5/29/22. The beautiful 4/02 Fujifilm S602 3mp x6 zoom was a mere $28 @ ebay, and may even work! — so far, it lights-up good. Now all I gotta do is insert some stupid media. ... Which didn't work. ... But not to worry, this is such a chic wonderful camera it takes two kinds of media, stupid & compact flash! One of 'em's bound to work, surely. ... & the 10/01 PC Magazine claims it was a $1,000 in the glorious past! Discounted for slavish puffery, still probably ~$800?

& all is well now — it's taken its first glorious pic, which is out-of-focus, presumably 'cause I didn't pop-up the flash. The failing stupidMedia thing was doubtless because I tried to cram a giant 64Mb stupidMedia into the little feller; a decent-sized 16mB did the trick....

5/31/22. My next contestant, the 7/04 Fujifilm E500 4mp x3 zoom, was only $27, a buck less than the previous entry. And it lights-up also — but requires more expensive stupider film, of the dubious xD flavor. But it came with an exciting original box, including a DVD loaded no-doubt with exciting antique software!

... And it works like a champ! Ship it! ... So the 6/05 Popular Photography has "call" for the price, meaning of course mucho svelte — how mucho I have no idea, but probably at least a few $hundred. ... & I installed the DVD in the box, which otherwise contained a cute miniature tripod, manual, and various probably-extraneous junk whoever lavished affection on this camera in yesteryear could think of, including a dubious soft case — but I suppose they could've been included by the kindly dealer. ... The software constantly complains about how "This applicaton requires Windows XP" but it hasn't so far, although I assume flaming catastrophe is not too far ahead. ... But it's all so sweet and antique....

6/2/22. Next, for a pricey $40, I got this 12/11? Fujifilm S3300 14mp 26x zoom, and I'm sure it will be exciting when it arrives from ebay one of these days. ... Unlike its apparent successor, it does not appear to have the sx20 wheel of doom, so that's good.

6/5/22. It arrives and works perfectly! ... Well none of these latter-day Fujfilm's seem to focus well without the flash, despite their image stabilization/autofocus. ... But then oddly it got better when I switched the pix from my accidentally-selected 8mp to the giant 14 — don't know why, probably just bizarre morning calmness .

6/11/22. Continuing in our Fujifilm silly roundup is this  2/10? Fujifilm S1800 12mp 18x zoom, what was another 40 bucks @ ebay — and today it's going for $189.98 from the cheapest of amazon's "these sellers" — used! ... So I made out like a bandit!

... I guess this obsessive acquisition of Fujifilms doesn't get me anything ... but then, none of the silly cameras gets me anything! ... Except a strange secret joy that I am surrounded by despised but precious junk....

.

6/13/22. Probably the last of our June Fujifilm roundup is a 12/12? Fujifilm S2940 14mp 18x zoom, a mere $42.79 (used of course) at the ebay magic camera emporium and $91.80 used at amazon! So once again, astonishing bargain time among the silly cameras....

And finally, I accidentally bought a second GE X5 for $26.74 @ ebay, which has the adorable property of looking very much like a mini-S2940, the sweet innocent thing.

8/6/22. And then, at the glorious Factory antique warehouse, I bought another 2/99 (!) Olympus “Camedia” 2mp C-2000 Z for $10.50, and which is fully as dubious as the first, and marks at least a solemn cycle point in the grand silly camera obsession, since my first C2000 was my original silly camera!

And I must report the Factory guy, while still with a booth of derelict cameras, had only this one of interest, to me anyway. Perhaps in another season he will find more. ... But the camera came with a brand x camera case, what'll go into the laboratory's useless camera case storage....

But anyway, this silly camera works! Its operation is a little obscure, but of course I got the pdf manual (by googling for it, so many innocent years ago), and it takes lovely pictures. ... Although it did fail at first, with a super-giant 64mb Stupid Media card, but then it was happy with the 8mb flavor....

8/27/22. A $50 ebay special got me the 11/07 Fujifilm 8mp S8000, a thing of beauty and sacred obsolescence. But it takes nice pictures, using the fabulous XD film.

It is a relic of the halcyon pre-iphone days, all dewey-eyed  w/simple innocence — I don't know how much more of that I can stand, but still, with the second C2000 and the ethernet deat rattle, I suppose I must cherish the tolerable antiquities I got left, no matter how tawdry. And these silly cameras are tawdry; it is their essential charm....

Not that there's anything the least bit admirable about our contemporary ridiculously expensive D$LRs and mirrorle$$ cameras — they reek of tawd without compensating cuteness or cheapness, and I will not worship them no matter what the masters of the universe say....

9/13/22. And now for a ~$30 @ ebay xD-film bargain: a 2004? Fujifilm 6mp S3100, marking an early instance of dpreview-scorn — but I suspect it's entirely controlled by the manufacturer, whether Fujifilm sent a "review" free camera to the site, in this case skipping the s3100 in favor of the S3500, although I don't know whether it's 'cause the latter is cheaper or costlier — oh, obviously the S3500 is the cheaper thingey with its measly 4mp; perhaps they just didn't want to waste the more expensive camera on a give-away review copy....

However the kindly ebay vendor included free xD film, which is really quite nice for the wandering fans who don't keep a secret stash of this scammy film brand around, particularly @ the camera's $28.37 price. ... Also included at no extra charge is an exciting collection of previous-owner pictures, which always warms my voyeuristic heart — well, as much as pointless sports pix and other random shots can. ... If nothing else, it proves someone used the camera for a few years, from 1/04 to 7/08 it looks like....

9/14/22. Factory antiques yielded up a pitiful  8/03 4mp PowerShot Canon A80 what I've already got one of, and the poignancy is all but overpowering — is all the titillating junk of my golden years fading away?! ... Will I be reduced to collecting ceramic owls?!?! ... Even my ridiculous keyboards are wandering into the mists, along with the ridiculous music, as everyone spends their lives staring at their phones. ... But ebay's still got A80s in abundance so I suppose that's what happened — everything's on ebay, technology's final resting place, until I disturb their internment....

And my second A80 is a little sad: pink pix, no playback, NiMH AAs stick in the compartment (had to use a dental pick to get 'em out — but I believe other early silly canons share this fault) — but no matter. ... Who wants to live forever anyways?!?!

9/29/22. So I went back to ebay for a beautiful 8/03 3mp Fujifilm S3000 for a mere $20 — $33 @ amazon! And it takes better pix than the sad little second A80. ... And it came with free XD film! Which, as a special treat, included somebody's sixteenth birthday party captured with some other 12mp camera somewhere in time — well actually 9/27/14 according to the image dates. ... These leftover photos are a special creepy treat of the pre-owned silly cameras — I idly muse on what pitiful life catastrophe and/or minor diversion made the images wander so fecklessly. I mean, presumably the camera wound-up resold/abandoned and presumably not working anymore because the reseller reused the XD film....

Sat 12/3/22 9:33 am. My next ebay camera is a beautiful ~$50 modèrne 9/11? 14mp 24x zoom Fujifilm S3280 — $328.98 @ amazon "refurbished" (i.e. used, just like ebay) @ 11/29/22! ... And it's a very nice camera with EVF, decent SD film, AA batteries. ... Perhaps the thrill has snuck away, but the latter-day silly cameras are still charming/pitiful — presumably sold to the surging multitudes who haven't figured-out how to use their phones and remember "taking pictures" fondly — as do I....

I've actually resuscitated both my actual DSLR 450D and my chemical film SL250 because of comparable pathological/nostalgic longings and of course, as with the phones, taking pix with those charming modern (?) antiques is harder than using more recent silly cameras such as the s3280, with which I have littered my domcile which, of course, are in their turn, usually harder than the phones. ... So, sue me. ... I live in the past....

But of course, the phones still don't work in bright sunlight, 'cause you can't see the LCD screen — so for outdoor pix, which is all anybody ever used to do with their cameras 'cause the ISO/flash was so crummy, you gotta have a viewfinder. ... But the autofocus and brightness on my s3280 images seems less than ideal — and what I probably really mean by that is the images aren't as good as the phones'....

Sun 12/18/22 9:39 am  So after tremendous disappointment with a scam fujifilm A400 from "cheapest-deals-here" (!) ebay vendor — it was cheap ... and broken — my faith was restored with a pricey $65 but working 2/10 12mp 18x zoom Fujifilm S2500HD — $110 @ amazon! — takes good pix! — better, in my random snap estimate, than my year-later 3280, for all that silly camera's luxurious 14mp. ... But, see, the s2500's smaller than the luxurious 14mp 3280 — that is, the latter's bigger so it'd attract the poor sniveling geezer camera fan children....

But the grand yearning for more silly cameras feels weak, feeble. ... Perhaps I haven't figured-out how to petition the ebay oracle good? ... Since the junk stores have given-up?

Sat 12/24/22 10:19 am. As the official global warming state religion rises to 52.3° (!!!) on Christmas Eve morning in paradise, my silly camera strategery takes a hard crazy turn, and I deliberately buy a broken old camera, the 2/5 4mp 3x zoom Nikon Coolpix 4600 — and indeed it showed-up, as promised, with a blotchy — but perfectly usable — LCD. ... Only $49.95 at amazon, presumably without blotches, but just $21.39 @ ebay, glorious blotchery no extra charge!

However, the poor little Nikon has no way to turn-off the LCD, to provide super battery-life of more than 10 minutes, even 'though its optical viewfinder works good. And it takes beautiful pictures, as so many of my pitiful silly cameras do, despite their frightening antiquity. ... And comes with a few industrial/test pix of the usual charming randomness.

... And the antique broken camera strategery was fun — ad astra, kids! ... And the adorable little machine takes movies! ... or so says the mode dial. ... And indeed, it did take a pitiful miniature movie in some unknown resolution, what I will treasure for weeks. ... And I've refined my ebay wanderings fabulously!

Sun 1/8/23 10:27 am. My refined ebay delvings yielded a charming $35 2010 12mp 18x zoom Fujifilm S2550HD. Many latter-day fujifilms come with a weak auto-focus, what really requires flash indoors, which of course they got, but still ... uncute. 

The SD card supplied by the kindly camera vendor had a vast poignant record of somebody's high school daze, from 2015 or so. It also includes, in a separate directory, a large selection of headstone pix, including some Confederate soldiers, maybe taken with a different camera — but also 2015 vintage.

... But that summary is shamefully terse, and further pointless delvings revealed the camera was probably a Georgia North Gwinnet High School gadget, a region not unknown to my beloved in her real estate floggings, and many of the sprightly pix appear to be some kind of "let's read kids!" promotion, of young adult books I'm afraid. ... The Canon EOS T3i that shares the SD card was probably approximately high school property, along with the s2550....

Thu 2/16/23 10:27 am. For a mere $33 at ebay, I got a precious antique  8/04 3mp 2x zoom Canon A400. Like the beautiful Amazon screen scrape shows, I could've paid lots more! ... Such ridiculous prices may reflect some kind of internet delusional frenzy where the kids are supposedly going for my precious early digital cameras, but I haven't detected such a phenom in my innocent delvings....

But I see I haven't celebrated the most exciting/amazing characteristic of this purchase: it's an early Canon silly camera I didn't already own! ... Revealed accidentally in the fog of ebay! ... How can this be, I wondered? I have a couple a4... series Canons, the earliest the 2/06 A430, but somehow I never got this one. ... It gives me hope there are more such hidden treasures lurking around, ignored & uncelebrated. ... Although actually now that I meditate, it was never my intention to be a mewling completist — I never intended to buy every one! ... And I almost certainly never will ... but still....

3/20/23. A momentous turning-point in my silly camera world: for $40 @ ebay I got this fairly-broken 7/04 4mp 3x zoom Canon A85 — and the Sacred Dpreview, after decades of scammy excruciatingly enthusiastic reviews, is departing this world of light, leaving, apparently, no trace behind. ... But the A85's $70 @ amazon today! But of course that one might work — although actually amazon's record in the silly camera department is hardly unblemished.

... So anyway, all the dpreview links on these beautiful silly camera web pages will break @ 4/10/23 dpreview promises. And the camera really pretty-much sux — kinda works, but just barely. ... So appropriate. ... And so, kids, that's the bang-less whimper, I guess.

... But if I just press the shutter release hard-enough, it'll take a picture! A sort-of extreme halfway-down shutter feature. ... And not so bad pix, really, the poor little thing....

Sun 4/9/23 10:16 am. For our first post-dpreview camera, I thoughtfully selected a $55 2012? 14mp 30x! zoom Fujifilm S4080 which, apparently, is the same as my existing Fujilfilm s4000 — so the world is bitter & stale — but no! Wait! ... Apparently I confused it with the Nikon S4000, which is nothing like! So it's a brand-new-to-me never-been-kissed fujifilm camera, many of which are not so bad! $130 @ amazon today but a bargain $53.49 @ ebay! ... Oh the joy, the rapture! ... Well maybe I should stop with the exclamation points, might run out....

Anyway, going-on without dpreview wasn't so bad. ... I've seen worse. ... It's actually kind of liberating; I go to amazon, which often sells these things at outrageous prices, and check the reviews for a plausible date, or to find-out if it needs some dumb charger thing, for which info I used to rely on dpreview what they hid assiduously but I could still find. 

... And just as soon as the USPS brings me my treasure, I will revel in its beauty & no-doubt perfect functionality. ... & dpreview now says their carefully curated content will remain "as an archive" after the Grand Shutdown....

4/13/21. And the camera is beautiful and takes beautiful pix. ... Life is complete. Joy is ever-present. ... And really, the camera's not bad; pretty good detail in its 14mp pix....

Sat 5/6/23 11:23 am, Another opening, another show — today a delightful $30!  8/06 7mp 10x zoom Olympus SP-510uz, a sweet innocent thing which takes nice pix on its scammy "XD" film, and I've linked to dpreview 'cause they say they're still thinking about things over there....

Oddly, I have the manual for an Olympus SP-500UZ but no camera, but that was just 6mp, so to heck with it. Probably I got it, and then discovered it didn't work — but the exalted 510 works great! ... And now careful research discovered a 2019 dispute with ebay about non-delivery of 500, a tragic by-way of the exciting & pointless silly camera fad. But now at last that tragic episode is recovered, sort-of, with a very nice happy working better 510uz. ... Somebody's review says it was $329.95, presumably back in the day — Google has discontinued its charming magazine searches, so I can't report the date/price from some ridiculous photo magazine antique ad, not that that was ever very reliable....

Sun 5/28/23 9:27 am. And now a tale of excruciating tension and joyous conclusion! ... My ebay $55 treasure, an 8/12 14mp 26x zoom! Pentax X5 initially appeared, in my innocent oblivion, to be a scam! — when it wasn't delivered after I got the ebay "delivered" email! ... The (blameless) seller "grbeg26" only had 289 reviews — often a taint of scammery, where a few positive reviews are racked-up before scorching the landscape ... although really 242 is a little too many. ... But I was this close to disputing the charge, and had it all tickled-up in my daily todo — when the heavens opened, a holy light shown upon my life, and the silly thing was delivered!

And amazon had it for $157.80 used! & it takes very nice pictures, with an EVF, a useful tilt up-&-down LCD, and so much more! ... Oh the beauty of silly cameras! ... Oh the serene blessings! ... It's really better than some of my favorite Canons, although I probably won't use it enough to be sure ... but I might! I could! ... And magically, one of my on-hand lens caps actually fit!

EV -1.3 

But sadly, setting the EV "exposure compensation"  to -1.3 in the "P" program mode — my preference for taking beautiful chiaroscuro pix in sunlight/shadow — didn't "stick", i.e. through power on/off. ... Until I checked "EV" in "Saving the Settings (Memory)" on pdf page 118 of my manual. While amusing myself in this harmless pasttime I discovered no links worked — clicking on something to goto the thing — the page numbers seemed wrong, and the search found nothing. ... So, nobody's perfect. ... And actually, the links from the contents page seemed to work, and even searches in the contents page ... so everything's totally copacetic. ... And the failing search was probably just ol' adobe reader boasting of incompetence. ... But the links, except @ the contents, still don't work....

Obiter Dictum

An odd feature of this ebay adventure is it's the first Pentax I ever got! ... How did I do that?!? What strange wind preserved such a restriction?

And then time passed and I noticed that my beautiful X5 was a bargain @ $55. Cheapest ebay is now $90! ... And it just evidenced a freezing-up tendency — the NiMHs got tired, and it forgot its brains. Probably the Canons'd do better, but I've never thoroughly checked of course so who knows? ... But anyway it's not so bad; batteries must be recharged/replaced sometime, like all the sad inevitable things in this vale of tears....

Sun 8/20/23 9:04 am. Adventuring amongst the American junk, I got this 2007? 1.2mp Anonymous "Digital Concepts" kind-of working trash — $19.99 @ an amazon "these sellers" but I probably paid less at the fabulous Factory Antiques. But it actually took pictures! ... Only two, to be sure, before it exhausted my already-used lithium AAAs, but then it refused to countenance fully-charged NiMHs, presumably because the latter got slightly lower voltages and the camera is old & stupid.

8/26/23. Another Factory Antiques special, an unusually obscure 2/00 1.9mp 2x zoom HP 618 innocent camera from the shades of yesterday. I had to match it up from googled pictures — the model number was worn off the bottom! And it claims 2mp but the XN photo thingey said 1.9. ... But they are lovely pix. ... Using the antediluvian CF film natch, but that is what the Owenlabs silly camera collection thrives on....

9/08/23. And let us now have an intermission for a harmless $40 ebay special, a beautiful 2/07 7mp 4.8x zoom Fujifilm S700 super xD film treasure, only $128 at amazon, used! ... My ebay wonder is of course also used — and it came with a typical treasure-trove of somebody's ghastly hopes/dreams, which it looks like they kept taking until the film ran out of room @ 23 pix, whereupon the camera disappeared into the mists of who-knows-what abandonment. Of course, the racket was designed so that if they even had any idea where to purchase more film, it'd probably cost more than the original camera....

I, of course, after saving hopes/dreams, formatted the xD card so I could make my pitiful contribution to entropy for my glorious test shots that so amuse me in the gathering darkness & storm. ... The little machine may have offed two of my pix although it was probably me pressing the wrong button and I replaced them from my giant hard drive with ease. And it only takes indoor pix with the flash, an average failing. ... But perfectly fine pix, except when I accidentally prevented the auto-flash from popping-up with an errant finger....

Sun 4/7/24 4:24 pm. And after an idle season, I return to the silly camera barn with another 1/11 14mp 18x zoom Fujifilm S2950 wondrous beautiful camera, and I bought this second one because of my super-ingenious & rigorous record-keeping. ... And of course, because of its transcendent beauty, as with so many other obsolete treasured silly cameras.

It was $44 @ ebay, a bit more than the prevous unit, with the biden boom running neck-and-neck with deteriorating silly camera prices, what still can't beat the non-inflation of our fabled republic. ... But I am content and more, and there's always room for another silly camera....

Wed 6/19/24 9:44 pm. Just another silly camera ... but so sweet! And it's $220 @ amazon today ... but a mere $50 at ebay (dealer california545): a beautiful 2013 14mp 3x zoom Fujifilm S4400. Dpreview scorns it, amazon hid it, but I found it anyway. And my copy — as opposed to amazon's boring black — is a lovely chic metallic blue, which image I had trouble finding on the innernet so I will try to capture it with my trembling anti-aesthetic fingers and another zoomer, probably my beloved canon s5.....

Really, my golden days with the silly cameras more-or-less dribbled-away when I'd bought all the canons I wanted — which was 10 or twenty or more, and quite the exciting adventure — but after that it was all trivial fun & games with even less sense that my original pitiful dslr investigations. ... The S4400 isn't that great a camera but, like all the silly cameras, it is cute. And like many, takes lovely pictures. And what more can we ask in this vale of tears?

Fri 12/20/24 11:27 am. Broken 2004 5mp Canon A95 I got for $65 from ebay vendor "c200fish" who seemed to have good ratings so I guess I missed the "totally gershtunk" in the description, but there it is, and that's what I got. I did get the manual and figure-out how to turn off the flash, and it takes pix, but obviously digitally-broken ugly no fun pix.

So is it the last silly camera? ... Probably not....