Apple QuickTake 100: FIRST digital camera 29 years later! RETRO review

Great review as always! I recently picked up a QT100 / 100 Plus and 150 and they all seem to be facing what I'd call "CCD Rot" as the images are horrible. Colors are off, QT100's photos are mostly green. None of the photos I've taken look anywhere near as good as the samples you or LGR showed. I was happy to figure out how to get them off the camera(s), but the resulting photos didn't make me happy. Also, I wanted to let you and other's know, I was able to connect the camera using a USB to Serial Adapter (Sabrent brand) and a cable from a KODAK DC20 (Apple to PC serial). I used the Quicktake 150 software and after carefully ensuring USB to Serial drivers were installed (Prolific in my case), the QuickTake software communicated with the cameras. A few caveats, I am using Windows XP on a Dell D630 laptop and what I found worked was to connect serial first (serial to USB), then power cable (or batteries) to power up the unit. If you power the unit first, I don't believe it will communicate properly. The D630 has serial port and this is how I first connected the cameras but also tried the USB adapter afterwards and was surprised it worked! Also, the preview times are horribly slow! Takes about 30 secs per image to view and I guess "decrypt" the qtk files. Still lots of geeky fun, but I was sure hoping to get better photos. Maybe I'll source another QT100 before the prices get too out of hand. Thanks again for the fun and informative videos, this one should have TONS more views! Thanks to you I'm now on the hunt for more vintage digital cameras 😊

Love the mini history lesson…😊

I have a 150 here, retrieving the images is certainly a dedication! Thankfully, I have a few appropriate Apple products from the correct era. The software is painful to configure correctly!

Thank you so much for this video; I watched it with intrigue. Then, a few weeks later, I happened into a thrift store and there was a QuickTake 100 just waiting to be bought! The staff said none of them had any idea what it was, but I did! I bought it, put in some new batteries, and it fired right up. Your video was very helpful with considering the software compatibility. I went with a serial to usb cable on a 2007 MacBook running Windows XP, and had no issues with the driver or software installation! Can't wait to go out and take some retro digital photos.

It still takes really good pictures. It is harder to keep digital photos because computers are constantly upgrading.

I would like to do that with two cameras that i have, but I dont have the drivers of one of'em. Is another way to do it with a modern PC?

Chinon camera largely based on camcorder innards - interlaced and with mild NTSC artefacts!

I tried its successor back in the day - Kodak DC120. Was not fond, compared to Fujifilm, Yashica, Olympus and everything else that came out in that era. Didn't care about the extra resolution, didn't find that more pixels was more better. They were not good pixels.

The easiest to use are cameras of the era that use a SmartMedia card, you can just find a reader, and i wonder if Darktable is still able to connect to ones using the Fujitsu/Sierra chipset using serial port.

My father bought a QT100 for me and my brothers in 1995 when it was heavily discounted (500DM/ca. $350). We did use it until my father bought an Olympus Camedia C-2500L DLSR in the beginning of 2000. My brother used the QT100 for some time afterwards to record time-lapses directly onto his (linux) computer. He had reverse-engineered some part of the communication and was able to get raw images from the camera. I think that he had to modify something on the QT100 PCB to make that work, though. Sadly most of or digital images have since vanished and even the time-lapse videos that my brother made (of which he was extremely proud) were lost when our home-server catastrophically failed. Some good pictures were printed and some even digitally developed. These are still around although some are heavily faded, as early color-ink printers were barely capable of printing photos.
The QT100 itself died a sad death when some NiCd Batteries had been forgotten inside and leaked. Some parts of the QT100 were so heavily corroded that even traces on the PCB are no longer there. Very sad.

techno masochist here. this camera looks perfect for me

In 1997, my employer gave me his Quicktake 100 as I was leaving his ad agency for college. He'd upgraded to a more capable camera. I was beyond thrilled to receive it and use it for quite a few projects and to simply play with. Cutting edge at the time.

Thanks, another interesting and informative video. I acquired a 100 & 150 to compliment an assortment of early Macs I have which made connection easy. Apple also made a case for them that came with a protective sleeve that fitted over the camera body while allowing access to all the controls/connections and incorporated a strap that made one handed use much more secure. It's twin, the Kodak DC40 incorporated lugs for the same purpose and came with a strap, a much better idea. The DC40 also had the lens mount threaded to take 37mm accessory lens etc. Tiffen made a push fit adapter for the QuickTakes, again 37mm threaded, for the same purpose. The QuickTake came with a battery charger and three NiCad batteries which was just as well in view of it's appetite for power!

Picture quality is surprisingly good.

We had one in our graphics lab when I was in high school. We used it for capturing events for the school paper. 8 shots wasn’t really a limit, as that is about how many frames you would take on a film camera of any given event anyway, and you didn’t have to shoot and develop a whole roll of film just for that one frame you really wanted. Getting shots off the camera was certainly faster than developing, printing, and scanning film. We printed the weekly paper on an offset press so the QuickTake had enough resolution for any layout except possibly the cover shot. Digital photography was obviously the future and I was able to eventually make a career out of it.

I never knew about Apple’s bid for the DSC market. I instead opted for the (dreadfully slow) Sony Mavica. Painfully slow because the pictures were recorded on 3-1/2” floppy disks. Sure, I got more pictures in one session and it’s resolution was 640x320; but, you had to wait a dreadful minute or more between snapshots so forget, burst mode unless you stuck firecrackers in the drive bay and lit them up. It is interesting as well that Apple chose to use the same 8-pin din serial cable that they also used on the Apple Newton / Message |Pads.

Sadly, that was the Scully era at Apple where Apple started to loose its way in the consumer world. There were a lot of things that came out of Apple those years that had absolutely no traction. The 20th Anniversary Macintosh introduced in June 1997 is a classic no winner sporting the idea of the first “trash can” computer. Fun to reminisce about Apple foibles.

The 150 was my first digital camera. It was good enough for little quick pictures on early web sites

My English professor bought this camera and loved it, he treated himself with some dividends he got back on some stock, and adamantly said this would be the way of the future, he was right, but not with the quick take. And back then I didn't know of any printers that had photo-quality printing, I would have loved to see a 4x6 of this. Also the pics of the graffiti and David Bowie mural are awesome for 620x480.. Great video mate! Hopefully i would find one at a thrift store!

Great effort to get it to work again, few would have the patience!

Another great vintage review, Gordon. You forgot to credit Chinon, which was the actual manufacturer and designer of many of the QuickTake and Kodak DC cameras. Apple may have tweaked the industrial design of the camera, but the form factor and design of the camera is actually a Chinon one. As you know, in the early days of digital photography, it was quite common for big brand cameras to actually be licensed and rebranded models designed and produced by a number of manufacturers such as Chinon, Sanyo, Fujifilm, Mustek, etc. Even big name Japanese manufacturers licensed and rebranded from each other during this early time. This practice was especially common amongst traditional photography players and computer giants who often didn't have in-house expertise in consumer electronics and digital imaging. These OEM manufacturers rarely, if ever, get the recognition they do for their key role in jump starting the age of consumer digital photography. In my opinion, it is more appropriate to credit Chinon rather than Apple regarding firsts, though I like your narrative arc that ties Apple's early entry into the digital photography and the Apple iPhone's dominant position in modern day digital imaging :-) Cheers!

I am always struck by how acceptable the results are from ultra-low-resolution sensors when viewed on computer screens. This one is the lowest res I've seen reviewed, but the results are far from grim, it is the content that counts. I find there is also too much emphasis on "Noise" and as an ex film photographer I sometimes welcome a bit of grainy character like we had with 1960s Kodak Tri X. Keep up the good work

I still have mine from back in the day, but it was really the Sony Mavica, with the floppy drive, that helped me really get into digital photography. Yeah, had to carry around floppies, but could see results and quickly get shooting again once full.

Thank you for another fascinating look at a piece of digital camera history! Quick question: have you done similar videos or something like radio work prior to YouTube? Your enunciation is really good making your videos work well as podcasts too :)

Can't believe you chose lossy jpeg to export instead TIFF format - all that quality lost!

Pictures aren't so bad. I have just bought a FujiFilm @xia ix-10 with .35MP (that's point 35) or 640 x 480. I paid £8.49 including postage and I have my Windows XP or Vista dual boot PC (I blame former you for that) ready for any challenges, plus I may get to buy my gzillionth connection wire, but I do have some Smart Media cards, so maybe I will be able to use those in one of the readers I have.

I never saw/remember the Apple digital cameras but I do remember the Newton PDA's. As far as early digital cameras go, my first exposure to one (pardon the pun) was an early Sony Mavica....

haha what a beast of a camera and soooo easy to use 😂
cheers for yet another awesome video

Nice color rendition, quite surprising for such an early sensor tech

Apart from the poor resolution, those images actually look pretty decent! 😀Love your dedication, like a digital archeologist you manage to pull those images from the camera! The Quicktake looks like a projector doesn’t it? Thanks for the video, it’s really interesting and fun to hear your insight, putting the camera into the context of its time.

One of the best photo channels on YouTube. Love it

But of a stretch calling it a first as it requires so many caveats to do so, it's barely even an Apple product, more of an apple branded private labelled money spinner.

Film was faster, 1 hour turnaround was common.
Film also had MUCH higher resolution, dynamic range, better colours, more images (usually 24-32 p/roll).

Gordon – Thanks for this bit of digital camera history. Despite being an "early adopter" of a Mac in May 1984, and going on to become a Macintosh consultant starting in 1989 (and doing "serious" photography since 1975, when at age 15 year got my first SLR, a GAF,) , I never came across the QuickTake, though I knew of its existence. Looks like I didn't miss much. 😆

In my Possession is a distant Brother of the Quicktake, a Kodak DC120. Compact Flash for Memory, a (nearly unusable) LCD Screen, and the most Frustrating Battery Compartment in every Digital Camera I have ever used.
I really like Cameras from that Era, but it's often a Headache to use them. Especially with the Sensors of the Time. The Resolution is not really a Problem with me, for the Internet even VGA is often enough. But the lighting gets me every Time. You really need a big amount of light, at best bright Daylight, to get a good Quality Picture. Indoors, it's nearly impossible to get everything out of these Cameras.

Great work Gordon.
I don't think current users of digital cameras appreciate how far the technology has come in nearly 30 years. Back then I was still shooting film, although I did get access to a Casio digital camera at work in the late 1990's.
Some one should write an iPhone app that mimics the QuickTake 100 with the 'delete all' button included... but only the photos taken with the app! The quality of the 640x480 photos are surprisingly good considering!

Before my time. My first was a Minolta D’Image IV in 1999.

you know what, those photos don’t look half bad on a phone screen!

I am deeply impressed by your dedication to getting the images off the camera! I have given up on quite a few that just did my head in after a while :P

My old job in technology for a university got this camera in 1996. I still have a couple of b/w shots of me in the office.

I did use one at work back in the 90's. When you talked about the somewhat substantial shutter release button the tactile memory of pushing that button was awakened in my brain. I did like the feel of pressing the shutter. The QuickTake was really a great tool for getting images for newsletters and emails. We would rent them out by the day and a lot of people came in to do just that as they were pretty exciting tech.

This was an entertaining one! So I’m guessing once you converted to jpg, you had to save it to a floppy, then used a floppy to USB adapter to get the photos onto a modern PC?

Actually.... Its highly possible that it actually recorded short video in QuickTime format, then divide frames into images... Hence the *qtk file container...

Do Nikon D3...