Fifty quid quality

Early digital cameras can still deliver the goods - and they're becoming collectable too. John Wade is your guide

Let’s start, not with a camera, but with an image. Look at the picture of the cat on this page. Notice how the eyes, the fur, every whisker, every wisp of hair, are all pin-sharp. And rest assured, the quality is retained when this image is interpolated to A4 size. Now consider this. The picture was shot more than 23 years ago with a Nikon Coolpix 880, whose total pixel count was just 3.34MP. Cost then: a little under £700. Value now, fully working with battery and charger: £30-40.

Given this, it’s tempting to ponder why you need to invest thousands of pounds on the latest digital gear when it’s still possible to get images of this quality from cameras that cost less than £50. That said, it has to be admitted that today’s supersonic, all-singing, all-dancing, whistle-blowing, bell-ringing digital cameras are not merely in a different league to these 50 quid wonders. They are a whole new species.

Stratospheric sums of megapixels, large sensors, mirrorless viewfinders, megaautofocus points, facial recognition, touchscreen operation, a multitude of shooting modes, time-lapse control, voice recording, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, text tagging, auto-correct function, best shot selectors, HD video… Be honest – how much of this do you really need?

The fact is, if you are happy to accept a few compromises, you can attain quality images from a small APS-C sensor that uses ten or fewer megapixels; used sensibly, you can make do with only a few autofocus points; and the four basic exposure modes will cover most circumstances.

CCD versus CMOS sensors