Comparing Old Cameras - Canon, Panasonic, Sony 18 MP to 3.2 MP

^{Taken with Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7.
Yes, I know, dirty window. What can I say other than that I'm lazy.
And if you think this is horrible, wait for the rest of the photos.
Just so you know, dirty window gives a softer light!}

In my last post I was thinking about buying a new camera or at least new toys to my existing camera. Also I was pondering about the fact that I actually don't seem to know what I want. https://steempeak.com/photography/@insaneworks/choices-choices

To clear things, or to confuse myself more (I have no idea which one happened, perhaps both), I took my old digicameras out. You know, from the ages: "Whaaaaaat?! You don't need film in these?"

I think every photographing enthusiastic should once in a while get back to basics. And I happen to think that this applies to other things too, not just photographing. But when talking about photography, it's not the pixels that take the photo, it's the person behind the camera. So what you should do from time to time is take photos with some shitty camera, get to know it's weaknesses and go around it.

^{Taken with Canon PowerShot A550.}

The first rule of taking photographs is that you have to have light. Enough or at least some. If you are lucky, you may have a camera where you have some sort of exposure compensation or you can adjust the light measurement point. But if you are working with a fully automatic compact camera where you can only control the time when to take the photo, you have to have light.

The second rule is to know when to take the photo. If your camera won't do fast sequence photography at all, you absolutely have to know when to press the shutter release button to get the perfect moment captured.

The third rule is that you have to know how to frame your subject. What to leave out and what to include. If your camera has only few megapixels, there's no copping afterwards.

Three rules. Only three rules.

Lights, camera, action.

Size doesn't matter.

How many megapixels your camera has, doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with the fact if you can take good photos or not.

The amount of megapixels matters if you are a professional photographer and people buy your photographs. The quality of the camera matters when you already handle the basics and you want to be more. You want to shine. You want to be more than good.

And after all this talk, I'm humbly showing you my photos that I took with four different cameras. Although I'm not a professional photographer. As I said in the beginning of this post, I took my old cameras out and you know what, I kinda fell in love with them. :)

First the comparison photos. 18 MP, 7.1 MP, 6 MP and 3.2 MP cameras. I know this is useless because we all know 18 is definitely more than 6. And that 6 is more than 3.2, but I was so impressed by the comparison they've done in DPreview, that I had to make my own. https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-cybershot-dsc-rx1r/9

No, I don't have as cool and useful comparison image that they have, I only have four different subjects taken with four different cameras approximately from the same location and same lighting conditions. And sure you can click and open the photos larger and compare how there's always that one camera outshining the rest three, but as I said, we know already that 18 is more than 3.2, so just look at other stuff from the pictures, alright?

How the camera performs in low light? How do the high contrast lines look like? What about the details? Stuff like that.
^{Actually you can't do that because @steempeak reduces the photos.}

Here they are! (Almost four cameras, the Canon 550D refused to be in the same picture with the compact cameras. What a snob!)

I had everything on automatic on all cameras, so things would be fair to the Sony Cyber-shot. Chose the best quality, used jpg, not raw images from Canon 550D. Chose TIFF in Panasonic Lumix and converted that with Photoshop to jpg. No cropping, color of any other corrections in Photoshop afterwards. Only rotated images from horizontal to vertical when that was necessary.

Comparison photos:

And some extra photos that I just wanted to show you. If you're sick of plant photography, these are the last two. Taken with Panasonic Lumix.

No more plant photos.

Then the fun part!

As I already said, I took the cameras out. And as I wanted to test how versatile the cameras were, I chose to took photos secretly. I hung the camera down on my right hand and just started shooting. Rammstein was playing in the evening so there were lots and lots of people near the Stadium to shoot. (With a camera, you fools, with a camera!)

The autofocus in Canon 550D is horrible. It really didn't know where or when to focus and when it did, it was almost always too late. I could hear it trying to focus on something and when it took the photo, the person I was aiming to, was gone. So no sharp photos from this camera when I wanted to take a photo from the side as I was walking. Also the physical size. It's obvious that it's not compact. And the mechanical shutter is too loud for anything secret. Only when Rammstein was playing, it was quieter than the music itself.

The best.
^{Personal opinion.}

And the rest.
^{Well, obviously not all of it. Minus 99 blurry wtf is this photos.}

Next camera in line.

Canon PowerShot A550 was the second easiest of these four cameras to use as a "spy" cam. Silent. Surprising amount of sharp or almost sharp photos when I wasn't shooting to my side. Downside was that this needed two AA batteries and the batteries became useless pretty quickly. Fortunately my Sony still worked with the "dead" batteries.

The best.
^{Again personal opinion.}

And the rest.
^{Deleted about 10 photos that I also wanted to show you. Finally managed to decide which ones to leave out.}

Next one.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 may become my new favourite old shitty camera to use. But not in spy camera mode. Blurry, blurry, blurry photos. I think when walking, it can't decide where to focus, so it takes too long and then the moment is gone. Also the battery is pretty old so pretty soon it was empty. And I have never bought a second battery for it. But on the other hand it is light and if I wanted to, I could control pretty much everything that I would want to control in it. Except manual focus. A horrible joystick control. But shutter, aperture, ISO, exposure compensation and huge zoom. But as I said, not a good spy cam.

The best.
^{I was having a hard time finding anything that could be the best, but here they are. Now that I've looked at these for a while, they do have a certain charm in them.}

And the rest.
^{Obviously again not everything but something that I just wanted to show you.}

Moving on!

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P32 is from now on my favourite spycam! Small and really easy to use as it has nothing, absolutely no options to choose from. Well, except perhaps flash, white balance as it's auto white balance is really slooooooooow in reacting to new situations and exposure compensation, but that's about it. Downsides: two AA batteries, but fortunately it wasn't as demanding as the Canon Powershot was, so I didn't run out of batteries. Another downside is that it uses Memory Sticks. I have only two and both of them are really quickly full, especially when spy photographing. :D

I had slight issues with framing the photos and when the first, larger Memory Stick was full, I moved on to the next camera and totally forgot to check out these how the photos were and that I had a second Memory Stick too. But fortunately I can go out there rehearse this spying stuff and people photography any time I want again.

The best.
^{Most of the photos were in the sky category, but managed to find one good. :)}

And the rest.
^{Sky, sky, sky, sky, sky... Oh! There's someones limb in the photo. Will do!}

All photos: CC BY-SA 4.0 - Insaneworks

I love how genuine and relaxed looking (most) people are when they don't know that they are being photographed. And I love the fact that I would (almost) never take this kind of photos if I saw what I was photographing. I love the surprises when I come home, download the pictures to my PC and have a look what I've caught. And I love the idea that I now found use for my old, not so shitty (because they have a purpose now) cameras.

Not just old and forgotten but showing me new ways to see the world around me.

---

I have been pondering and pondering if this post (the things I wrote before this pondering) is STEM related enough. Do I dare to use the STEM tag as I most certainly do not want to be one of those who just use every tag available to get the most of all tokens. I do not want to be a shoe-horner. Although I love the words, I don't want to be accused of being one.
https://steempeak.com/stemgeeks/@stemgeeks/are-you-publishing-stem-content-or-just-shoe-horning-to-use-the-stem-tag

So perhaps this helps:
https://steempeak.com/stem/@stemgeeks/what-content-to-publish-on-stemgeeks-using-the-stem-tag

No, no, no, no, no... Don't have that topic... Don't have technology innovations, only old tech. So is old tech a no-no? But gadgets? Is a camera, especially an old camera a gadget? Have I written gradgetty enough (compared my gadgets) or does my post focus too much on photographing? How much does the post have to focus on the gadget being a gadget? Does the gadget have to be really weird and self made prototype (and if I made it, does it have to work?) or do I have to use a screwdriver and look what treasures the gadget has inside it?

I could go and ask at the discord... but as I mainly focus on talking to my cats, cameras, robot vacuum cleaner ("You idiot, don't go there, you already were there!"), the idea of talking to a stranger and asking things in discord makes my stomach turn around and bend in to knots, I prefer just using the tag and doing a mistake or perhaps getting a silent approval... or a "Please do not be a shoe-horner." -comment.

Which also as an idea makes me pretty much freak out and terrified, bite my nails and turn me purple (I don't know what that means), buuuuuuut... I'll take my chances, use the tag and will remove it if asked / ordered.