The best value in photography today?

Fighting words. When your three year old decides she wants to be like daddy and bugs you pretty much every day for a couple of months for a ‘real camera, not a toy one’ – what do you do? It seems a little painful to sacrifice a new camera to what will almost certainly be death by something that makes perfect sense only in the mind of a toddler, but at the same time I’d really rather she not start helping herself to the Hasselblads. Cue every photographer’s favourite activity: gear shopping*. Initially, I considered something shockproof, waterproof and submersible; but the good ones weren’t cheap, the cheap ones were really quite painful to use, and the controls were oddly not very small-finger friendly – requiring a lot of force to press and cryptic icons to decipher. She recognises ‘on’ and ‘play’ icons thanks to iPads and youtube, and that’s about it. Perhaps the big silver button too, since that makes a noise to take a picture. By now you’ve probably seen the header image and figured out my solution…

*To be read with extra sarcasm.

I recall the heady early days of accessible ‘serious’ digital back in 2003/4: the budding enthusiast’s (which I certainly was at the time, just having seriously started shooting) choice was really just the Nikon D70 or the Canon 300D: the latter was cheaper, much plastickier and had a notoriously bad kit lens (even on a 6MP sensor). The former was more expensive, but had a better kit lens, better ergonomics and a more complete feature set. My neighbour and good friend had Nikon lenses, which seemed as good a reason as any to go with the D70 – and I’ve never really gotten out of Nikon since. I admit to always having some curiosity about the 300D at the time, but could never afford both. Fast forward fifteen years and half a world away to a little camera shop in Japan, and there was a pristine one sitting on the shelf. I turned away from the bargain bin filled with cameras of non-functioning or barely functioning or functioning but for no longer available strange batteries or film sizes, realising I probably couldn’t fool Sophie for very long with one of those things since there’d be no picture on the back.

But lo and behold, I’d nearly missed it since it was in a display case and not the bargain bin with the other digital point and shoots – the 300D. (There was also a D2x next to it for surprisingly little money, but that’s another story for another time). It worked and even came with a new battery; as far as I can tell, the camera had lived a pampered life and probably was disposed of either in an estate sale or because there’s so little space in Japanese homes that anything unused is usually sent to a new home (though who would buy a fifteen year old digital camera boggles the mind slightly, especially in a country that is built on a culture of chasing technology). I was told the batteries were still available though would cost more than the camera – all of a whopping JPY 4,800, or about $45. Including the all-plastic (reputedly including elements) kit lens. I’ve bought lens caps that cost more than that. Hell, you can’t even get meaningful accessories for that kind of money – a nice strap is probably more. And here we have a whole complete functioning digital SLR – if that’s not a commentary on the state of consumerism, I’m not sure what is – I’d hate to think what the previous owner got in trade in value.

The nice man at the shop looked at me a bit strangely when I asked to see it (I was carrying something…shall we say, much newer and more serious at the time) – but obligingly did so anyway. He apologised that there was no box, but everything else was included – including an unused strap, manual, and the original USB cable. For less than the price of a small serving of wagyu steak later, I (or rather my daughter) had a small piece of modern camera history.

Make no mistake: coming from the 100MP medium format beast I shoot in 2018, or the modern DSLR with everything, the 300D is so basic it isn’t funny – but oddly, charming for it. The screen is the size of a postage stamp and only useful for confirming a picture has been taken. Startup and shutdown, and write speeds, are all leisurely. The smallest CF card I could find spare was a 32GB Extreme Pro out of my CFV – probably itself worth more than the camera. It didn’t make a whit of difference to write speeds or buffer clearing, but the toddler wouldn’t care anyway. There are only a small handful of AF points, only the centre one of which is somewhat useful; the zoom is a 35-80 (not so useful 50-120 in APS-C land) – though again, I don’t think she cares. It doesn’t have auto ISO, and f5.6 is rather restrictive (let’s not even talk about the lack of IS) – but when you haven’t been told blurriness is bad, why does it matter?

Personally, I’m curious to see what she produces, and to see how a three year old sees (if the translation works at all). But before we even begin to talk about light, subject isolation, ideas, framing, balance…I’m still trying to figure out the best way for her tiny hands to hold without dropping it and hit the shutter at the same time. She is trying to figure out how to consistently ‘see mummy through the hole’…perhaps I should have sprung for something with live view, but then again – where’s the fun in that? MT

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