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Comment by scohesc | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a camera enthusiast - but are these cameras still "worth it" to go through all the effort for their qualities, or is this closer to a vintage computer enthusiast just cracking away at something because it's a challenge?

Very interesting route to go through to get the camera working again!

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The compact models are probably not competitive to modern smartphones, except if you need optical zoom.

The NX series interchangeable lens cameras however don't fare too badly compared to today's models, and have a good price-point on the used market, if you are ready to do some bargain hunting.

In the last decade, the improvements were largely in sensor resolutions (from 20MP to 40MP, not relevant for most practical uses) and in "smart" auto-focus, with better tracking of eyes, animals or objects.

In-body image stabilization is another area that has had huge improvements in pro/pro-amateur cameras in the last 10 years.

Right, that's something that I'm actually sometimes missing on my NX500 when using vintage lenses, but I'm not sure how relevant it is for pro amateurs in general.

It's super useful, esp if you're going after longer focal lengths and snapping birds, and if you're... like me... into manual focus or vintage lenses. My little Olympus M43 camera has an older IBIS system and it's very useful and I can definitely tell when it's off or not configured. Newer cameras have made huge improvements in this, and, yeah, autofocus ...

I have an NX Mini (which isn't exactly the same as the regular NX line) which has a "1 inch" sensor and a 3-lens interchangeable system. With the 9mm fixed lens it's as pocketable as a phone, but with a flip-out screen, a real flash and otherwise much better quality. With the 9-27mm zoom lens it's even a reasonable portrait camera. I haven't found one of the 17mm f/1.8 lenses, they're pretty rare.

Anyway, I really like that little thing. With a C-mount lens adapter I can use surveillance camera lenses which is pretty fun.

I'm a huge fan of the NX mini and they are fully supported by the SNS API bridge.

I have a bunch of them, one converted to infrared. Usually I have the mini with me when the NX500 is too bulky. It's a pity that the lenses are so rare on the used market. The image quality is just awesome for the form factor!

This is definitely not “worth it” given that NX is a dead platform, but I can totally see it being a passion project for someone who wants to improve the system. The NX cameras were pretty darn good. The NX1, which was the final flagship of the range, was an amazing camera IMO, and of course these cameras can produce excellent images (better than modern smartphones) with their APS-C sensors. Photography is all about light, so smartphones with tiny sensors will always be disadvantaged. Computational photography tries to work around the physical limitations, but it also yields some very unnatural results. Personally, I prefer traditional cameras where the bokeh is real and there’s no built-in adjustment to the image.

Vintage digital cameras, especially the sony ones that use floppy disks, are now "retro" and in fashion with zoomers, apparently.

edit: Many of these aren't that old, the last NX was 2015, I still use a pentax APS-C DSLR around that age and it's fine.

I've seen kids using 2010 era cameras, but I doubt they'd be using ones with floppies. Those are 90's tech and probably have 1024x768 resolution at most, plus can you even buy USB floppy disk drives, or plug it into your phone? (E.g. I have a Micro-SD card reader that I can plug into my phone using USB-C, and I can plug the card into my camera using an Micro-SD-to-SD-adapter).

Then there are the geeks taking pictures using the B&W 320x200 Gameboy cameras, my feeling is even the Gen-Z would view these people as nerds...

Just having exchangeable lenses is a huge boon. The sensor is probably worse than what you can find in a modern smart phone, but phones simply don't have the space for deep lenses and thus have to emulate effects like zoom and depth-of-field. On this camera you can have the "real" thing without paying $1000+ for a DSLR and $300+ for a lens.

And of course there's the effect where for every sufficiently popular camera their technical deficiencies become a desirable vintage look, given enough time. Kind of like people preferring vinyl records for their sound

> The sensor is probably worse than what you can find in a modern smart phone, but phones simply don't have the space for deep lenses

Phones don't have space for big sensors either, other than some gimmicky big-sensor phones (808 PureView, Lumia 1020). The iPhone 15 Pro main camera sensor is 9.8x7.3mm, compared to say, the Ricoh GR III with a 23.5x15.6mm sensor, about 5x larger. The GR III is actually less tall/wide than an iPhone, but about 4x the thickness.

The big problem with the NX cameras is that they are no longer supported and won’t ever get more lenses. If happy with kit lens or adapting manual lenses, then they are probably cheaper than other mirrorless.

Can't say for this camera specifically, but expensive lenses and larger pixel sizes usually do what they are worth in cash. There's no viable way around paying more, like trying to milk phone cameras with AI enhancements. At least for the glass.

The hashtag on one of the original author’s tweets is “ShittyCameraChallenge” and the photos don’t look great, so I think it’s mostly about reviving dead tech and learning.

"Worth it" is relative. No camera phone can beat pictures from my Leica Q3 with it's full-frame 61MP sensor. Especially if it is anything but ultra bright out there.

But like you said it's an enthusiast thing. Photos are a hobby of mine. If you don't really care about having the best look and quality and are fine with good quality a 48MP RAW iPhone pic can be edited quite nicely with Photoshop nowadays. Even for large screens to enjoy them on.

If you don't care at all, snap away with any semi-new phone and pictures will be good enough for phone screen/sharing.

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