journal features

am I just a grump or are these digital cameras junk

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Vancouver, 2001.11.02

I had a look at one of the new Minolta DiMage 7 cameras in the London Drugs today. I worry about photography if this is what amateur photographers will be reduced to. It was a gimmicky piece of plastic with a wonky view-finder (the view is essentially a small closed-circuit display of what the camera's CCD 'sees', and it doesn't have a good refresh rate) and worrisome battery consumption (someone had left this one 'on', and it was dead; of course, that might have been weeks ago, but my guess is not). Also, the manual focus ring had all the feel and responsiveness of a video camera's focus.

I worry not because Minolta - my favorite brand - is putting out iffy stuff, but because that model was one of the top end in the store (at $CAD 2k), and easily one of the sturdiest-looking models. I also worry in case I'm becoming a grump.

rand()m quote

Immature poets imitate mature poets steal bad poets deface what they take and good poets make it into something better or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique utterly different than that from which it is torn the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time or alien in language or diverse in interest.

—T.S. Eliot