Being a Nikon DSLR film user since the 1950s, and a Cibachrome fan it was hard for me to even consider converting to digital for a long time. Nevertheless, the deed was done on a lark while vacationing in Switzerland. I saw a Sony DSC-F505 before it was available in the US. I paid well over a grand for it with the Swiss taxes, but happy to be able to show it to friends because it was not available yet in the US and it was small and looked fun for street shooting. It saved me a lot of time scanning and was really sharp for web shots. I still have it.

The body was aluminium & magnesium alloy released on September 21st, 1999 in Japan. The MSRP was $1,100 in US DOllars. The max resolution
was 1600 x 1200 with 1024 x 768 and 640 x 480 as options. It used a 4:3 format and 2.1 million CCD pixels. The CCD size was all of .5 inches manufactured by Sony.

DPReview's rating of the Sony DSC-F505 was:
"
Detail Rating (out of 10)
Construction 8
Features 8
Image quality 9
Lens / CCD combination 9
Ease of use 9
Value for money 10

The Sony DSC-F505 breaks new ground in digital camera design, shocking at first it soon confirms itself as being well built, ergonomically designed and able to take excellent images. This camera is a serious contender to the Olympus C2020Z and Nikon Coolpix 950 which currently rule the roost. With it's bigger lens, hybrid LCD and InfoLithium batteries you could be forgiven for having it very high on your list. DO check out the image quality (next page).
"
LOL. It was a super little camera for $1100 which inflation adjusted is now $1485. Today that buys a D7000 Kit so the camera manufacturers are giving us a good value for our money today. I still like the Sony F505 but did not buy another digital camera until the D200 which was and is a super camera in good light.

Just curious, does anyone still use their first digital cameras?

Stuff like the D1 and the D100. Judging from the picture a day thread, no one really uses the D2 series.

I'm sure the D70s are still being used, lots of you guys like the high flash sync.

I really haven't upgraded bodies but I went straight to lenses. So yes, I'm still using my first digital cameras, for both my point and shoot and DSLR.

My first digital camera was not a Nikon, but a Canon Powershot S 10 that was 2.1mp. I shot a picture and blew it up to about 3 ft x 4 ft on an Epson plotter at work. I could not believe how good it looked. I don't know how large the sensor is. Probably about 1/2.5 or so.

DaveO

Pretty amazing what we got back then. For my office party this year, we had a $35 gift limit and I found a 7.1 Megapixel Vivitar with a 5X Zoom plus 4GB memory card for exactly $35!

FujiFilm Finepix 2650 - A whopping 2MP.

I walked down to Staples about 2 mi away from my house, cash in hand. Barely had enough after taxes to purchase it. I think it was about $220, back in 2002.

Nikon D40x. I went straight from full frame to APS-C.

A 3 megapixel Canon Powershot (can't remember the model number) with a swivel screen (yes, I was stylingly sharp!). Followed by a D70, a D3100 (which not so gracefully took a nasty fall from a 9th story balcony) and now a D5100 (which will be replaced by whatever the D7000 replacement becomes, when it is hatched).

Kodak C310... bought by my parents as a gift circa 2005 or something. Oh man, going from that to the PowerShot SX120 I got after that was night and day. (Then going from that to a D5000 was night and day.) [Then going from that to a D7000 was night and day.] {Then getting professional glass was- oh you get it.}

Olympus Stylus 400, then a nikon D200 and a P7000. As far as a point and shoot the little Olympus is still pretty good, been to the top of a mountain in Norway and fallen upon several times skiing down.

Sony Mavica - stored on a floppy disk. 640x480. I really did love that camera. (1997 - and it was actually big bucks for the time)

First DSLR was i think 5 years later, the Nikon d2h.

my first was a fujifine pix s5200 and a point and shoot

Regulator75 said:
Kodak DX6490 - cost me around $600.00 back in 2003.

That was my first digital camera also!

My first DSLR was a D50.

My first one was Pentax Optio S, and shortly after that Canon G5, but little over year ago I bought my first DSLR Nikon D5000, few months later I upgraded it to D90, and I was within the first ones here In Finland who got the D7000.
Now eagerly waiting for the D4 or even D800. Never kept the old cameras, always changing to new one.

Purchased in May 2002 a 2.2 megapixel (which interpolated it to a 4 megapixel file) Fuji Finepix 4900z. An ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC digital camera at the time. the images, which I still have in my LR catalog still look awesome!

Boy, that brings back memories....

Canon Powershot A75.

My first digital camera was the Casio QV-10 (VGA resolution, no LCD display, no flash, no memory card slot, .CAM files only!). It was about USD. 100.00 on sale, around 1999 (?).

My first DSLR was the D70 in 2004. Don't ask me how much it was! It still hurts to think of how much it depreciated over the years.

I also keep my D70 Nikon as a milestone. It serves as a reminder that an underwater camera housing better be fully buttoned up and not leak or worse yet have the camera get washed downstream. That happened in Alaska in 2007 and I got the camera back after it had been underwater for 33 days. The camera body was full of fine gravel. The type 1 capture card images were still totally intact although the capture card itself was bent. I have since talked to many who have "tested" their capture cards by running them through a washing machine (by accident). I cannot use a very expensive DSLR in a UW housing because of the risk of another such accident.
All of my DX DSLRs are used in somewhat high risk settings in field work and my D700 with bigger lens is kept for safer uses.

My first DSLR was the Nikon D100. The screen was so bad it was amazing. Comparing it to my F5 and even F100. Then I got a D70 and a D200. The D200 is still shooting every week. I myself am using D300 and D90 and D700. I now believe HD video is one feature I have to have on my DSLR cameras and some subjects require motion. I photograph a lot of trout and salmon from above them looking down into the water. There you need video, stills just do no justice to that subject as the moving water surface causes the image to be squiggly. In video they look just the way our eyes see them. I also way prefer video for fireworks at night. I have also learned the sound recording feature can be a big plus, and sometimes the sound is too distorted by wind, etc. but when the sound is good, it is very useful. My D100 still works. However it is not used, just kept as a milestone.

First digicam was an Olmypus C-750 with 4mp and a 10X zoom in 2003. Other than huge shutter lag and poor ISO sensitivity, it still takes nice pictures.

First DSLR was a D-80 in 2006 which I still use today.

Leica D-lux ..

First digital camera:
Cannon Elph circa 2001

First DSLR:
D7000

First digital camera:

Panasonic DMC-FZ1

First DSLR:

D200

Sony Mavica FD-92 1.6MP used the 1.44Mb floppy discs

My first digital camera was a Canon Powershot S 10 with 2.1 megapixels. I took a picture of a distant oil rig and blew it up on a plotter to about 3x4 feet. I couldn't believe how good it looked. I guess it was the Canon lens. You could see the stair stepping on a diagonal wire on the rig. Other than that it was stupendous.

DaveO

i'm surprised how few digital old timers there are on here!

i had a logitech fotoman in 1991 or early 1992. .09MP greyscale images stored on 1MB of internal memory. i was in high school at the time - we had a lot of fun with it.

second digital camera - and the one that actually got use as a real camera - was a canon powershot 600 in 1996. .5mp color images, iirc i had an 80mb PCMCIA type II hard disk for it.

since then have had a coolpix 900, 950, 995, 5000, d100, d200, d300, d700, d7000 and a couple of the pocketable canons alongside.