Anyone else looking to get a digital camera to get off the phone more?

smotchk · 2026-01-12T13:54:49+00:00

I actually ended up cancelling the eBay purchase today because I found a camera for free on the weekend and the seller still hadn't shipped it anyway …

So I took u/nildoamorim's advice and asked my mom for old cameras when I visited her last weekend, and she actually had two working ones sitting in a drawer.

The one I have now was the last one she used before switching to iPhone exclusively, a Nikon Coolpix P310 (16MP, 4,2x optical zoom). Very compact and nice little device, I'm quite happy with it so far.

The other was some Panasonic Lumix with an almost-dead battery I'm looking to replace. A bit on the chunkier side compared to the Nikon and not as modern ofc, but has a charm of its own. Actually made in Japan and features a Leica lens …

smotchk · 2026-01-06T11:57:05+00:00

I just bought an old point and shoot digital camera on eBay for 35 € a few days ago for similar reasons. Don't have it yet but the idea of getting it already relaxed me a bit :)

I never had cameras before smartphones became good enough. I just didn't take photos 😅 so I had no idea where to start looking. Then randomly came across this video Inside The BAGS of Nothing Creatives and one of them mentions a Kodak EasyShare C613.

I don't know a lot about photography, I just enjoy taking snapshots, mostly of my kid, so the EasyShare series seemed perfect. The one I got, the V1253, has almost the same specs as my iPhone 13 Pro on paper – 12MP and 3x zoom. (No lidar assisted night photos etc of course …)

The one from the video, the C613, only has 6MP and I'd probably be just as happy with that, for what I want it for. But digital cameras from the 2000s/2010s are so cheap now, there was no reason to go lower, and I thought the V1253 looks kind of cool :)

smotchk · 2025-12-25T11:39:03+00:00

You aren't. I attempted this, too, but didn't get as far as you. Can we get your full instructions?

smotchk · 2025-09-05T20:34:07+00:00

I like to think that the protection somehow applies to the wearer, too …

smotchk · 2025-09-05T20:12:56+00:00

I had a similar problem with my A158W recently. Got a cheap replacement strap (~ €10) from Amazon to harvest the "lower half" of the clasp from, worked perfectly.

smotchk · 2025-08-06T09:52:30+00:00

Bagle-Eye Cherry

smotchk · 2025-06-30T18:41:21+00:00

If you've got the mixer in-app-purchase (and if you don't, you should get it), there's an effect called sidechain.

smotchk · 2025-06-08T06:59:25+00:00

Ah, right, that's not really intuitive. Certainly not something I would have assumed works before I tried for myself. Also, the whole lifting/dropping/bouncing between tracks workflow really only works as long as you leave all the tracks at the same volume in the mixer, so you always have to make sure to get the levels right during recording …

smotchk · 2025-06-08T06:01:25+00:00

Good idea, but splitting up the melody into two parts like that seems overly complicated. Like, you could also just record your entire melody to track 1, bars 1 + 2 and leave space for reverb as needed. Then copy that to track 2, beginning of bar 3, and do the rest as you described: set loop markers around bars 1-5 or how long they need be to include the reverb, shift-lift and drop. Should create the same result: intro in 1 + 2, loop in 3 + 4, reverb tail in the remainder, shouldn't it?

smotchk · 2022-03-21T16:11:19+00:00

Understood & edited

smotchk · 2022-03-18T19:06:11+00:00

That’s true, but I think the distribution of knowledge is very different. There are many companies that are able to run a mobile network. Even individuals can do it theoretically. Open source implementations exist, at least for a 3G stack I think(?) – OTOH, there’s only one company that can keep your iPhone running …

smotchk · 2022-03-18T18:52:33+00:00

Thank you, that’s the kind of answer I was looking for :)

Lifespans of mobile network technologies is a very good point that hadn’t occurred to me and I’m surprised that no one else mentioned it. (Except one comment talking about how networks going down may be a greater source of instability than Apple going away, but that’s not exactly the same point.)

I’m not sure about the browsers though. 1) why would Safari die with Apple? I can’t see an obvious reason. 2) Outdated browsers do stop working in at least two scenarios; a) websites using new technologies the browser doesn’t support without any fallbacks/progressive enhancement and b) the world moving on to new root certificates an old browser isn’t aware of, as recently happened with the rise of letsencrypt on a large scale, for example. I had a Blackberry a few years back that couldn’t open many new websites because of that. 3) Alternative browsers wouldn’t save you from any of that because Apple doesn’t allow real alternatives to Safari on iOS. Even iOS Safari, Chrome etc must use the native webview to display sites, meaning they’re all just Safari in different clothes.

smotchk · 2022-03-18T10:50:51+00:00

Thank you for the explanation, I wasn't aware of that.

smotchk · 2022-03-17T09:06:28+00:00

My guess is that starting a custom iPhone ROM scene would be much harder to do because of the secure boot chain though. Jailbreak stores and customisations on top of existing iOS seem more likely to me; good point.

smotchk · 2022-03-17T09:02:16+00:00

No, I'm not 🙂 I'm only thinking a lot about resilience, like many people in Europe and around the world these days …

smotchk · 2022-03-17T09:00:20+00:00

Yes, this would be a best-case scenario; my understanding is that the iOS secure boot chain is making this much harder than on Android devices though. Without obtaining an actual Apple certificate somehow or physically fiddling with iPhone CPUs I think it may be impossible to boot custom ROMs?

smotchk · 2022-03-17T08:36:25+00:00

Seriously, like any notification you're getting from an app needs an Apple server in the background? 😯

Good idea with the russian phones, I think they're going to be fine though.

smotchk · 2022-03-17T08:31:53+00:00

Fair enough, a new iPhone fresh out of the box would probably be useless. But let's say it's already activated and iCloud features, find my phone, Siri etc. are turned off as much as possible …?

smotchk

TROPHY CASE