A megapixel digital camera, Wow!
Once upon a time, this was the state of the art in consumer digital photography! This is the Kodak DC260 "Megapixel" digital camera with a 38-115mm equivalent lens. Its resolution is actually 1536x1024 or 1.5 mega pixels. It works on four AA batteries, and it came with an 8MB CF card. It cost about $900 if I remember correctly.
I found a link with detailed specs on the camera, and I was quite surprised to see how advanced it was even then! It looks like Kodak had a very nice start in digital photography, but somewhere along the line, the wheels came off the tracks.
Perhaps Kodak did not throw its entire weight behind the digital wave, or could not fight the collective Japan, Inc. In hindsight, perhaps Kodak should have merged with a company like Olympus, Minolta, Pentax or even Fuji. Fuji managed to survive the digital revolution, and at least, exists as a company. It's too bad that Kodak is gone.
The DC260 was my first digital camera. I bought it in 1998 and took only about 650 shots with it over a few months before the viewfinder went out of alignment with the lens and the camera developed a horrible parallax error. It was out of warranty and I was debating if I should get it repaired, but when Canon came out with the hugely superior PowerShot A50, I just decided to get that.
I was planning to take a look at the VF and see if I could repair it, but never got around to it. I had even forgotten I had it, until I stumbled into it while cleaning up some old storage boxes.
It can still work as an "infinity camera", but of course, by today's standards, it is excruciatingly slow, and its user interface, firmware and controls are quite Neanderthal. Its design probably started 20 years ago, and that is a very long time!
Considering its age, its image quality is not too shabby. I will upload a few sample pictures.
All these images on this page were shot with Nikon D800E + Carl Zeiss Makro Planar T* 2/100. A little more sophisticated gear, for sure!
800_0434
A megapixel digital camera, Wow!
Once upon a time, this was the state of the art in consumer digital photography! This is the Kodak DC260 "Megapixel" digital camera with a 38-115mm equivalent lens. Its resolution is actually 1536x1024 or 1.5 mega pixels. It works on four AA batteries, and it came with an 8MB CF card. It cost about $900 if I remember correctly.
I found a link with detailed specs on the camera, and I was quite surprised to see how advanced it was even then! It looks like Kodak had a very nice start in digital photography, but somewhere along the line, the wheels came off the tracks.
Perhaps Kodak did not throw its entire weight behind the digital wave, or could not fight the collective Japan, Inc. In hindsight, perhaps Kodak should have merged with a company like Olympus, Minolta, Pentax or even Fuji. Fuji managed to survive the digital revolution, and at least, exists as a company. It's too bad that Kodak is gone.
The DC260 was my first digital camera. I bought it in 1998 and took only about 650 shots with it over a few months before the viewfinder went out of alignment with the lens and the camera developed a horrible parallax error. It was out of warranty and I was debating if I should get it repaired, but when Canon came out with the hugely superior PowerShot A50, I just decided to get that.
I was planning to take a look at the VF and see if I could repair it, but never got around to it. I had even forgotten I had it, until I stumbled into it while cleaning up some old storage boxes.
It can still work as an "infinity camera", but of course, by today's standards, it is excruciatingly slow, and its user interface, firmware and controls are quite Neanderthal. Its design probably started 20 years ago, and that is a very long time!
Considering its age, its image quality is not too shabby. I will upload a few sample pictures.
All these images on this page were shot with Nikon D800E + Carl Zeiss Makro Planar T* 2/100. A little more sophisticated gear, for sure!
800_0434