Junk Cameras Two (ONE YEAR OF JUNK!)

DSCI0526.JPGBack in the box of misfit cameras. I will say CLEVELAND CAVALIERS 2016 NBA CHAMPIONS!!!!!!  That is all.. Man it feels good to say we finally won the sausage. Meanwhile, here are a few more of the cameras in my junk camera collection. Remember, not all of these were junk in their day, but compared to the cameras that I have collected that at least take "acceptable" "useful  NOW" images, these deserve "junk" status. In this batch, we visit those oddball cams.

100_3516.JPG????  ???? ??? ?????

I likely bought this one because it takes 2 "AA" batteries and a SD card. It's a "Digital Concepts" 2.1 Mpx camera and has a standard USB port.  I don't even know if I thought the pictures that came from this camera were worth anything. I don't even know if it worked. People bought these likely in those hard to open peg hook packs at Wally.

100_3517.JPGYes, that's right. No display. Obviously, done for cheap. Even kiddie cams have a display. This one just shows the mode and counts the pictures. It does have a view finder, being that's all you can use. It also has a flash, which makes it a bit better. I think it took dull, pasty, out of focus pictures. You can do a search on the 'Zon if you want too. There are several cams made by Sakar that line up with this one. Tried it, put it in the junk box.

IM000252.JPGPolaroid PDC640 640x480 4 "AA" Smart Media

I don't know what the hell the pictures were taken of this camera with, but whatever. This was a rare find in the box of what appears to be a "classic". Believe it or not, Polaroid actually put out a few cameras at the start of digicam madness that were pretty decent. It had two things against it for being in my currents cameras collection. It takes "Smart Media", so that makes it obsolete right there. It also needs 4 AA batteries. Okay. Done.

IM000256.JPGI strive to have the best quality pics for this blog. *cough* Gee, couldn't Mr. Fat Hanz(TM) hold the box the right way so we could see all that makes this camera tick? There is not a whole lot of info on this cam, other that a lot of links to see it in "history" blogs. It does have pretty good picture taking ability and one of the bogs I looked at said the macro pictures that he took with this won him some awards. Reason why I couldn't pass it up? It came with 4!!! Smart Cards. If I were the profiting type, just selling one for $5 would make back the price I paid. Of course, the other reason is in the picture above. The "Marcs 99.99" price tag. Marcs is a local chain here in 2016 NBA CHAMPION CLEVELAND CAVALIERS home town that sells a lot of close out crap. Likely they bought a good number of these when people would still pay a hunny for a less than 1MPX camera.

IMAGE002.JPGThere's a picture snapped with it when it was first tested. It was even enlarged a bit to fit with the standard pictures on this blog. Actually, pretty good pic don't cha' think? I suppose this would have been used a lot and likely undercut some of the other cameras of it's day. I've learned that name brands can be deceiving, likely because the manufactures of these cameras didn't design from the ground up. Polaroid was still a thing in 1999 so most likely, they tried to do a great job making this baby. They even came out with a version that had a modem! You could send the photo from the camera itself! Gee whiz, isn't technology great?  Yes, it took good macro photos as well, but I won't bore you with the results.

100_3524.JPGDigiclic 5.0 3 "AAA" SD  "Promotional Camera"

I found this one nearly complete in a thrift store complete with it's generic box and all the cables. In fact, it looks like it was never used. I found out by some web research that this camera was sold as a generic camera that can be "personalized" with"your logo here". It may still even be available. A factory in China likely cranked these out and then took orders to have a logo screened upon them. I have no idea what "NCAA I Chose Division II" means or how this was given out. I know it's a college basketball thingy. How's the camera you didn't ask?

100_3525.JPGFeature wise, the only really bad thing about it is that it takes AAA batteries. They go fast, so you don't get very many pictures out of it before needing to replace them.  It does have a generic menu system, but was easy enough to program and understand. It's LCD does okay, and it also has a view finder and a flash. Not much else to tell you about other than it's really small, so I thought it was a good candidate for a "car cam" that I could take out of the car and use whenever I forgot my regular camera. (Which almost never happens.)

IMG_0020.JPGI suppose this took okay pictures on the outside. They were a little on the grainy side but acceptable, but what put me off on this dung runner were the inside pics. This pic was the best of the demo pics it took. Most of them, when using the flash, suffered from the same thing several cheap digicams suffer from.  Blur, blur, blur. Overexposed. My gosh that sheepdog's head is glowing! The sheepdog from HELL! No, the cheap promo camera, resting quietly in the Junk Zone. (Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do)

100_3519.JPGAGFA ePHOTO CL18 640x480 2 "AA"  "2 Meg Memory"

This was purchased at the same thrift store I bought the cams featured on the first Junk Cameras entry. AGFA is known for, well, were known for, film I believe? Don't know, don't care. This little camera was made for the person who wanted to snap quick photos and share them on line and not much else. With no view screen and no removeable memory, you ask, why did they even bother?

100_3520.JPG...because when this camera came out, anything as deluxe as a screen or memory was still very expensive. Amazing how technology gets better and cheaper within a few years. Remember when you couldn't get a DVD player for less than...aww forget it. The biggest money saver on this cam is, it didn't even have a processor for pictures. Almost every consumer camera takes pictures in a JPEG format that works on everything. You would download the images into a program, and that program turned the pictures into JPEGs saving the memory needed to do it on the cam itself.  It sucked, but some of the cheap cameras made back then used this process to make crappy pictures to share. Nothing says "memory" like a blurry photo of your newborn. "Look Grandma, in between all that blur is your grandson. His name is BLOBBY."  Actually this camera took okay photos and I think it doubled as a web cam. The few demo pictures taken with this were, okay, but I think the review of this camera is best. http://www.steves-digicams.com/cl18.html  It's the old version of the website to look now before it's gone.

 100_3530.JPG Olympus D320L 1.0 4 "AA" "Smart Card"

This was a PLUS find for a thrift store because it had the SMART memory card still in the camera! I found this one and I bought it for that reason. I needed to test my other smart card cams and now I actually has one of them. I would have passed on this for being a smart card cam that needs 4 AA batteries to drive it as well. I figured it would end up in my collection of junk cameras, but this was no piece of junk when it came out.

100_3531.JPGIt actually had a decent screen on it, but you could hear the shlurping of those batteries when you used it. When you turned on the cam by sliding the door on the front open, it made the viewfinder the better choice to get several more pics and review them later on your computer. However, that too worked in a different way as there was no standard USB out jack but a headphone style jack that needs a special cable and hooked to your computer's "serial" port. (No not Cereal, No Trix here. It was the early PC accessory port, before USB. Scanners and such used to connect to it.)  Bummer. No worries, if you have a smart card reader hooked to your computer via the new newfangled "USB" port, you were all set. That was until, it decided to eat your card. They weren't cheap.

P9120025.JPGRainy days and Mondays always get me, awww forget it. It was rainy so the demo pic I took with this was from a car window. However, this Olympus, was a no fooling camera and took great photos. Several cams I had would have had trouble taking a sharp image of this scene, but this fixed zoom, all glass, well designed lens captured this pretty well.

P9120028.JPGIt did have some trouble as a lot of point and shoot cameras do, of a cloudy day with brightness peeking through. I guess they get a bit confused, but other than the pasty black of this photo, it's still has quite bit of contrast and sharpness. A review of this cam: http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/D320/D320A.HTM is quite favorable. If it wasn't for the fact that it...blah blah blah, you've heard them all before.  The next entry is my chance to rag on a company that strikes humor in the minds of digital cam fans everywhere. When a Fisher Price camera for kids can take better pictures... bwa ha ha ha ha. Junk Blog.

-Ric

PS: Oh yes, it's the one year anniversary of this very Junk Blog. I had two entries before that were more like "test" posts, but one year ago, I started putting this garbage on the web and nobody cares. Can you smell the thrift store? Can you smell the attic or basement or storage box in a closet? We do it all for you ROD. Oh Yeah, we are the CHAMPEENS!