I agree with all of the advice you have given. One issue with older digicams is:- how clean are they - literally. If a camera has grime or mould on the rubber grips, think twice. If the seller lives somewhere with high humidity, think again. Mould tends to migrate to inside a lens, between a sensor and an UV/IR cut filter, and will accelerate the eventual decay of the onboard electronics.

Great advice. I have been through a lot of old CCD cameras over the past year looking for the one that gave me the look i was happy with, i have ended up with a tiny fixed lens compact Canon IXUS 100 IS. It is by far the cheapest I bought and has a really nice image that i'm super happy with. Really enjoy your videos.

Hint, if you love compact cameras . The canon s90,95 sd950is fujifilm f10,11,20,30 and especially f40,47fd are some of the best and are pretty cheap and take excel snaps indoors😊

I have an old digicam, a Fujifilm FinePix AX655. I picked it up to leave in my daily carry bag because it is so small. It does great for stills, with nice SOOC JPEGs. I tried the video feature once and the result was hilarious. I mean, if I wanted to make a home movie that reminded me of the early 1990's, that was the vibe of the quality. LOL.

Great video Snaps! One of the things I look when buying vintage digital is look for the proprietary cable to hook it up to a computer via usb. I tend to only buy NIB or ONS online. When thrifting I bring some AA batteries ( if the camera takes them) to test out operations. The other thing is never spend more than $50.00 on any digicam. For higher quality cameras yes. If i can find a working digicam under $10.00 it is not a great loss of income! Always great content!

Great tips!! And also be aware that it may be sold as "working" but then arrive with a burnt sensor or something... Another tip: Older cameras that shoot raw... sometimes Lightroom will act strange with the RAWs, it'll read and export, but on the exported JPG the image will be flipped or something like that... still... super fun! lol.

You have a lot of great information here. Even cameras with SD cards can be a problem. I had to go online to buy a small capacity SD card for a Nikon L4. I had cards from 8GB to 256GB but the L4 maxes out at 1GB. So while the small cards are readily available online, you aren't going to find them at your local drugstore or Best Buy.

Great tips, especially the practical battery and media storage points! I spotted that DS-300 on the shelf too!

Very thorough. Was pleasantly surprised that you thought to include "video capability": yes. :)

I guess i started collecting Pentax compatible lenses (K and M42 screw) when they were still available. I picked up quite a few "T" mount mirror lenses that you can adapt to just about anything (i dont mind the out of focus donuts). I also found a few nice old Tamron Adaptall telephotos, though the K mount adapters are usually hard to find.

With older Canon Powershot cameras, they can develop lens errors if dirt gets inside the lens gear train. I've had variable luck fixing these. Models such as the SD700IS and below aren't terribly complicated, and can be cleaned and put back together. I came across an SD850IS in a thrift store a few years ago for $5. It had no battery, but I bought on a gamble. After getting a battery, I found that it powered up and had no errors, however the lens had some serious focusing problems. I started taking this camera apart, and found the insides considerably more complex than some of the earlier cameras I was able to service. In order to get to the mechanical part of the lens, you're going to have to desolder some of the circuitry. It's a service nightmare, and still in pieces. I've also serviced a Powershot S2 that had a lens error. When I took it apart, I found that the gear that controls the focus was completely shredded. It remained in pieces.

05:17 oh my delight when I stumble across a random cute dirt cheap camera I'd have bought for the token amount regardless and then discover it's also CHDK compatible.

I love your channel. I have been making my own videos of some cheap but good CCD digital cameras from the 2000's

Thank you for the video. I own 5 Canon DSLR bodies. One purchased new, rest are used. All are pro and semi-pro bodies of single digit models. My impression is; such bodies need careful inspection for cosmetic condition and shutter count. If it looks good and shutter is around 50k, it's a safe bet in most of the cases. However, I'm not so confident about two, three and four digit bodies. Canon didn't make them very carefully. My bodies are 7D, 5D, 5DII, 5DIII & 1DIV. No plans for mirrorless system. EVF lag and poor battery life are huge issues to stay away from that system. Moreover, my gears do deliver whatever I want, sometimes with more efforts which I love.

5:36 I bought a parts Spotmatic for teardown practice. Before I could get around to completely disassembling it, I decided to check out its functionality after the cobwebs had been cleaned out. It seemed OK, the shutter speeds sounded good to the ear and it actuated the stopdown on Takumar lenses properly. The meter was completely trashed, of course, but it was a parts camera after all and for that to work was probably expecting a bit much. I put a couple of rolls of film through it on Sunny 16 and with a hand meter, and they turned out OK. These days it wears my 50mm/3.5 Industar, and it would be a film camera that I could afford to lose if it were dropped or stolen. On the other hand, the 35mm Super Tak that came with it was perfectly serviceable and basically for free. On old digitals, remember that even if the media is compatible, the size of it may not be - e.g. older digitals might not be able to write to a 128GB card, and finding one small enough that it will actually write to may be problematic.

Avoid cameras with the lens shutter doors not completely closed. This 99.99% of the time means the lens assembly is buggered.

Also, to avoid buying all cameras, find your individual challenge. E.g. compacts with viewfinder or stabilisation. Or best compact ccd and why is it the lx5 😉 I have toddlers so I decided to look for the best shockproof camera, sadly these keep their price well 😑

Completely agree with these tips.. they effect long term users as well. Batteries don't last forever, neither do nylon aperture gears hidden in lens (Nikon..), and OLEDs can change, fade or fail with time. Due to shrinkage in market you might not find someone now who can adjust your AF sensor before microadjust was a thing etc. Highly integrated components are very hard to repair yourself. Storage, yes I have a 2GB SD card limit on one camera that cannot use a larger 4GB card.. so had to buy a few extras. Oddest is dealing with hot pixels on a camera with no mapping functionality and of course no new firmware updates to fix this. Most annoying thumb wheels that dont..

Even if you can get the card for a camera, make sure you know about the processing speed. I had an Olympus that used some kind of X card, and you could about go have lunch and come back before it finished processing a shot.

Nice video. I agree with most of what you said lol, especially about parts cameras. I've only gotten like 2 cameras that were listed as "for parts" and didn't either end up with ewaste or a repair more expensive than the camera itself.

Enjoy your observations.Picked up a Nikon D2X with charger and original + new battery in excellent condition but still a brick!. Thanks

Pentax has some fantastic telephoto options. I suppose if you want 3rd-party glass, then sure. But the 150-450mm is a great lens, and the used Sigma and Tamron options are excellent.

I have bought a couple older still usable point and shoot variety but getting matching cards getting tougher and I presume eventually cost prohibitive as the exact matching sizes are 800 to 1000 each card. The most unique, a Canon requiring a large card, quit went blank screen after i got it home. Used to see a few Sony eos for decent price but wasn't interested then.

Great vid 👍 Do you have a link for a SMC reader, if you did find one? or can you just use USB to access memory card via camera.

Good video! Have you ever found a replacement for the Nikon EN-EL7 anywhere? I have few originals left and only have the AA-batterygrip for my 8800, but not for the 8400 - this seems to be very (very?) rare...

100 percent on the battery issue ran into that with the canon 1ds mk II and that weird battery and charger system. Charger started dying and batteries were losing their charge due to age. No first or third party options available for either ended up having to sell it off.

Not really that "old" but... After loads of researching I had come to the conclusion that my next workhorse to replace my old Panasonic G7 is its big brother - GH5. As it does tick every boxes I can think of. It also seems to be at the sweetest spot for 2nd hand camera market - best performance/price ratio, while still contemporary enough. However it took me months peeking through local classified ads/FB marketplace until I've found the right one. Some superficial issues (swollen rubber covers) but otherwise fully functional, plus some extra accessories, at a very reasonable price. Have been using it for about a month now and couldn't be any happier - my best spending of this year!😄

I totally got caught in this loop last month when I found a super clean Olympus E3 at a pawn shop for $145 with only 12k shutter actuations. I've never owned a flagship anything so I jumped on it, lol. I didn't have much trouble finding a 32 GB SanDisk CF but once i started to look into 4/3 lenses...the roadblock came up. At least it came with the Zuiko 12-60 F2.8-4 kit lens so that will suffice...for now. Great video and great tips.

Smart card media is basically the Apple QuickTake cameras, which I think those are very cool so Smart card media we need a reader for that

I was wondering what your experience was with using SD/SDHC-based adapters for various "obsolete" storage card formats. I have used SD-to-CF adapters in non-photo applications and have one that I'm using successfully in a Nikon Coolpix E5000. Looking around Aliexpress, I also see various adapters that allow micro-SD and SDHC cards to be used in devices which take Memory Stick and MemoryStick Duo cards. (Apparently, the target market is PSP users.)

Hmm. I have the Pentax 600mm f5.6 A, 150-450, and Sigma 400mm f5.6 APO. I sold a couple of Sigma zoom k mounts over that time. The lenses are out there. Not as many as Canon, Nikon or Sony, but they are there. And there are always super cheap 500mm f4.5 Takumars or slightly more expensive Pentax k mounts. So I'm not on the same page as you on that one.

I bought a Pentax K10D with two batteries and it has beautiful colors i only have a kit lens 18-55 but thinking 🤔 about buying a couple of Pentax lens (😅no big telephoto lenses)

BTW, at least with Sony stuff, there is an adapter you can buy for memory stick pro duo that takes a microSD card. I have one myself since i can’t natively read the ms pro duo cards.

FINALLY got my hands on a Canon Powershot S95! Let hope it lives up to the hype!

What cameras use the flashdisk?

He is not wrong about the hard to find stuff. I found a coolpx B500 for $5 and the only thing wrong was a broken battery door. Thought that shouldnt be hard to find......... Still looking for that battery door.

I would also like to add a note here: Generally avoid any cameras that have had recalls or major flaws that affect the functionality of the camera. A couple notable examples is the defective CCD sensors in many point & shoots and camcorders manufacturered between 2002-2005, including a Sony DSC-T1 which I was determined to find a working example - and I was, and able to use the parts to restore my T1 for a decent price. The other thing is image stabilization. There are many Sony T-series cameras with defective IS including other sony models, which boils down to flex cable going to the AF motor breaking from wear, and you will have to do some micro-soldering to replace that flex lead.

What’s wrong with the Pentax K mount for super tele? May be a dumb question but I have a few lenses for my K1000 and KM but was going to look for one for wildlife

I am looking for some good used Nikon P7800 here in Germany. For a camera in good shape you have to spend around 250-300 Euros (about 320 US Dollar). That is really crazy. The prices for used compacts like Nikon P7000/7100/7800 oder Canon G12/16 are very very high; particularly her in Germany. So i really don´t understand, how you get your uses gear so cheap....??? Thx for the nice Videos... Greeting Marcus from Germany

I've been on a vintage cameraphone kick (odd enough by itself) and am trying to complete the 2013-2014 trifecta of the Sony QX, Samsung Zoom and Nokia Pureview/Lumia. That brief period when cameraphones went slightly nuts. The QX100 cost too much, (about $100), but the quality from the 1" is such that I've been using it for work. QX10s are cheaper but not as good and QX1s are much better but ridiculously priced, so I think I hit the sweet spot. I have a good Samsung S4 Zoom that cost nothing, but am holding out for a cheap K-Zoom. There are one or two nearby, but I'm waiting for a good condition one to pop up again. There are a lot of Galaxy Cameras on the market, but I specifically want a SIM device, just because. The Nokia is the hardest part. There are a million super cheap AT&T locked 1020s on the market (got one), but 808s are rare as hen's teeth online. There's one nearby that has been sitting unsold for months, because nobody wants to pay over a hundred dollars for a cameraohone that was already lousy as a phone when it was released (Symbian) let alone now that Symbian is deader than Windows phone. But there will come a time when somebody pulls the trigger on it. Just don't know if I'm stupid enough to be that somebody. As it is, I enjoy carrying these around in a little bag, along with my monochrome Huawei P20, and taking the odd, perfectly imperfect, snap from time to time.

Memory card question, I have a memory stick pro duo adapters that takes micro SD cards for PSP, but do these work on digital cameras as well?

Hey snappy man James! Another James here, with a question: will ISO 100 on my Pentax K10D give me appropriate readings to expose Ektachrome 100 precisely? I want to hold off buying anything atm, but certainly a high quality external meter is out of budget. That's my only digital camera that actually has ISO 100. Might be best off picking a film camera to meter with, eh? I imagine DSLRs ISO would be fairly close to the ISO of a given emulsion, especially something as precise as e100, though maybe I'm mistaken. You've mentioned this Pentax in your videos, so I thought I'd ask. Thanks James

Did you know smart media cards can be used I floppy drives. There are adapters for it and I think it's neat

In addition to your comment about SmartMedia cards being difficult to find, they are also astronomically expensive. It's a shame because there are a lot of great Olympus digitals from the early 2000s that use SM cards. If you are buying a camera that uses them, be SURE that one is included in your purchase since a card could be much more expensive than the camera itself.

Many cameras with smart media cards have a USB cable to connect them to a PC, effectively making the camera your Smart Media card reader.

Ebay also has a lot of these old items

Avoid Casio cameras that use the NP-60 battery and that don’t come with a charger. Those chargers are unobtainium.

True: WASABI = best replacement !

Everybody ": acctualy using the videos advice Me : using it for a skibidi toilet oc

I feel so embarrassed of my younger days from this video 🙈

I FUCKING LOVE SONY DIGICAMS

Great video! Let me add one more point… I accidentally bought an old digicam that has NO REMOVABLE MEDIA. I have various card readers and all the major card types except memory stick, and it wasn’t a Sony cam, so I didn’t think about it. And of course the proprietary cable is impossible to find. F in chat 🫠