How does a 15 year old digital camera compare to a modern DSLR?

Fuji finepix S3400

Photography has come a long way since I was a kid in the 80’s. The big new thing back then was Disc film and cameras that slipped into your pocket. The pictures were poor and the film became expensive to buy and hard to process once full. 35mm film was king it was cheap to buy and couldn’t be dropped off and processed within an hour. Moving into the mid nineties and digital cameras were becoming more available. Of course like all new technology the initial offerings were expensive and of questionable quality but things developed fast.

Buy the early 2000’s it was possible to buy a reasonable digital camera with its own printer for £150 and get some pretty good photos of your holiday or family event. So to see how far digital photography has come in a short time I bought a small compact camera and I took it for my walk yesterday and took a few snaps and composed my thoughts. 

The camera of choice was the Fujifilm Finepix S3400 they are really cheap on eBay or in your local second hand store. My fist impressions are reasonable, it feels nice to hold and is very light and the lens has a good zoom 28x that will be interesting to try. It runs on 2 AA batteries so no niche battery and charger to worry about. 

I shoot a Canon DSLR normally and turn it off between pictures on the Canon there’s a big thumb switch and the camera is instantly ready to shoot once it’s flipped. With the Finepix there’s a bit of a wait before the camera is ready to take a picture. My first picture of choice was of some wild flowers but they were caught in a breeze, I tried to capture them but the shutter speeds on the Finepix weren’t up to it so I abandoned that idea. I went into the park and found a foxglove and started up the camera. It took a while to find its focus and then it seemed like an age before the preview picture came up on the screen. The Fuji is 14 megapixels but I think it’s lost a lot of the details of the flower and it’s a little bit to soft a photograph for me. 

I wanted to try it on a large scene something that wasn’t moving and I could use the cameras slow shutter speed. This is one of the paths through Blackpark and I have to be fair the old Finepix has done a good job here it’s captured the detail and it’s a true representation. 

So what’s the end result ? My verdict is that it depends on the type of photography you have in mind. If you want to take macro pictures of flowers then these old compacts are not the answer and in fairness your phone could do a better job. But if it’s for holiday photos and landscape pictures something broad then it’s a good cheap option. If your looking to get your children into photography or they want a camera then it’s a good choice the battery’s are simple just get a cheap pack of rechargeable AA’s a small memory card and they’re away. If they drop the camera or it gets damaged then you haven’t lost a fortune. 

Let me know your thoughts, there a comment section down below.

Have fun stay safe 👍🏼