I’ve scrolled through them a number of times because they are like taking a wonderful journey! A fantastic gift for those of us stuck in from the cold! The second photo, I just absolutely adore. Just speaks to me so. Thank you for all of these images. What treasures :)
Thank you Allison! :) I’m really happy you liked them! These were taken on my first trip to China back in 2006 which seems like ages ago.
I hope the cold weather for you won’t last much longer! I’ll send along some warm thoughts :)
Just stunning and beautiful these images, thank you so much for bringing these to us! Yes, a lot has truly happened since 2006 and it does feel like ages ago! Funny how time passes and we almost don’t feel it until we look back. Thanks for the warm thoughts ~ I just know the light of spring is on its way! ;) Have an awesome Wednesday, Mike!
My first camera that i bought using my own money was a nikon d40, now it’s all about mobility for me, smartphone and a fuji x100
what system will you be using after this?
good pictures btw!
A lot of people absolutely love the D40! I’ve tried it before and have to say it is almost a perfect travel DSLR.
Now, I’m on the same page as you. Having trudged around with a heavy and bulky DSLR for a couple years, I’m moving to the Leica M which is suited for travel and street photography.
My first digital camera was a digital compact camera (Samsung V5) in 2005.
Beautiful images in this post Mike (sometimes it pays off to dig into the archives) :)
I also recall the V5 camera :) It is interesting reading these comments and actually forming an image in my head what these things look like.
There are so many photos saved on my various hard drives, that it would probably take me several months to go through them all. It is fun to go back in time a bit! Thank you Malin :)
:)
My first digital camera was a Canon PowerShot A30.
1.2 MP :-)
That might the lowest MP count from the comments I’ve received! I hope you still have it :) Thanks for sharing!
Amazing!
Thanks Nicole :)
An Olympus point and shoot and I remember thinking it was pretty expensive for all those MP. Four. ;)
haha ~ I recall when the cameras shifted from the 2MP range to four and then 5, it was amazing! There was some definite bragging rights if you said your digital camera had 4+ MP!
So true! Funny.
Mi primera cámara digital fue una Olympus . Excelentes imágenes .
Saludos
Thank you! Olympus seems to have been one of the most popular choices in those days. Although there wasn’t too much to choose from.
Mine was a Sony with a Zeiss lens. Don’t remember the model but that was back in 2001. Then I moved on to a Canon 40D which served me well, but was hefty (with the lens). It’s Fuji x100 for me now!
I too have gone with a smaller camera. The DSLR’s are just too big for general day to day use, especially for street photography which I enjoy the most. I’ll keep the Canon for landscapes but I can’t see myself ever trudging around with it again. The Fuji x100 is a superb camera!
After I had my Fuji x100, I couldn’t go back to the Canon DSLR (plus I hardly ever change my lens). So have recently decided to sell it on eBay. At the same time, I bought a Canonet QL17, which would be a good complement to the Fuji and require a different modus operandi – looking forward to taking photos with it!