Landscape Photography with an Old $79 Camera from 2007

Photographer Toma Bonciu of Photo Tom recently decided to experiment with doing landscape photography with an outdated digital camera. He bought a Canon PowerShot S5 IS from 2007 for $79 from Amazon and took it out into the great outdoors to see what he could get.

The 8-megapixel camera only shoots JPEGs and has a focal length of 36-432mm (in 35mm terms). It does have full manual shooting, though, so that’s handy for photographers wanting more control.

“The question is, will you be able to see the difference?” Bonciu asks. “Will the photos look that bad with this camera? […] I’m really curious to see if you really need all that expensive gear.”

Here are the photos Bonciu ended up creating:

There were some downsides to the camera, of course — Bonciu had issues with glare/flare when shooting into sunlight. But considering the fact that it’s an old $79 camera that can be worn around the neck without having to carry an arsenal of lenses, Bonciu was impressed with the results.

“If you are a photographer who does photography as a passion or as a hobby, imagine walking only with something like this and not a big backpack on your back,” Bonciu says. “You can do beautiful photos [with just] a small camera, with a consumer camera.”

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