A Piece of History in Action

[Tronhard]

I was researching for a course I was writing on the history of camera technology and realized that apparently the Canon EOS D30 (now almost exactly 19 years old) was the first Canon Digital SLR camera built as a complete unit - as opposed to digital innards inside a film camera body. As I understand it earlier Canon DSLRs had used Kodak tech inside their EOS SLR bodies.

Intrigued, I realized that I could get one of these units on eBay. For the princely sum of $30 I got a body that was essentially unused: it seems that as it was unboxed someone had made a cut across the back of the camera, scoring the body and LCD screen. It did not impact the functionality of the unit, but it seems to have stopped the camera from being sold and the shutter count was 0 when I got it. This was backed up by the total lack of wear on the body. For another $17Aus. I got the battery grip - also like new.

One interesting characteristic of the unit is that while it has an APSC sensor, it can only take EF lenses (EF-S lenses had not been developed then). I got the Canon EF 28-135 IS USM lens, which was Canon's first USM unit and would have been a contemporary item. For a complete write-up and review of the body and lens see the following:

2001 Original DPReview of EOS D30
DPReview Retrospective Review of EOS D30
28-135 EF IS USM Review


In a world dominated by pixel counts I wanted to see how this unit (offering a pioneering CMOS sensor of 3.2MP) would perform and I took it on a trip to the Auckland Museum of Transport and Technology. Knowing it would be used in confined spaces I married the body up with the Canon EF 17-40L lens, which with the crop sensor would give me an equivalent FoV of 27-64mm.


All shots were taken hand-held, in available light. They were taken as RAW and lightly processed in PhotoShop.




Inside the main fly wheel of a pump house 17mm, f5.6, 1/8sec, ISO-400


The fly wheel from the other side: 17mm, f5.6, 1/8sec, ISO-400


In true proof of my status as a living fossil, this is a mechanical calculator that I used in my early engineering and survey career. It was eventually superseded by the electronic calculator photographed through Plexiglas.

17mm, f4.5, 1/4sec, ISO 400


Inside a Victorian single-room school. 17mm, f9.5, 1/8sec, ISO-400 (focus was on the closest inkwell)


A Victorian Soldier's cottage exterior: 17mm, f5.6, 1/2000 sec, ISO-400


Inside the cramped living room, taken through Plexiglas 17mm, f5.6, 1/8sec, ISO-400



The parlour of a potter's house, 17mm, f5.6, 1/20sec, ISO-400, photographed through Plexiglas


Overall I think the camera performed amazingly well for such an early unit. I was very impressed by the low noise and for use in publishing to the web 3.25MP seems absolutely fine!


Comments welcome.

[Shadowman]

Nice series and project.

[Tronhard]

Thanks John. It was a nice addition to my research!

[Rita]

What a nice fun addition to your research.

[joebranko]

Very interesting hustory; also interesting was the Aukland museum pumphouse, which seems an exact replica of the pumphouse in the Hamilton Museum of Steam Technology! These pumohouses are built on site, i.e not purchased as a completed assembly, so the they must have used the same engneering/engineer. I will look for my pics of the Hamilton installation and include it later.

[Manfred M]

Nothing really surprising in what you have discovered Trev.

I've managed to sneak in old images to presentations taken with my 3 MP Canon Powershot S30 and no one has noticed.

As long as we are dealing with good light and the need for small file size one can definitely get away with the old technology.

Where these cameras did suffer was in their dynamic range, they got noisy really fast when the gain was cranked up, blown out skies were fairly common as well as some artifacts related to CCD sensors when shooting into light sources, etc. We didn't even consider making a large print from them, etc.

In other words, the developments we are seeing in today's cameras are very much related to incremental improvements that allow us to take pictures in more challenging conditions.

[rpcrowe]

Years ago, about the time when I was shooting with the Canon 30D and 40D (in tandem), I purchased a used Canon D60 (second in the line of dedicated DSLR cameras from Canon) and had it converted to full-time infrared. The imagery from that camera was quite decent.

I didn't get all that much use out of the camera. Not because of the image quality. The problem that I had was that the extra weight of the full size DSLR camera with a lens that could be used (only EF lenses were possible on this EFS camera so I couldn't use my favorite 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens) made carrying the camera a bit of a chore - since I was usually carrying two other DSLR cameras to shoot in tandem...

I sold that camera just recently...

[pschlute]

Great story and images.

The calculator is similar to one I remember from school. Electronic calculators had only just appeared as mass market items and would feature in electrical store windows as items of wonder. The prices were astronomical too.

[Tronhard]

It is interesting that at a time when the latest Canon body has been released: the EOS 90D with a 33MP Sensor (just over 10 times the capacity of the D30), this old-timer (I mean the camera not me) can still take good images. I have been watching the review sites and observing the lustful reactions of those who say that they "must have" the higher resolution etc. as if it was holding them back from taking an acceptable image. Ironic if many of them never print but just post them on the web.

I must admit I get some pleasure from trying my luck with some of this old gear - I am not going all the way back to film, so this is about a close as I am prepared to get!


This on was taken as a JPG file with the venerable Canon EF 70-300 f4-5.6 IS USM MkI zoom as I waited for my other half to finish paddle boarding.


This one was taken in a hotel suite with the 28-135mm lens from the period - focal point was the jar.

[xpatUSA]

All good shots, Trev.

To this day, my only DSLR has a whopping 4.7 MP pixel count, so you are not alone ...

[Manfred M]

Ironic if many of them never print but just post them on the web.

This is a comment I make to a lot of photographers (and am always astounded that they haven't caught on). They could potentially save themselves a lot of money, but I suspect they still believe the marketing trash that the camera companies churn out about how their latest and best will let anyone take better pictures.

[Tronhard]

This is a comment I make to a lot of photographers (and am always astounded that they haven't caught on). They could potentially save themselves a lot of money, but I suspect they still believe the marketing trash that the camera companies churn out about how their latest and best will let anyone take better pictures.

WHAT!!!!!!!!!!! You mean that simply owning the newest camera won't mean I take INCREDIBLE photos!!!!!!!!! I am desolated....
There goes my Instagram career...

[Jim A]

Wow, Trev, those two first pics of the flywheel are just so crisp - I don't think that my current Nikon would do as well. We have taken our grandkids to Motat on their most recent visit to Auckland. It is just so good, am sure they will want to go again on some later visit.

[Tronhard]

Wow, Trev, those two first pics of the flywheel are just so crisp - I don't think that my current Nikon would do as well. We have taken our grandkids to Motat on their most recent visit to Auckland. It is just so good, am sure they will want to go again on some later visit.

Thanks Jim!

Obviously the lens had a role to play, but the 17-40L has not been regarded as one of Canon's crispest performers.
The D30 got Kudos for having great low light performance - worth reading the reviews I linked to. You will know how dark that room actually IS.
In fact this image is closer to how it felt.



This has been put down to having few photosites in a relatively large sensor, thus reducing the inherent noise of the configuration. I was just glad it worked as well as it did - I actually got the camera as a static display item and then realized its operational potential! I have been using it a fair bit over the last few days and enjoying the experience. I guess both it and I are a bit "retro".


MOTAT is good but the parking around there is madness as they do road works where one might normally park down the street to the side of the place. Best place to park is across the main road or down to the west, towards the zoo.

[Tronhard]

Great story and images.

The calculator is similar to one I remember from school. Electronic calculators had only just appeared as mass market items and would feature in electrical store windows as items of wonder. The prices were astronomical too.

When the first electronic calculators came out here they were about $400NZ - they could + - * / do inverse, square and square root - and that was it really. I waited a while and got one of the early scientific ones that did trig functions, by then that level of functionality was about $500.

Ironically when our next generation of survey cadets came to us, they were used to doing it all on their calculators. If the batteries on their calculators died they wanted to pack up and go back, to which the response was "no way, that's too much wasted time". They were a bit crestfallen when we tossed them a book of 7-figure Trig and logarithmic tables and told them to keep working!

[William W]

Reading your Post #12 . . . and

. . . All shots were taken hand-held, in available light. They were taken as RAW and lightly processed in PhotoShop.

Overall I think the camera performed amazingly well for such an early unit. I was very impressed by the low noise and for use in publishing to the web 3.25MP seems absolutely fine!

Comments welcome.

I think that some recognition for the results has to be given to the user:

For example for the flywheel shots you CHOOSE to use ISO400, knowing that you could pull the shot (or maybe a couple of shots) at 1/8th second - i.e. you didn't choose to bump to ISO 800 or ISO1600.

For example you knew how to interpret the metering for the shot of the dark mechanical calculator on the white desk and adjust the exposure for that metering.

It's like when I tool a group of High School Students on an exercise around 2010: (just stating facts), a few of the Students had the latest wiz bang gear, and, in the low light shooting at Town Hall, I came back with better results than theirs, using an EOS 20D and the original (old) kit lens.

WW

[xpatUSA]

Great story and images.

The calculator is similar to one I remember from school. Electronic calculators had only just appeared as mass market items and would feature in electrical store windows as items of wonder. The prices were astronomical too.

I left the RAF in '69 and got a job as an engineer. There were still calculators like that in the office, but the design people had a large electronic HP scientific calculator. Much encouraged, I bought a Sinclair Scientific kit (ten quid?) - only to find the reverse Polish notation, the fixed decimal point with mandatory exponents too much for my lack of patience. Good old Sir Clive - what a character ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Sinclair

Bit of a player, too ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...0-seven-years/
.

[Round Tuit]

I left the RAF in '69 and got a job as an engineer. There were still calculators like that in the office, but the design people had a large electronic HP scientific calculator. Much encouraged, I bought a Sinclair Scientific kit (ten quid?) - only to find the reverse Polish notation, the fixed decimal point with mandatory exponents too much for my lack of patience. Good old Sir Clive - what a character ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Sinclair

Bit of a player, too ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...0-seven-years/
.

Aahh, I miss my old HP reverse polish calculator from the late 60's. It sure beat the old Versalog slide rule!

[Tronhard]

Bill:

Coming from you, someone whose opinion I respect very much, that is very much appreciated. I have always felt that the person, rather than the technology is the limiting factor behind the quality of an image: i.e. the choice of location, composition and certainly exposure settings. While I have a formidable collection of gear, it's not because I ever felt that the new tech would make me a better photographer, I just liked the tech. But one only has to look at some of the earliest images by photographers whose work has stood the test of time to see that they were not limited by their equipment. Many of them were painters before they were photographers, and some transitioned to painting as a result of their photography.

For me the attraction to this older camera is exactly that search to get back to the basics and not rely on the multiple functions and massive MP counts that court the GAS movement. Downloading and processing was a breeze with 3.2MP images!

One of the joys of being a member of this site is to see others exploring and expanding their potential through creative efforts, guided and mentored by a supportive and inclusive culture.

That said, I fear I would get short shrift if I said that on DPReview!

Reading your Post #12 . . . and

I think that some recognition for the results has to be given to the user:

For example for the flywheel shots you CHOOSE to use ISO400, knowing that you could pull the shot (or maybe a couple of shots) at 1/8th second - i.e. you didn't choose to bump to ISO 800 or ISO1600.

For example you knew how to interpret the metering for the shot of the dark mechanical calculator on the white desk and adjust the exposure for that metering.

It's like when I tool a group of High School Students on an exercise around 2010: (just stating facts), a few of the Students had the latest wiz bang gear, and, in the low light shooting at Town Hall, I came back with better results than theirs, using an EOS 20D and the original (old) kit lens.

WW

[Tronhard]

Aahh, I miss my old HP reverse polish calculator from the late 60's. It sure beat the old Versalog slide rule!

Hey Ted and Andre:

I know what you mean.

When I was at school we had to learn and understand logarithms, and then build our own slide rules before we were allowed to use manufactured ones in class.

As regards calculators, I remember you were in one of two schools back in the day: either an algebraic or RPN user! I used HP calculators that worked on RPN and I recall many occasions when we competed to see how many keystrokes were required to resolve a particular calculation. I still have my HP11c and HP 12c calculators around here, still working!

On the theme of tech vs. technique... back in 1981 I was in Hong Kong and decided to buy the HP41CX calculator, an advanced programmable unit that boasted that it was capable of acting as a back up to the computers on the space shuttle if things turned to custard. I did the purchase at a tiny stall in a market. There were two stalls side by side and after much brisk bargaining between the three of us, I made the purchase. To calculate the costs in my currency I used my brand new HP, while the vendor did it on his abacus. He beat me to it. I learnt a valuable lesson that day... it's not the technology but the skill with which one uses what one has the defines the outcome. I actually bought an abacus and had it placed prominently at the front of my classroom when I was teaching computer systems and the story was often told to my students...