Amazing Technological Changes in Past 18 Years

[Lin Evans]

Back in late 1995, I purchased my first dSLR, a Kodak DCS 460 built on a Nikon frame with a six megapixel CCD sensor, a soldered-in battery, removable AA filter, weighed a ton and cost me a bit over $30,000 USD without a lens. It was actually a "good" investment, because it paid for itself in less than a year and I sold it for nearly what I paid for it a year later.

By 2000, I bought the first "Canon" dSLR introduced, for about $3600, which was the EOS D30. This was a 3.3 megapixel CMOS sensor, a "tiny" LCD and some very advanced (for the time) features. One of the features I think "should" still be available was an access port on the bottom where one could simply put a coin in the slot, turn the "button" about 10 degrees and gain access to the auxiliary battery which kept the memory alive for menu choices and kept the date and time of day active. Interestingly, today I charged up a battery from my Canon 40D and placed it in my D30, switched it on for the first time in 12 years and the time and date and all menu choices were there and up to date. Amazing to me that this old battery was still providing sufficient power to keep these settings. I inserted a one gigabyte CF type ! card (the camera accepts CF Type I or Type II cards), pressed the button to release the internal flash and took the image below, an oil painting by a close friend.:

Today, one can purchase a Nikon 24 megapixel dSLR "with" a nice zoom lens for $550.00 USD. The new cameras have relatively "huge" LCD's, can take beautiful still images or high definition video, shoot and focus in near darkness and cost less than 1/55th of what it cost for much less capability 18 years ago.... The times they are a changing.....

Best regards,

Lin

[potwnc]

Indeed they are, Lin. I was quite impressed last Monday by the new Apple Mac Pro. I'm sure anyone who does the kind of things we do will want one (needing one is a different matter...) A high-end professionally configured one with all the external peripherals will probably cost about $25,000 when they become available later this year. I read one review that compared it to the Cray I supercomputer from 1976. Back then it cost almost $9 Million and was 47,000 times slower than the new Mac Pro!

[Lin Evans]

Hi Tom,

Indeed it was a lot of money for a digital camera. At the time it was all by itself - a true 6 megapixel pro-body jewel - the closest thing to it was about one megapixel and the DCS model Kodak which was built in cooperation with both Nikon and Canon so that either could purchase the respective body model camera and use their existing 35mm lenses, was an incredible innovation for its time. It had an optional removable AA filter (which I bought), came with its own very good software and took amazingly good low ISO images. It was the first "truly" professional level digital camera. Fortunately, the prices began to drop WAY down when Sony introduced their first "so called" professional model in 1997- the DKC - ID1 (about $1800) which I also bought. It was "less" than a megapixel but did take very good images and great macros. Then in 1998 Sony introduced a dynamite 1.5 megapixel model called the DSC D700 followed almost immediately by an improved model, the DSC D770 - I bought both. They were about $1700 originally. Then they made a model with a "had picked sensor" which was otherwise identical and sold for a bit over $2600 originally. I couldn't see the difference so I waited until the prices dropped to buy one. I still have the D770 and the DKC I D1 - LOL. These old 1.5 megapixel Sony's actually took great images - see below:

http://s194715615.on...y/s/sony110.jpg

It's been an interesting ride....

Best regards,

Lin

[steven62]

Hello All,

From Popular Mechanics, March 1949:

"Where ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons."

Although this does not qualify for the subject of changes from the past 18 years I thought you all would get a kick out of it.

Steven