Epson PhotoPC 500

Opinion: I purchased my PhotoPC 500 in January 1997. I can't remember the price (although I do have the CC bill packed away somewhere as an historical document) but it was in the region of 350 to 400 UK Pounds.

Mine came with the standard memory but a couple of months later I upgraded it to the maximum allowable. I chose this camera over the Casio QV10 because it had a higher resolution.

The camera worked flawlessly (and still does - I still have it, the only old digicam I still have). I used it on a photographic project so I know I took just over 8000 pictures with it.

The one thing I loved about this camera was the colour reproduction. It's just a shame the JPEG compression is so high which leads to lots of blocky artifacts. I soon realised what a great camera this was when I bought a Sony Mavica as its replacement. Big mistake - same resolution but not as compressed, but the colours were so washed out. Yuk.

I've given this camera 5 stars in the context of the time I bought it.

Opinion: I purchased this model back in early 1996. I can't remember if the number 500 was in the product name, but it is the closest I could find here on DPR. I chose it over the Casio QV10 that had an LCD screen because the Epson had higher resolution. The images were 640 x 480 and it had a low resolution mode of 320 x 240. Pictures were a bit soft and had color fringing in the corners. In those days, it was just a toy, a $500 one!

I could fit only 20 high res images in its built in memory that could be expanded. To get the images off the camera, you needed a serial cable and transfer was very slow. It needed 4 AA cells and it would run them down in no time. You'd be lucky to get 40 shots!

Opinion: This was my first digital camera. It was a hand-me-down. It was lousy even then. Not only was the res too low to be of any serious use the picture quality was not much good either.

It had no LCD on the back so you could not check your photos until you got home.

It felt nothing more than a toy. I still have a few of the photos that I took with it all that time ago. Every time I see them, I curse the fact they are so low res.

It was a gimmick really and never a substitute for film.

Opinion: This was my first all-electronic camera. People couldn't believe it could be re-used and the photos downloaded to a computer. They thought it would wear down...It was a .3 Megapix. I have a 10 Megapixels now.

Opinion: My first digital, bought in 1997 at a heavy discount. Used it heavily, it actually rekindled my interest in photography (digital AND analog). Very, very obsolete now of course, but images looked pretty ok on my 14" monitor back then.