davidd's A DOLL A DAY 2025

[davidd]

And now, having mentioned the “camera story”, of course you have to tell it. 

I'll try to be brief.

I've been thinking about getting a new camera. I mostly use a small pocket (or point-n-shoot) style camera because small cameras are easy to use and easier to carry around than a full-size DSLR camera.

To my eye, the images from my pocket cameras (a Panasonic Lumix TS5 and a Canon PowerShot D20) have been looking grainy, noisy, and not sharp, particularly when the telephoto lens is used. The low-light performance tends to be noisy.

I could use a phone camera, I suppose, but I've come to realize that I detest using phone cameras. They're too "fussy." With a regular camera, I can pull it out, turn it on, and snap a photo, usually with one hand. Phone cameras almost always require two hands. Adjusting anything requires fussing around with a touch screen, which can't easily be done one-handed or without looking at the screen. The quality of close-up phone photos and low-light phone photos really isn't all that it's hyped up to be. And there's no "aperture priority" setting, not even on my fanceh overpriced Samsung S23 Ultra, so it's difficult to control depth-of-field.

I started looking for new cameras a few months ago and discovered that almost nobody is making small pocket cameras anymore. The mobile phone camera revolution utterly destroyed the small camera market, and most manufacturers discontinued their small camera lines.

Ironically, starting two or three years ago, small cameras have become a fad among "young people," the Tik Tok crowd. Young people (and young influencers) have decided they like the "aesthetic" of older small camera photos, and they've begun using decade-old pocket cameras for Instagram and Tik Tok stills and videos. As a result, the secondary market price for used small cameras has gone nutzoid, with good-condition examples of popular models selling for twice or more the original retail price. A few models command significantly more.

In response, some manufacturers have announced they will be bringing back pocket cameras. Among those manufacturers is Panasonic, who announced a new Lumix model, the ZS99.

I love my Lumix TS5. Lumix models use Leica lenses. The official product description made it sound like the new Lumix ZS99 was exactly what I was looking for -- a high-quality pocket-size digital camera designed for travel and general carry. I thought my timing was providential: here I was, looking for a new pocket camera just as a major manufacturer was announcing a return to the pocket camera market!

Pre-release reviews for the ZS99 were mixed. Mostly it seemed that "photographers" wanted an Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) and other electronic bells and whistles. They were missing the point: this camera is designed to be simple.

I pre-ordered a ZS99, which is kind of over-priced, but everything is overpriced these days. It was ex-pensive for what it is, but it's a Lumix with Leica lenses and it's a brand new pocket-sized camera. I was excited. This was gonna be great!

After an interminable wait, the camera arrived.

And it sucked. Like, majorly sucked.

Physically the camera was okay. It would have worked as a pocket camera that could be operated one-handed, although some of the controls were uncomfortably close together. The build quality was mostly adequate, other than the cover over the ports being just a flimsy piece of plastic. The weight was somewhat underwhelming. I was ex-pecting a bit more heft, but lighter means easier to carry, I suppose.

Unfortunately, the images were not sharp. They were grainy and they were noisy. Macro images, which is primarily what I would use the camera for, because, y'know, doll and toy photos, were particularly bad. Photos in low-light situations, and you know what my photos look like, were even worse. Soft, grainy, noisy... yucky. My ten or a dozen or more year old pocket cameras take way better photos.

I snapped about 40 images total with the new camera. I ran off a dozen or so and checked them out. They were awful. I adjusted some settings, capping the auto-ISO at a lower number, and then used a tripod for a second group of photos. Even using a tripod the images were yuck.

I boxed it up neatly, wrote a negative review of the camera on the retailer's website, and requested a return. There was already one negative review on the website, from a user who was disappointed by the same issues -- soft, noisy images. That reviewer was taking outdoor walk-around photos and had been hoping to use the camera on an upcoming European vacation. That reviewer also returned the camera.

So the ZS99 is heading back to the retailer, I am starting to re-learn my DSLR, and I am done with buying new cameras.

Those pictures of the Galaxy Girl doll the other day that I wasn't happy with, and the little space cat doll the previous day? A big part of why I wasn't happy is that the images are not tack-sharp. But the images aren't sharp because I was hand-holding the camera in a low-light macro setting. The Galaxy Girl photos were snapped at 1/15 and 1/8 of a second, holding the camera with one hand and a light in the other hand! I really can't complain if I can get "usable" photos hand-holding a heavy chunky camera (with the additional weight of a battery grip) with one hand at 1/8 of a second, can I? With one hand I can reach the ex-posure hold, lock in the focus, and press the shutter. I can even adjust the ex-posure compensation and the f-stop if I want to with a one-handed grip. I can do everything I like to do with a pocket camera on the DSLR. It's just that the DSLR is bigger and heavier and more obvious to carry around.

The quality of the DSLR images does not deteriorate relative to the focal length of the lens. I guess because the lens is a separate element from the camera body or something. I don't know why "zoomed" images on my pocket cameras appear to be getting worse. Maybe it's just me seeing something that's not there. Maybe it's camera shake. Or maybe the lens elements are separating after more than a decade of use and abuse.

That's my "camera story" and it wasn't very brief, was it?

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26 February - A Doll A Day 2025:

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I think I'll post individual portraits of my pirate crew. This'll be boring. There's eight of them. You might just wanna wait and check in next week to see 'em all at once.

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Dread Pirate Cap'n Jenny Death-Scabbard

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Dread Pirate Captain Jenny Death-Scabbard is a stock one-sixth scale TBLeague Arhian... wait, make that Arrr-hian Pirate action figure (PL2018-114).