SIJ-Day25
Otto

SIJ-Day25

"SIJ Precursor"

This is the camera that sparked my interest in photography after my initial interest in 1972 waned.

I bought this Logitech FotoMan Plus in the late spring of 1993, and I never touched film again. It had an f/4.5 65mm equivalent lens with a monochrome sensor fixed at ISO 200. It was able to store about 32 496x360 (179k) images internally before having to connect to the computer to download them for the next "roll". An optical viewfinder was the only point of reference, and there was no review of the shots until they were downloaded. I thought I had died and went to heaven with this $600 jewel.

Taken with the Canon S95 at 35mm equiv. Processed in LR3.6, Topaz Adjust and Nik SEP.
Digital pioneer! They that venture beyond the usual, see and experience what the late comer will never appreciate, for the lack of reference. A view back at digital history. Thanks
 
WOW! What a revolutionary camera. I winder what else you could have purchased for $600. That's an amazing piece of history there...and so well kept and lain out. Quite similar to your auto parts shots. Perhaps a touch of OCD.
 
Wow, thanks for posting this, Otto. I didn't realise that Logitech had made such a creature. I'd seen early Kodaks of 640x480 but this must have been even earlier than that.

Great stuff :)
 
I would love to use this camera again but, unfortunately it won't run on our newer operating and processor systems. If I could find an old 286 running Windows 3.1 I could get it back up and running. The last time I charged it, it still worked, but I wasn't able to view any of the images I took with it.

$600 was a real break-through in the digital camera market and opened it up to more participation. Other units at the time were much too expensive (Kodak was near $14,000) to even consider unless there was some specialist need, and availability was almost non-existant.

I even used this camera to start a small business creating sales flyers for real estate professionals. I would go out to their listings, take the photos and create the flyers for the property. I would then print them on my HP Laserjet IV Plus that I still use for everyday printing. I think I paid about $1800 for it back then.

It was four years before Sony came out with the Mavica FD7 that used the small 3.5" floppy disks for image storage. I owned a couple of those over the years, and also their FD71 in 1999 that produced 1024x768 images at a cost of nearly $1000. Very advanced at the time with a 14x zoom lens.

I am amazed at the number, and quality, of todays digital cameras that weren't even thought of back then. Fun stuff.
 
Otto, thanks so much for sharing this piece of photographic history - along with your personal story. As cool as it looks, the story behind it adds that extra specialness that make it for me.

Fotoman Plus - that name alone is fantastic!
 

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Single in January 2012
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Otto
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