Recycling cameras

[bugo]

I'm sure there are some forum members who have digital cameras they have replaced with newer ones and they never get used.  I'm also sure there are forum members who don't have a digital camera and would love to have one.  It would be very cool to set up an exchange where camera owners could donate their extra cameras to forum members who don't own a camera.  This would not only make the cameraless forum members very happy, it would also ensure that more road pictures would be taken, and we all know the more road photos there are, the better.  I don't have an extra camera or I'd be the first to offer to donate one.  What do you think of this idea?

[Takumi]

I have an extra, but it needs a new battery and/or charger.

[Alex]

When I get a new one, I usually give the old one away, even if it is just for parts. I like your idea Jeremy.

[bugo]

If anybody needs a camera or has an extra camera they want to give away, post in this thread.  I have a Vivitar from around 1998 that didn't take very good pictures, but I have no idea where it is.  The battery door was broken on it anyway, and I had to use rubber bands to keep it closed.  It only held 16 high quality pictures or 32 low quality pictures.  Digital cameras have come a LONG way since the late '90s.  My current camera which is a value priced budget Canon has an 8 GB SD card and will hold thousands of pictures, and it will take 30 minutes of video.  My Vivitar wouldn't take video at all.  And my Canon takes very good pictures. 

I have read that the standalone digital camera is a dinosaur.  The quality of cameras on cell phones has gone up, and will continue to improve.  It will be a sad day when the last non-phone camera is made.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

It will be a sad day when the last non-phone camera is made.

Until they start adding strobe light flashes to camera phones, there will be a place for digital cameras.

[hbelkins]

My old Sony Mavica is gathering dust somewhere over at my old residence. I highly doubt anyone would want a 1 MP camera that saved pictures on floppies.

I bought a power inverter and two high-capacity batteries for that camera so I could keep one charging in the car while on trips. The power inverter ruined AM radio reception. I also had a bunch of floppies and it was not uncommon for me to fill 20 up in one day. Copying the pics from floppy to laptop was an agonizingly slow process.

I have two Minolta Dimage 7i cameras -- the one I bought in 2003 and a spare I bought a couple of years ago -- that save pics on a CF card and won't accept anything over 2 GB. I think that's a 5 MP camera and it's what I used to take pictures from the time I got it until last summer, when I replaced it with the Kodak I'm using now. I think the Minolta takes better pictures in a lot of ways.

I have a couple of point-and-shoot digitals, a Samsung and a Canon, that I keep on hand in case I need to shoot a quick picture.

Cellphone cameras will never be as good as real cameras because most of them use digital zoom instead of optical zoom. The lack of flash, as Sandor noted, is also an issue. But I still think it's odd that my iPhone has a better camera than the first digital camera I owned, that Sony Mavica.

I might be willing to part with one of the Minoltas if it would go to a good home. It uses AA batteries and also has a DC power supply (lighter adapters available at Radio Shack) so keeping it powered would be an easy task (good thing, too, because battery life sucks).

[Alps]

I have a 4-year old Canon that was superseded by the current one. Battery door is missing 1 of 3 hinges but it still closes. Zoom is very balky - you may as well assume you don't have zoom, but it might very occasionally work. I was going to keep it as a spare but I don't seem to be using it. 8 MP.

[Darkchylde]

I've actually been looking for a camera for video, if someone has one spare that they're looking to get rid of.

[agentsteel53]

I have read that the standalone digital camera is a dinosaur.  The quality of cameras on cell phones has gone up, and will continue to improve.  It will be a sad day when the last non-phone camera is made.

the compact one might very well be, but the optical quality of SLRs is still significantly better than that of camera phones and compacts.

[Mdcastle]

You're not going to see pro photographers running around with iPhones anytime soon. The $100 slip in you're pocket type may well be obsolete (although having no inclination to buy a smartphone I still can see their use), but I have a 20X optical zoom on my Canon SX20, and DSLRs have fantastic light gathering ability and optical quality due to their huge lenses.

[djsinco]

I have two Minolta Dimage 7i cameras -- the one I bought in 2003 and a spare I bought a couple of years ago -- that save pics on a CF card and won't accept anything over 2 GB. I think that's a 5 MP camera and it's what I used to take pictures from the time I got it until last summer, when I replaced it with the Kodak I'm using now. I think the Minolta takes better pictures in a lot of ways.

I also previously owned a Dimage 7i, bought it about 2003 (or so) for about $1,000.00. It did take good pictures, but I got tired of lugging around such a large camera on trips. I am on my 3rd Panasonic Lumix, and they are a great balance between size and quality. That being said, my current phone (Samsung Galaxy Nexus) takes pretty good pictures, and my last few vacations, I used it in lieu of my Panasonic.

I guess convenience is a bigger factor to me as I get older.