This is the first episode in a series where we rescue something from the wild.
This story begins at the Salvation army store on Taranaki Street in Wellington. Sitting in the cabinet were two point and shoot cameras for $15 each. A Sony DSC-T20 (story for another day) and a Fujifilm Finepix Z70. Neither had batteries, but I decided to take a chance on both.
After tracking down a compatible battery on Trademe, I fired it up - to both good and bad news.
The screen was in great condition, and all of the buttons and internal features appeared to work perfectly - including the incredibly intriguing “Edit for blog” and “Photobook assist”.
So the moment of truth - taking a photo. Unfortunately, everything I could see through the lens (and subsequent photos) looked like it was taken through the window of a Wellington bus on a humid day.
I decided to not give up hope, and looked through the photos still stored on the device - which were in their clear 14.0 megapixel glory. A clue!
I inspected the outside of the camera and immediately realised the issue. Most camera diagnoses involve taking apart the camera - but I soon realised the issue was the front part of the lens was completely missing - which, for those who remember studying lenses and lightwaves in school physics, would see how this would lead to the inability to focus.
I did some Googling to see if anyone sold spare parts for these cameras, considered seeing if I could 3d print something, and even wondered about tracking down the Warehouse carpark in the last photo taken on the camera - and seeing if it was sitting around fifteen years later.
With no luck, I sat on this one for a bit. Until I saw a faulty Z90 on TradeMe a couple of months later. After a bit of research, and a lot of zooming in on the two listing photos, I decided to take a chance that the lens on this one would be the same - and that it would also not be missing on this one.
Success! I was able to remove the lens from this camera and attach it to my existing one. I’ve been trialling the camera for around a month and it appears to be working as hoped!
Overall costs:
Camera: $15
Battery: $7
Camera for parts (including shipping): $40
Total cost: $62
Estimated value: $200