Cats and Trails and Garden Tales
Musings on cats, travel, gardens and life
Just a Walk in the Park with an old Canon
I love getting rid of ‘stuff,’ perhaps obsessively, so for the past few months, I’ve been on a decluttering mission. Unwanted items are disposed of, saved for garage sale, or taken to the Goodwill.
Today, while going through some drawers, I came across my old Canon PowerShot A520, one of my first digital cameras. At least 20 years old, it somehow escaped previous purges.
I fiddled around with it and found the batteries still worked (amazing) and there were useable 2GB SD cards in the case.
Before I made a decision on its future, I took it for a walk at Coulon Park; I needed the exercise anyway.
It did a decent job on the daylilies;
and the colors seemed more authentic than my phone’s vivid capture, below.
It did okay with the hydrangeas,
especially closeup.
Better than the capture with my phone (below), which seems washed out. Granted my pictures were taken under bright, midday sunshine, so it could be the fault of the photographer.
Mostly I was surprised the camera still worked.
Built to last!
Despite its longevity, it wouldn’t meet my needs today and will likely end up in the garage sale – the one we keep postponing but hope to do this summer – or given to the Goodwill.
But it reminds me that I like having a small pocket size camera for everyday use, so I’ll be on the lookout for an up-to-date replacement for this little Canon PowerShot.
~ Susanne
Cats and Trails and Garden Tales 
I had that same camera. It was wonderful! It had a little flip out screen AND through the lens viewing. It used regular AA batteries, so you never got caught without a charge. It was especially useful in Europe where one needed an adapter to charge on their system.
Yes, it really was wonderful, and lightweight! I’d probably still use it, but I know they’ve improved vastly over the last 20 years, so might as well get the new version!
Wow, the old timer still does a great job, Susanne! Lovely photos, I would also donate the camera to Goodwill which I do fairly often. The iPhone still has a long way to go to catch up with cameras like the Nikon and Canon full size cameras. I’m a Minimalist who can’t deal with clutter. Do you do any processing on your photos?
Yes, I was surprised that it was still working and took decent pictures! I’m really looking for a good quality compact for when I travel, similar to this one, just the latest version. I didn’t do any processing on the pictures in this post, but I sometimes tweak my photos with free windows tools.
Oh, okay. I use an HDR app and one other app on the MacBook for processing. I think cameras like your older camera may be hard to find these days but I could be wrong of course. I’ve owned to great pocket cams.
It looks like there are still Canon Powershots for sale, different series, same concept..
Oh, that’s news for you! 👍🏻
These are excellent photos. There’s life in the old camera still. I use a Canon S90 for my in the water shots and it still works pretty well. The newer versions have a bigger processor, which is great, but they also add numerous bells and whistles which are mostly of no use to me.
Thanks so much, Graham. I was surprised that it was still alive and gave me some decent pictures. Maybe I’ll play with it a bit longer. And with only a 2 GB memory card, I’d probably be more judicious with my shooting!
It’s done an excellent job given its age 🙂 I like to have a small point and shoot too, and for some years have relied on Panasonic Lumix as they have great Leica lenses and until the latest model were one of the few (possibly the only?) options with a viewfinder. The latest model doesn’t have that so when I needed to replace my old one recently I went for an ‘as new’ previous model as I really prefer using a viewfinder about 80% of the time!
Thanks, Sarah. I almost forgot about my compact Sony Cybershot RX100, which takes great pictures and has both a viewfinder and a lcd screen. The screen had gotten marred around the edges, I wished it had a protector. Still, I’ll take it out for a spin. I see the newer ones are pretty expensive! I’ll also look into the Panasonic Lumix compact size. What model did you get?
It’s the DMC-TZ270. I think the latest is the TZ290 but as I said, disappointingly it doesn’t have a viewfinder
Forgot to mention, I found this new (still boxed) TZ270 on EBay 🙂
Thanks for the info! It pays to shop around! 🙂