I am a registered psychologist, a doctoral candidate who has not graduated, a huge technology lover, a man constantly fighting off the fat, and a father.
Used market score! The Sony DSC-V3 from 2004. I love the flip flash and the big bulk of its imposing frame. Its all metal bulld is also really solid. I got it for a song. Most people don’t like carrying around these old clunkers anymore.
And then what is this? A Kijiji find- the Sony DSC-V3 and the DSC-S85 are in the same lineage despite being different naming schemes- fat cameras with lots of features. High end in their times of 2002-2004, they don’t hold a candle in modern compact camera times but I love them both.
So look at this – the original MSRP (old Sony catalogue!) for another old camera I managed to pick up from a box of unused electronics- Its one of the old Sony S series that used a Carl Zeiss lens when that was cool to have on a camera (before Sony branded all of their cameras with it and not just their flagships).
I love that the 2.5 inch was mind blowing back in the day- 1.8 inch LCDs were the norm. At least this looks like a modern prosumer camera. It operates not like a modern one though.
The Sony S85 offers a F2.1 lens which is super bright for its time and common for flagships (for some reason they stopped fast lenses for a period of years until late 2000s). The DSC-V3 offered 7 MP which was huge for its time and it had laser AF and the ability to shoot in absolute darkness. A review will follow for sure.
Its so so so slick looking! I love these old clunkers.
The DSC-V3 from 2004 compared to my A6000 from 2014- the latter has a far larger sensor and its smaller. Its crazy how much technology progresses. Looking forward to finding some other neat clunkers on the used market. EDIT: so it turns out it may be too good to be true- maybe its just an old sensor or its just old period- its almost 11 years old afterall. The camera has random images with horizontal scan lines that are reminiscent of the issues that plagued early Sony sensors and killed a few cameras outright like the Nikon 5700. So far I’ve seen it come up in a few pictures and its annoying. However, I still think its a good buy. I guess I am so used to modern sensor images that this kind of surprised me. Anything above ISO 100 shows noise. Its crazy. I might have to do some post processing on this camera, although I am not a fan of adding that to my workflow.
I found a Walkman dock that doesn’t fit anything except my budget E series walkman haha. It was kind of neat finding this- clearly nobody wanted this in mainstream brick and mortar Best Buy so it was dusty and tucked in a corner- glad I randomly walked by it. At one point I’d like to see a Walkman X or ZX1 in this if they fit. My Walkman Z did not fit.