Why Collect Cameras?

Written by Dave Barth 19 January 2009 and updated on 14 January 2012.

For people drawn to collecting, cameras can be an interesting, affordable, and often useful collectable. Cameras have been used by nearly everyone to capture memorable images. Many old cameras can still take good photographs. Some collectors enjoy pulling a camera from their collection to shoot some pictures.

Not only is it fun to use a camera that may be outdated and not manufactured any more, but it is good for the camera to have its works exercised once in a while.

Cameras are relatively small and a small collection requires little storage space compared to larger collectibles such as furniture or autos. Used cameras are available in a variety of price ranges. Collecting cameras is like collecting anything else: it is fun to own an item that is out-of-date, out-of-style, and getting more rare by the day.

The digital revolution has turned the camera world upside down. When film cameras were king, their prices remained fairly strong as they aged. Older film cameras were just as capable as newer film cameras, albeit without a few new features, perhaps. It was the lenses that made the difference.

However, when digital arrived, everything changed. Film camera prices sagged because the advantages of digital were immense. For example some benefits of digital over film are:

• Immediate gratification. A picture can be viewed immediately and retaken, if desired. There is no wait time for the film to be processed.
• No film to purchase. Once a photoghrapher has invested in the camera and storage media, he does not have ongoing expenses.
• Photographs can be immediately electronically transmitted from a camera to a computer using cell phone technology.
• Many cameras have the capability of in-camera modification of the digital photograph.
• Digital photographs can be modified in a computer using specialized software such as PhotoShop. This has eliminated the need to use filters on a lens. The effects of any filter can be applied by software in the camera or in a computer, causing most manufacturers, including Nikon, to cease filter producion.
• Digital image capacity is incredible compared to a 36 exposure roll of film. Using a high-capacity memory card, a camera might be able to take several thousand photos before the card has to be swapped.
• Changing memory cards is much easier and more quickly accomplished than changing film.

While film cameras simply moved the media (film) through the camera, digital cameras capture the image on fixed media (the sensor) and electronically move it to a buffer and then to the memory card. Because the sensor is built into the camera, manufacturers are continually upgrading its capabilities in areas of higher resolution, greater sensitivity to low light conditions, and faster processing speeds. The "great divide" between point-and-shoot (PS) digital cameras and the professional models is the processing speed. Low light sensitivity and resolution are, basically, on par with the pro cameras, but processing speed is severly lacking as of the time of this writing. Sports photography requires the camera to take a picture fast and be ready to take the next image very soon thereafter, say, a tenth of a second later. At this time, when the shutter button is pressed on most PS cameras, they go "cliiiiiiiiiiiick," and are ready to take the next photograph two or three seconds later. During this time, the image in the viewfinder (if the camera has one) or the display on the back are blank. There is no way to follow the subject. This means that sports photography almost always requires a pro camera. Take football, basketball, horse racing, auto racing, and track as examples. When you press the shutter button, the camera image goes blank, and the shooter cannot follow the subject using the camera. When the image returns after several secods, the subject is usually far outside the frame. The technology to correct this problem is easy, but manufacturers don't want to hurt their pro camera lines by making PS cameras too capable. So, in general, PS cameras are relegated to still-picture taking.

While film camera prices slide lower, and older run-of-the-mill cameras are tossed out as worthless, used digital cameras face the same downward value slide. The reason is that, as mentioned above, the guts of a digital camera can be continuously improved by the manufacturer including incresing the sensor resolution and sensitivity and buffer speeds. This makes collecting cameras different from the way it was when film cameras were king. In those days, you could dust off a 25 year old camera and shoot with approximately the same results as with a new film camera. In the digital era, an older digital camera may be much less capabile compared to a new one. For example, a newer camera might be able to take photographs much more quicky, in lower light conditions, and achieve higher resolution.

Still, camera collecting will continue. Even today, there are some older digital cameras that are of interest to collectors.

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