Thursday, December 17, 2009

What was I thinking?

I was rummaging around through some old files on a hard drive, and came across this photo that I shot in 2002 when I must have been selling the item on ebay:

An Apple Quicktake 200, which I recall buying at a deep discount around 1997, when Apple discontinued it. It was not even a megapixel camera, as the images were no larger than 640x480 pixels. But, I was probably seduced by the cute rainbow apple and the ease at which I could upload an image onto the web. The fact is, I probably would have been a lot farther ahead to have taken the money I spent on that camera and used it to buy a really neat film camera! I think today's 5-dollar keychain cameras take photos with about the same resolution. The point is, don't be seduced by new technology, just because it's new. Instead, wait for it to become mature to the point that it does not limit the way you would do things. When I think of the images that I took with that camera that will never be larger than 640x480 pixels, I could kick myself.

The Quicktake 200 originally sold for $600, but I'm quite sure that I paid far less for it, because Apple stopped marketing cameras in 1997. Some history about it is here.

I don't imagine that I sold it for a whole lot in 2002, but I bet whoever bought liked that shiny rainbow apple...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Fun little piece there, Mark. Good advice, too, regarding the purchasing of new technology equipment. I remember paying almost $1500 for an installed (in my vehicle) cell phone back in the late 80's. Not exactly an apples-to-apples example but I think we've all purchased that 'new thing' for way too much and for the wrong reasons. And then we ask ourselves, "What was I thinking?" In the case of some of the products, like the Apple Quicktake 200, I'm wondering, "What were they thinking?" The Apple camera is around 12 years old and is no longer useable while some of us have 100 year old cameras that still work today. Well, you and I do anyway. :-)