Over the years, I
have used a number of cameras. With the advent of digital
photography, many of the old film cameras have basically
become obsolete. I started collecting some of the old cameras.
Some of these were used by me for years and others have been
donated to the museum. More will be added as the collection
grows.
Albinar ADG 80-200mm f/3.9 for a Minolta X series camera. This was my first "big" airshow lens. I got it as a gift in about 1985-1986 from my parents. I don't know what they cost initially, but they weren't cheap. Sadly, today they sell for about $25 on e-bay. After years of abuse and traveling all over the world, it sits in a display case now. (Eric Van Gilder collection)
Canon Sureshot 105 Zoom. This was a film point and shoot camera that was quite popular. It was introduced in 1997 and featured a three-point autofocus and film autoloading. These were very successful cameras for Canon and became the predecessors to the Canon PowerShot digital point and shoot line. With a zoom of 38-105mm, it was a pretty good range for the time. (Donated by Molly Harris)
Canon PowerShot S50. Canon introduced the PowerShot line of cameras in 1996. It became on of the best selling digital cameras in the world. This was our first serious purchase into digital photography. The lens glass was great although the range wasn't sufficient for my needs. At 5 Megapixels, the photos were clean and capable of enlargement. I took a photo of a taxiing T-6 years ago that is a 16x20" print now that hangs in my son's room. It survived many a tumble from my shirt pocket while hooking up tow-bars to aircraft and kept working. (Eric Van Gilder collection)
Kodak Tele-Ektra 300. The Tele-Ektra 300 sold from 1980-1981 with a list price of $32.50. With a slide with to adjust between 22mm and 44mm, this was a fun little 110 camera that got some heavy use when I was a teenager. It survived me falling and sliding down a mountain side in Estes Park Colorado while in my back pocket. It was a great snapshot quality camera that was capable of surviving a ton of abuse. (Eric Van Gilder collection)
Sony Mavica FD-71. Mavica was an acronym for MAgnetic VIdeo CAmera. It was an electronic still video camera, essentially. The first Mavica was introduced in August 1981 with a CCD sensor that produced an image with a resolution of 570 x 490 pixels. That's a 279k image, or about 1/4 of a megapixel! This is a MVC-FD-71 that was introduced in in mid-1998 that featured a 10x optical zoom. It wrote the image data to a 3.5" floppy disk. The maximum resolution on this was 1024x768, or about 3/4 of megapixel. Sony eventually produced 18 different models of the Mavica that used 3.5" floppy disks for storage. (Donated by Molly Harris)
Sony Mavica MVC-FD-81. This was my first "digital" camera. Carrying this camera and a box of floppies seems ridiculous today, but it was not so bad then. This model was also introduced in 1998 and we used it for a few years before replacing it with the Canon PowerShot S50. (Eric Van Gilder collection)
Sony Mavica MVC-FD-91. This model was introduced in 1999 and featured a 14x optical zoom. It also wrote the files to a floppy disk. It should also be noted that the Mavicas were also capable of shooting NTSC video. Writing that to a floppy was probably similar to the short amount of video you could get on an old 8mm movie camera. (Donated by Molly Harris)
Minolta X-370 with 50mm lens. This camera was a workhorse. It went all over the world with me in the 1980s. It finally quit on me in the desert at Ocotillo Wells California. A friend fixed it for me and it still works today, but I stopped shooting film many years ago. I still have the original receipt for the purchase of the camera body with a 28mm lens in 1985. I bought it at the AAFES Base Echange at Keesler AFB, Mississippi. It cost me two weeks pay in those days. From beaches, to islands, to deserts and everything in between, this camera has taken photos in places I will likely never see again. I have boxes and albums full of photos taken with this camera. (Eric Van Gilder collection)
Olympus Newpic Zoom 60. Introduced in 1999, the Newpic Zoom 60featured auto-flash and red-eye reduction. With zoom range of 30-60mm, it was a nice little compact point and shoot film camera. I believe this was my last film camera that my wife and I had before going full digital. This one survived many rugged trips through the Sierra mountains in California. (Eric Van Gilder collection)
Polaroid Sun 660 AF. The Sun 660 was part of the 600 series line from polaroid introduced in 1981. The lens in a single element 116mm at f/11 with a minimum focus distance of 3 feet. The large gold screen on the left side of the camera was one of the uniques features. It calculated distance to the subject using sonar to autofocus the lens. The slide switch under the lens allowed the shooter to adjust the exposure with a lighten/darken adjustment. Before the days of digital photography, the Polaroids were the original cameras to give you the instant gratification of seeing what you photographed almost right away. (Donated by Molly Harris)
Snapsights underwater camera. The Snapsights underwater camera was a point and shoot camera with an underwater housing that was shockproof and waterproof up to 75 feet. It had a fixed 28mm lens. It was designed to be inexpensive to save your more expensive camera gear from being damaged during activity that is not normally conducive to photography. (Donated by Molly Harris)
