Now that the smartphone is fully ensconced in its villain arc, the most enthusiastic anti-smartphone partisans have taken to unbundling the suite of functions Steve Jobs first consolidated: camera, phone, music player, notebook, paperback, watch, and day planner amongst others, but more importantly with each function getting its own discrete, purposed object in the everyday carry bag.
Vibes and aesthetics belong to them all on their own, but uncoupled they each demand a level of attention and consideration that their grouping suppresses. For their part, vintage digital point-and-shoot cameras from the late 2000s to early 2010s offer users an offline, involved shooting experience and retro aesthetics while retaining a native digital ecology. Unlike film, photos from an old digicam can go from camera to social media with relative ease--but with just enough friction to remain smartphone-resistant.
So, if you've stumbled upon an old digicam at the bottom of a drawer, at a garage sale, or in a thrift shop, here's some thoughts on how you can revive it and join the Digicam Revival.
How to Get a Vintage Point-and-Shoot Camera Working
The first step toward reviving an old digicam is turning it on. Often, the digicams found stowed away in closets, attics, and basements come without batteries, chargers, and their necessary cables. Electronics manufacturer Watson sells affordable batteries compatible with many vintage digicams—the Canon S95 for example (one of my favorite old digicams), which takes the NB-6LH Lithium-Ion Battery Pack. The charger for the battery, the Compact AC/DC Charger for Canon NB-6L or NB-6LH Battery made by Pawa, is also available at B&H.
The second step is storage and transfer. For cameras made after the introduction of SDHC cards, storage is easy enough, as almost all digicams of this era are compatible with SDHC cards with up to 32GB. However, for earlier cameras, you may be dealing with SDSC cards or other memory card formats like the Sony Memory Stick or the xD-Picture Card developed by Olympus and FUJIFILM. There are even cameras that take the older CompactFlash format. For the most accurate information, consult the manufacturer's user manual, many of which can be found easily with a cursory Google search.
While many of the cameras were released with proprietary wires to directly connect a camera to a computer, nowadays the solution is much simpler. Memory card readers are a popular accessory for third-party manufacturerers, some of whom make multi-slot readers accommodating SDHC, Memory Stick, and xD-Picture cards in one device. Many of these readers are small and portable enough to carry and connect directly to your smartphone, making the capture to share pipeline relatively quick and easy.
How to Shoot with a Vintage Point-and-Shoot Camera
Revival is more than getting an old digicam operational. For it to become more than just a trendy accessory, the camera has to be put to use.
There's a historical irony in the fact that the digital point-and-shoot cameras the smartphone obsolesced should re-emerge nearly twenty years later as the definitive vibe-alternative to the smartphone. Its viability stems from the all-day, everyday versatility these cameras were designed to fulfill, making them slot nicely into the smartphone's usecase paradigm: street, everyday, travel, fashion, music, nightlife, parties and events, friends and family, and of course selfies.
Street, Travel, Everyday
The compact form factor of the vintage digital point-and-shoot camera is central to its value in street, travel, and everyday photography applications. Small enough to keep in an everyday carry bag, old digicams are ideal for both one-off shots and a full day of dedicated photography out in the world. Also, the older sensors—especially CCD sensors —will reward all the available light that comes from daytime shooting.
Events, Parties, Nightlife
Explora recently published a longer article tackling this subject, offering specific strategies and settings ideas. In general, compact cameras have a long history of use in nightlife, fashion parties, gallery openings, backstage environments, music events, underground spaces, downtown social scenes, and social documentary work. They’re so effective in these contexts because their unintimidating profile combines access with informality. Compact, point-and-shoot cameras put people at ease for photos when the setting wants intimacy. They get close to the action, showing not just who was there but what it felt like to be there.
What a vintage digital point-and-shoot camera adds is the potential for authentic aesthetic nostalgia, using retro tech to produce retro results, instead of just slapping on a filter.
Friends, Family, Selfies
Returning again to the compact form factor, the retro curiosity and small profile of old digicams invites warmth in your subjects, especially when they are the people closest to you. A vintage digital point-and-shoot camera fosters intimacy in the moments you'll want to remember most, adding an "instant-memory" characteristic to photos with their nostalgic vibe.
It takes both a technical and philosophical approach to this old technology in order to breathe new life into it. The Digicam Revival and reviving old digicams both depend on the backward compatibility of cameras and adapters as it does with the era of digital photography before smartphones channeled all our attention toward a single device. As much as any camera is an object placed between its wielder and the world in front of the lens, reclaiming older technology can even revive your outward orientation and involvement in the world beyond your phone.
Check out our selection of used digital point-and-shoot cameras at the B&H Used Department. To learn more about all things photography, from point and shoots to larger, full sized mirrorless cameras, check out our other guides on the B&H Explora page.
