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From the "Built Like A Tank" ZENIT, the amazing Olympus C100 1.3 MP point-and-shoot from 2001, to the full-featured Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II Micro Four Thirds digital camera, with all the cameras and lenses in between that I have owned and used over time.
Page Last Edited : Wednesday, 9th of July 2025.
© Dave Rowlands. All Rights Reserved.
When I first started this website to document my transition from film to digital, I hadn't realised at the time that so many changes could occur in such a short space of time.
As a teenager, I often wondered about having a camera that wouldn't run out of film, and here we are, no more than sixty years later, with cameras that don't even require film at all.
The cameras listed below are what I have owned and used over the years. The first three are what got me into 35mm photography big time, even though I had various other cameras, like the Polaroid instant cameras, TLRs and other quirky gadgets that looked cool, I found the 35mm format suited me fine.
ZENIT B SLR
PRAKTICA NOVA SLR
PRAKTICA MTL 5 SLR
MINOLTA SRT 101 SLR
Canon FTb QL SLR
Canon PELIX QL SLR
OLYMPUS OM 10 SLR
The photos below were taken using my film cameras, they were scanned using a film and slide scanner that had a resolution of around 5 MP directly from either the film negative or a slide. The first picture on the left top was taken using a Canon Pelix QL with Kodachrome 25 around September 1974, the B/W image next to it was taken using a Zenit B with Ilford 125 ASA film, the colour photo underneath was on FujiChrome 100 ASA in a Praktica MTL5. The photographs are of my Son and Daughter from over 50 years ago.
The various camera images below are of some of the digital cameras I have owned and used, it all started with the Olympus Camedia C100 (See Below) which ate batteries at an alarming rate but produced some colourful images considering it "only" had a 1.3 MP CCD digital sensor, the current CMOS sensors don't have the same effect and I don't know why. Most of the digital cameras I have purchased are used, and I have only experienced a problem once or twice in over 25 years or more of buying online. The only cameras I have purchased new were the Minolta DImage Z1, the FinePix S3380, and the Nikon Coolpix P600. When I first used the Z1 it was amazing, the 10x zoom and the clarity of the resulting CCD images were overwhelming at the time for me, and that feeling has never been felt again until I picked up the Olympus OM-D E-M5 for the first time a few years ago.
I still have the OLYMPUS Camedia C100 (Shown below), and now my great-grandson uses it when we go out and about taking photographs. The Nikon Coolpix P600 Bridge is still in my possession but has now been relegated to its own camera bag, it used to be in my backpack along with all my other camera gear that I was going to be using that particular day and will now only occasionally take it with me for those "just in case" moments, I now prefer to carry the EM-5 II with a manual lens, usually the Tamron 28mm f2.5 and my E-M1 II with the Lumix 14-140mm zoom attached, or if the weather doesn't look good the OLympus 14-150mm zoom, along with a few more lenses of choice in the backpack. If I happen to be using my bike the gear ends up in the panier bags which allows me more choice of goodies to use.
The Olympus "OM-D E-M1 II" has far surpassed everything I could have thought a modern camera should be capable of, I hear online experts say it "Only Has A 20 MP Sensor", well, 1.3 MP was good enough all those years ago and I can still show off those Images I captured without anyone questioning what resolution the sensor was. Time brings experience which in turn results in knowledge of what is best, online experts are two a penny but your own experience is all that counts.
The OLYMPUS Camedia C100 Point and Shoot
This little camera all those years ago convinced me that digital photography was my camera future, and I haven't looked back since. So recently, after picking it up and putting fresh batteries in it I couldn't resist going to the front door and taking a couple of shots as the weather, believe it or not, was OK.
Considering its age and it's just a point and shoot it can create some very good images, This little camera was released on June 5th 2001, has a 1.3 Megapixel CCD sensor that has an image size of 1280 x 960 pixels, the average file size was around the 450 KB (Yes, less than a Megabyte). The Optical Viewfinder was easier to use than the rear LCD, which is a 1.5-inch colour TFT LCD monitor with 114,000 pixels and is practically useless in bright sunlight for framing your shots.
The camera uses the "Smart Media" cards to store your images on, and my ageing card reader no longer works, so I have to use the USB cable to download the photographs. Interestingly is the fact that the camera has 1 MB built-in memory that could store 2 or 3 photographs. Other digital cameras followed, and I have stopped buying cameras since I got myself the Olympus O-MD E-M1 II in January 2023.
MINOLTA DImage Z1
FinePix S3380
Nikon Coolpix P600
Canon 400D DSLR, my first DSLR
Canon 600D DSLR
Lumix G5 Micro, My First 4/3 Camera
Nikon D50 DSLR
OM-D
E-M10 M4/3
As of 2023, my current Olympus OM-D micro four-thirds cameras are the E-M5 II and the beautiful E-M1 II, and they both do everything I ever needed cameras to do.
I no longer have the E-M10 as I sold it, I couldn't get on with the crippled IBIS on the camera and the E-M5 had developed a fault where the Date & Time needed to be re-entered each time the battery is replaced and it continually refuses to acknowledge the lens attached and missing focus on many occasions. It's a shame as the camera itself is in great condition but totally unusable in the way it behaves. The only M43 cameras I now use on a constant basis are the OM-D E-M5 II and OM-D E-M1 II and the E-M5 II is becoming more of a backup just incase camera body, it's silver and always reminds me of the Spotmatic I always wanted all those years ago.
I have always for some reason used a battery grip on every camera I have owned if there was one available, I don't know why but the extra grip provided by the addition always made me feel that I was holding onto a real camera, yep, crazy right? When out and about I'll take the grips off but my friends and family always question what I did with the camera I had before.
OLYMPUS OM-D E-M5
OLYMPUS OM-D E-M5 Mark II
OLYMPUS OM-D E-M1 Mark II
Some of the photos that were taken using the various digital cameras mentioned above.
OLYMPUS Camedia C100
MINOLTA DImage Z1
FinePix S3380
Nikon Coolpix P600
Canon 400D DSLR
Lumix G5 Micro 4/3
Nikon D50 DSLR
Canon 600D DSLR
OLYMPUS OM-D E-M10
Taken with the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II using the Lumix 45-150mm lens, 1/400 Sec, f6.3, ISO 200 @ 114mm focal length. Processed in Olympus Workspace v1.5 using the ORF data to create the resulting JPeg.
This lens is a joy to use and it's "just" a kit lens.
A double test shot taken after receiving the Canon FL 50mm f1.8 lens added to the Olympus OM-D E-M1 II and taken indoors with just two LED table lamps for light on the 27th of January 2024 at around 5:30 PM and focused using focus peaking. Shutter speed was 1/100th second, f1.8, with ISO automatically set to 1600. It's one of my two year old great granddaughters favorite toys at the time, it dances while singing that great Beatles song of my youth "When I'm 64" and in 2024 I'm 73.
Look at the detail in the jacket and the fur with such a short DOF even on M43. Processed in Olympus Workspace v2.2 using the ORF data to create the resulting JPeg, the lens is a disaster when coupled with the FotoDiox focal reducer though (the rear baffle has to be unscrewed and the stop down screw removed), such a shame. It is probably one of the reasons that this Focal Reducer suffered the fate it did. The one I have is the "FotoDiox Pro EXCELL +1" and enjoy using it with all my older manual lenses. I may do a page about it but it's been a long time since it was attacked in the way it was and probably best forgotten.
The first camera I ever had was bought by my Grandmother when I was 12 or 13, she got it from "Woolworths" in Caernarfon for the princely sum of 2 shillings and 6 pence (about 15p). It was all made of plastic, even the lens. The viewfinder was an aluminium rectangle that you pulled up from the back and framed everything with that, it came with a roll of 120 film. The pictures it took were awful, sharp in the center and soft everywhere else. I can't remember what happened to it but I never bought another roll of film for it. Maybe my Grandmother is responsible for getting me into photography.
The digital camera pictures above, except the last one, may have links to reviews or information about the camera, but they can go out of date, please let me know if this is the case.
