FIRST Canon PowerShot 600: 25 YEARS later! Retro review
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- Опубликовано: 24 июл 2024
- PowerShot 600 review - Canon's FIRST consumer digital camera from 1996!
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For the standards of 1996 I found the image quality very good. It’s better than a lot of another 1990’s digital cameras.
Thank you! Increasingly (as modern cameras have probably exceeded the real-world needs of most consumer photographers), it’s helpful to have perspective about the progress of this technology
You're welcome! I enjoy telling the history of these cameras!
@@DinoBytes please do a comparison with this and the GFX100S
Gosh, the way you've got your mic placed it must have been REALLY windy! It has been a bit stormy here in the past few days...awesome video as usual :-)
Thanks Chris! It's been somewhat blowy down here of late, I thought my house was going to end up down the road!
I love this series! Mainly because I can remember this tech, and even used some of them. Not the PS 600 though. Great stuff!
Thanks! What models would you like me to review in the future?
Seriously this was my 1st digital camera! Love your new channel Gordon. Long time subscriber since your videos shot in NZ.
Thanks for stopping by! And bonus points for being the first person I've come across who actually had this camera! Hope you get a chance to watch some of my other videos here...
Really impressed you're able to find these and get them working
It's like camera ER over here! I have a bunch on the go at any time, trying different ways to revive them or connect to them. For this one, the battery would only hold enough charge for about 4 photos, so I had to go out every day with it for a week just to grab a handful!
Great video! I love looking back at these early digital cameras.
Thanks! Hope you have a chance to watch a few more of mine! My next one is of the Canon Pro70 from 1998, so keep an eye open for that one!
My dad was a Polaroid guy until he got a HP 315 Photosmart, with 2.1 Megapixels, so that was by extension my first digital camera. He used it (and it's bundled software!) for almost 20 years before it finally gave up the ghost.
It's brilliant that anyone would use an early digital camera for so long! If it works and does the job, no need to upgrade!
Love your channel! What a find!!!
Thankyou! I hope you're enjoying all my videos here so far! And many more to come soon...
My first digital camera was the Casio QV-R40. Great review Gordon, i love to see these retro reviews.
Thanks! I hope to cover some Casio products as they had some brilliant cameras
recently got into vintage digicams, i am so amazed by how beautiful the sky looks in your sample shots! it very much reminds me of film
Yes, they have a certain look about them! Hope you get a chance to watch some more of my videos!
Like i said. You are the man. 25 years of reviews !!
I feel like I've been doing them my whole life!
@@DinoBytes my first digicam was an Olympus d510 2.1 mp
My current cam is a nikon A apsc compact and a fuji xf10. The nikon blows it away
@@frankartale1026 ah the Nikon COOLPIX A! I remember reviewing that one, wasn't it 28mm fixed focal? Maybe a tad wide as my only lens, but still nice.
Hey Gordon - loved the look back at this. Amazing how far we've come in the past 25 years. My first digital camera was. Kodak DC3400, at 2.1MP. got a handful of nice images from that thing before upgrading to a Canon PowershotA75, and then a Digital Rebel just a year later. Now I've lost count of the cameras I've had.
Thanks! I really need some early Kodaks for my collection!
Those times when storage space was a premium, only 1/2 megapixels but still the option to choose the quality.
Wow, the pictures look good for what it is!
Good times! My first digital camera was the Canon IXUS 430 (2004).
Up until then I'd been a MASSIVE fan of the "Canon IXUS II" (advanced film process - 35mm) which I think I'd had since 1998. It was also known as the "Canon Elph 2".
I still have printed and digital photos (and film) from that time but the cameras are long gone.
I also had an IXUS APS film camera, and still have not somewhere, possibly with a film still in it! I quite enjoyed the three different cropped formats for printing, although the biggest crop understandably looked a bit ropey!
@@DinoBytes Yeah cheers mate; and I'm wrong, it's not 35mm at all... Duh.
Excellent video, keep up the great work.
Great video, My first digital camera was the Kodak DC5000 2.1 megapixel. I still have it and it works. Parents still have a Canon Power Shot S200 and it still works!
Nice! I need to get hold of an early Kodak for a future video.
fun reviews to watch! how much progress in just 25 years, maybe Gordon at some point you should consider a video with your predictions of camera technology in 25 years from now....
Crumbs, that would be something!
These retro reviews are costing me money Gordon! I just spent $33 on the camera and a pcmia to compact flash adapter.
Hah! Congratulations on your new purchase! I hope the battery accepts some charge...
Dino Bytes by Gordon Laing Thanks! The seller claims as much, so we’ll see.
how does this channel not have more subscribers
Thankyou! I hope it will in time, but I also realise I'm only posting about once a month...
My first camera was a Casio QV-10 in 1997 (after that one I bought a Canon SLR 300...strange, isn't it?). I loved the Casio, but the image quality was nothing to brag about. At that time, everyone asked what I was using, because almost nobody have ever seen a digital camera back then. Oh, and it still works, although I have no means to transfer the images to the computer - obsolete cables...
Bonus point: It was the first consumer camera to have a LCD. However, the 4 AA batteries lasted for the 96 images that the camera could hold...if you were lucky.
Great video by the way!
Thanks! Casio had some great models... I hope to include some here
@@DinoBytes That would be awesome! In the early days of digital cameras Casio was a big player.
I got caught up looking at ads for this camera on dialup internet and bought one. I used it for a few family events. Those images are still on the compactflash card today.
The camera now sits in the original box with all accessories, including 2 batteries that won't charge at all, but the 10.5V Canon power adapter still works. I put a multimeter on it, and after 26 years, it outputs 10.4V. One frustration I recall in using this camera was that it was always being mistaken for a videocamera. They always wanted to "act" rather than pose for the pic. Come to think of it, the big thing does look similar to the first iteration of the Canon Optura Pi camcorder.
What I didn't realize when I bought the camera is that it was geared towards professional use, such as in photojournalism, but I just had to have it.
Great comment, thanks! Love hearing about how we all worked around these things back then. I don't miss the dialup.
@@DinoBytesNot long after this, I remember paying about $350 at Montgomery Ward to move up to a screaming 56K modem. 28.8 went in the parts box. Like Canon, US Robitics got a lot of my disposable income. Over the years, I bought many more Canon digital cameras and camcorders, scanners, etc. But that Powershot 600 still holds as the dumbest purchase. It was fun to play with though.
@@topgrain I lucked out borrowing two models for this retro-review as the batteries till worked in one of them. I think it would be hard to find any way to replace one of those now.
Just found this channel, so fun
Glad you're enjoying it! Hope you get a chance to explore some of my other videos too!
@@DinoBytes I have been watching your camera reviews for years and have your book! didn't know about this site. I have been in photography since the 40's, lots of changes! thanks for this site, have a few of these cameras myself.
@@Lizerator thanks for buying my book! Let me know if there's any specific cameras you'd like me to retro-review here!
Cameras like the Powershot 600 are the reason I was a late digital adopter (2011 and the Canon 550D/T2i).
This is the better channel no lie.
Than cameralabs?!!! Actually I think I prefer making these ones!
@@DinoBytes Yeah, cameralabs is great, but this is the fun stuff! There's a few retro gear channels, but your particular format has the perfect atmosphere.
@@avisualnovel2490 thanks, that's really good to hear!
Honestly, I wish there'd been some side-by-side comparison shots to a modern camera, but with the images downscaled to the same 832x608 resolution. A lot of the advantages of high resolution will probably be wiped out when downscaled that much, pushed through YT compression, and then blown up to 4k, but it'd be really interesting to see what improvements remain (I'd guess better colors and dynamic range).
Anyhow, my first camera was a "successor" to this, a Powershot SD 1100. 8mp with a 3x zoom, with a tiny direct optical viewfinder if you really wanted it. Small camera, but solidly built with a metal body. Really felt a lot nicer in the hands than a modern Elph.
That's a good idea, maybe I'll try that for a future video...
bruh you dont even have 2k subcribers?? awesome video man!
Thanks! Not many subs yet as it's a new channel, only two months old. But hopefully it will grow - please do subscribe if you like these videos!
Records audio memos like the Sony A9 Ii !! Joking aside I so wish I would have had this camera when I went around the world back in 1996. The cost of developing all that film was definitely more expensive than £799. Thanks Gordon
Yes, I spent a fair amount on film back then, although the results were a bit better!
My first one was the Casio QV-100 you also mentioned in the review. But I was merely a computer enthusiast back then, and bought it as a gadget only. I wasn't really interested in photograpy. That part of my life started when I got my second camera, a Fujifilm Finepix 4800 Zoom. After that the Canon EOS 10D which I still have.
My current cameras are a 40D and Olympus E-P5, both with a fairly complete lens and accessory collection. Not exactly high-tech anymore, but nowadays you really don't need the latest and greatest anymore to produce decent images.
Nice choices on your cameras!
Great old sckool review!
Thanks!
Thanks for such a great review! There isn't much info about this camera online and so I'm struggling to find a way to get the one I was gifted yesterday working. No battery but fortunately it powers on with the mains charger. No memory card either! I see you use a 4mb CF card... pcmcia adapters are commonplace. Will it work with a larger card though? The manual only guarantees their own 4mb card but 4mb CF cards are impossible to find now!
I have lots of old CF cards but it really is a crap-shoot. Some work on some cameras, others work on others, there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to it, so you may have to take a punt and see! I have found my SanDisk 1GB Ultra II card works with lots of cameras -although I didn't get a chance to try it on this one as it wasn't my own camera. One possible scenario is the camera will format the card with a smaller capacity than its actual potential, but that's not too bad. Good luck and let me know how you get on! I'd say you should be ok with bigger than 4mb CF cards if you get a chance to find one at a good price. Don't spend too much.
@@DinoBytes Thanks so much for such a detailed reply! I have a cheap pcmia adapator meandering it's way here to Australia from China. I'll try it out with an existing card and let you know how I got on!
@@patternsinsand I wish you the best!
We had a Canon Powershot S60 in the early 2000's, it became faulty a few years ago. Before that I had access to a Casio digital camera, but I forget the model number it was like the PS600 quite low resolution. I still have some images saved from that as well as an early Kodak DC215 I also had access to.
Nice! I hope to do some Casio and Kodak models
Quite like the look of it..
I waited quite a while before going digital - my first was the Canon 300D (autumn 2003)
I also had one of those!
I had a Canon Power Shot A70 in 2003 and an A70 in 2004, I then went on to an A620 which I used to September 2012 until it got a lens aberation, then I bought a sony HDR-CX115E handycam and so it progressed...
Since 1996 Canon released new Powershot or Ixus models every year, the peak year being 2012 with 20 models. However, on the last two years no new models have been released, the latest being G7 X Mark III and G5 X Mark II in August 2019.
Excellent review, very thorough and interesting. Looking at the Canon Museum page, they mention this camera can use 6 AA batteries, but I'm guessing it requires some type of holder? EDIT, just found it needs Canon BH-10 Battery holder. Also, was this a true Canon camera or was it made by someone else like the Powershot 350 (made by Panasonic)? Thanks again for the amazing content!
Thanks! It's honestly hard to tell who made these early models as so many were done by third parties.
My first digital camera was a Panasonic Lumix FX100. Back in 2007, reviews were going on about the insane resolution of a whopping twelve megapixels in a compact camera...I still have that camera, but...well, we all have some junk in some bottom drawer, right?
Junk?! Precious things!
I had one of these... and still have photos captured by it on my photo website. Was replaced when I bought a Canon 10d.
Have you tried it - or the 10D - recently?
@@DinoBytes The PS600 (and docking gear) got donated to a high school in 2000 for students to get acquainted with digital format. The 10d was replaced with a 30d (still have it). The 30d was shelved for a 5dMk2. The 5dMk2 was traded in to underwrite the cost of the R5 which is now in service.
@@edruttledge342 sounds like a similar ladder to me - it's a pain when you don't have the really old stuff anymore and you're trying to make videos like these! Hope you're enjoying the R5 - have you seen my R5 and RF videos on my main channel?
@@DinoBytes Yes - I saw the R5 review you did on the still photography. I have been trying to get the RF 14-35 lens, but it remains unavailable - a lot of marketing, but no one has product to sell. Be well.
@@edruttledge342 thanks, I just received my 14-35 test sample for review!
I have one too. I bought it for 20 euro at a thrift store it came with everything and still holds a charge. my first digital camera is a Powershot SX100 IS
You're lucky it still holds charge...
@@DinoBytes I looked at the specs on an old review site and it says its battery is composed of 6 rechargeble AA alkeline batteries. Theoretically I could build a new one if needed. I purposly store my 600 without the battery, just incase it discharges and drains when not in use
@@KajiRider1997 I guess you could try and DIY one if you matched the spec... let me know if it works!
@@DinoBytes I found an australian site that sells them for 65 aud so like 42 euro. I'll buy one in july
Great review Gordon. I’m loving this series of early digicams. My first was a Fujifilm DX-5 bought from Staples in Croydon complete with a 2m smartmedia card. I still have the smartmedia card but not the camera. I can’t view the memory card as my multi reader will not accept the early 2m cards. The camera was totally automatic, no screen and transfer was via serial port. If memory serves me right you got 20 shots. The camera wasn’t compatible with 8m upwards smartmedia. It was a bit rubbish really and was just a novelty.
Ah good old smart media cards! I think I still have one somewhere, but again I'm not sure how easily I'll be able to read it now. Wish I'd kept all my old card readers...
@@DinoBytes There was a voltage difference between the 2M cards and the larger capacity cards. Voltages of 3.3v and 5v spring to mind. My card reader will only read the larger capacity cards (8-128m). The cards were oblong with one corner cut at an angle. The 2m card had the cut on the opposite side to the others hence that's why later cameras and card readers could not use the 2m card. I still have a couple of Olympus cameras that use smartmedia and they still work!
canon A95 in 2004 was my first (slide film was before that). wish i switched to digital before that
If you'd switched to digital before that you'd have gone from high res film to a handful of Megapixels, so you'd have a period of low res memories! To be fair, that's what all early digital owners went through, but I look back at my photos from the 90s which looked great to a few years at the tuen of the 2000s when they looked ropey before then improving again!
Those pics still look decent
I have this camera so is there a replacement for the battery
I don't think so sadly, it looked pretty unique to me, but fortunately the one I got hold of would take some charge.
My journey starts at 2003 with canon PowerShot a200
Ah a step back, don't those early cameras all have 'that look' about them.... like a video freeze frame. My first camera was the Kodak DC25 from around 1997 with an LCD screen that required the expensive CR123 batteries that lasted for about 12 pictures.
I remember that model!
Nice! :)
You could literally fool someone with a picture of a flower taken on this thing today and say it was captured on 1997 or something.
Yes, they do have a dated quality to them!
I love retro vibes. Like LGR's reviews of Mavicas. We've witnessed a unique transition from analog to digital world. Exciting times. From mid 90s to early 10s.
My first digital camera (well, not *mine* technically.. my family’s)..
I don’t even remember the name or the manufacturer.. but I don’t think it was one of the ones you’d think about today.
Form factor was small-ish. It had no LCD screen.. but it still ran through AA batteries (no rechargeable battery pack.. unless you got the lacklustre rechargeable AA’s available at the time) like nobody’s business. You’d run through a pair of AA’s faster than you’d run through a roll of film on a conventional camera.
So.. I just *had* to do some digging.
Found some old photos I took with it (some are decent.. others are just.. horrible).
Resolution was 1280x960 .jpgs. No exif data recorded in the files.. at least none that can be read by default by Windows 10.
Found a clue in that I found a photo that had an (out of focus) image of the box the camera came in.
It's an Agfa ePhoto camera. I'm not sure of the specific model.
It certainly looked like the CL18.. but the specs on Amazon don't match up (0.3 megapixel?)
The models that have matching specs don't match what the camera looked like, in my recollection, at least.
@@AS-oz6ep nice investigative work! Yep, Agfa had a few cameras back in the day.
beatiful design, easily could make a remake with it today, just make it smaller
Interesting retro review! I guess this standard battery adapter might be handy for such a device. I´m not sure if they even make rechargeables of that type anymore. Although it´s interesting that you can even find very old accu types on ebay.
My first digicam was a Praktica Genius 1.0 - a rather humble device. I still have it somewhere, but unfortunately not working anymore. The On/Off-switch is made rather cheap and that is the reason for that. Pics were ok - but nothing to rave about.
My first 35mm SLR was a Practica. I'll try to find that digital model, I'm not sure I've tested it before.
@@DinoBytes Interesting that you got a GDR made SLR! I´m not even sure if the Genius was sold outside Germany. According to digicammuseum it was from a taiwanese company that just used traditional brand names. Maybe you had a similar model just with a different name sometimes.
@@UdoKrawallo do you mean Praktica? They were a reasonably popular brand over here in the 70s. in fact I even saw the model I used to have - the MTL3 - second hand in a shop today with a lens for 45 pounds! I was quite tempted!
@@DinoBytes Yes, Praktica. They were indeed based in the GDR back then. So it´s interesting to see they also sold in the UK.
Tempted, but not bought it I guess? 😁
@@UdoKrawallo not yet! I remember it had the loudest shutter mechanism I'd ever heard. I took a photo once and it actually made a bunch of birds take off in fright! But I should have one in my collection!
My journey started with the Sony a65000 lol
Better image quality then my canon 90d. Waaaa
It's probably bigger than your 90D too!
Before I got into actually taking pictures more than just ridiculously casually, I picked up an HP Photosmart 215. The images looked terrible, the auto focus and shutter lag were so bad it could be multiple seconds before the image was actually recorded and overall it wasn't great. Barely tolerable. But it got me wanting something better and I actually reverted back to film and used an OLD Pentax SLR. Eventually I'd go back to digital with a PowerShot A60 but film would be my real baby for the next several years.
Yeah, the lag on this one was so bad I had almost put the camera away sometimes before it took the shot!
@@DinoBytes Was that the PhotoSmart 215 or the PowerShot 600?
@@SteelRiderCarl the lag I'm talking about was on the PowerShot 600, although most were pretty slow to respond at the time!
I love these!
This period is such a blind spot for me. I know the film cameras from this era pretty well, but I've never encountered most of these early digitals. One day we'll have to do one together!
Thanks Jordan, I really appreciate your comment and hope you didn't mind me stealing Chris's opener! This was a golden period for me, as I reviewed them all the first time around and loved the variety and innovation - some really crazy stuff!
@@scrat.deluxe Here's a fun one if you missed it:
ruclips.net/video/ZQU6r6p7WZw/видео.html
No screen and a regular viewfinder... seems some recent Leicas took a hint from this classic digi design choice :)
Exactly! Pop a red dot on it, charge 10 times as much and you have a plan!
Small update on the NB-6n. The Aussie site I went to lied about it's stock. The Italian one I tried after it lost it in a warehouse and refunded me. O a d every site and their giddy aunt lied about the nb-5h fitting in the 600. Full false advertisement. Also could you do a vid on the powershot S10?
That's frustrating to hear about the batteries - although I'm not entirely surprised given its age. I think many sites just list a product that they haven't had for year or even ever had, simply to get a search hit. As for the S10, maybe... I do have the first digital IXUS which I think was called the S100 in some regions.
@@DinoBytes the s100 is basically the same specs but a bigger heavier camera if I recall
The first digital camera I ever used (in 1996?) was an Apple (yes, Apple!) QuickTake!
Then, in 1997, while living in Japan, I bought my first (and not last!) digital camera, a Fuji DS-20...
Very bad image quality compared to today's standard, but back then it was revolutionary, even in Japan.
I remember that QuickTake 100!
I keep imagining that you and Philip Bloom run into each other on Brighton Beach.
Amazingly we never have. I live here though, he's just a regular tourist!
@@DinoBytes at what point should he just ditch Richmond and buy a shack on the beach? 😂😂😂😂
@@xmlthegreat you could afford more than a beach hut if you owned property in Richmond!
I got surprised by the image quality. It is worse than what I was expecting xD
It was a while back! Check out some of my reviews about models from around 2000 and you'll see the quality improve a lot.
This camera smokes my A7III!
It's certainly bigger if that means anything!
It seems like it's enough for 4x6" photos.
Not quite - for photo quality you need 300 pixels per inch, so 1200x1800 pixels, or approx 2.2 Megapixels. But not long after this, it was enough!
Nikon Coolpix 2500
I will be retro-reviewing some old COOLPIX's soon!
Sir please upload mobile photography 🥰🥰
From what models?
@@DinoBytes I have watched your lots of mobile photography vedios please include your own channel 🥰 thanks lot
@@shafeeksaifshafeeksaif683 do you mean the how-to mobile series of short tutorials?
@@DinoBytes of course sir please please include your new channel ❤️ ❤️
🤣got a 25 year battery 😉😜
It was good for about four shots per charge at this stage!
Ah the nineties! When life was simpler and cameras were made in Japan. I hate the 21st century . . . 😒
It's not all bad... you've got this channel for starters!
@@DinoBytes Okay Gordon, life is not black and white. But seriously, don't you miss the nineties? It was my favorite decade by a mile, and I wasn't even all that young at the time 😎
@@patrickfitzgerald2861 there was a lot I liked about the Nineties, and it felt exciting to be around all the technology evolution taking place - physically too, whereas today much of the tech evolution we experience is service based, rather than hardware. But my favourite decade? I honestly can't call it. I wasted far too much of the 90s in the pub.
@@DinoBytes Fair enough, but ponder a moment just how much time is being wasted on social media in this century, a technology that did not exist back then. Will humans ever again stop staring at their machines all the time?
Aged as badly as the 90's
It's not the best looking camera, no. Contrast it with the Sony DSC F1...